[Ecommerce] Story in Techdaily: J. Zuck and J. Love on European 'Open Source' Buys

[Manon Anne Ress]

http://nationaljournal.com/
Technology Daily
July 28, 2003. PM Edition

U.S. Experts Debate European 'Open Source' Buys
by William New

Efforts at various levels of European government to encourage 
procurement of "open source" software are stirring debate in Washington, 
as the head of a leading trade association charged that the practice may 
violate World Trade Organization rules.
"There's a very good chance that the procurement preferences are a 
violation of the WTO," Jonathan Zuck, president of the Association for 
Competitive Technology, said in a recent interview. "Because they are 
coming up with an arbitrary way to exclude a product that predominantly 
comes from another country."

SNIP

Zuck, whose association counts Microsoft and other U.S. software makers 
as members, said European officials may mistakenly believe that making 
conditions harder for foreign software companies, an industry in which 
the United States leads, could help strengthen European firms or at 
least keep jobs in Europe.
"It's understandable" governments would think that way, Zuck said. "It's 
just generally not good economic sense."
Zuck said there is increasing support for open-source software, which 
some see as targeting U.S. software makers. He cited a report that 
Munich, Germany, mandated the use of open source despite costing more 
than the competing Microsoft products, and not accounting for the 
millions of dollars in training costs on the new software. But Zuck said 
treating foreign companies less well than domestic firms violates WTO 
rules.

SNIP

James Love, president of the Consumer Project on Technology, countered 
Zuck's view. The procurement of open-source software "is not 
anti-Microsoft or anti-U.S," he said. "It's more positive than that."
Love said the key is whether the purchase is examined in the short or 
long term. If buyers look at software as two- or three-year purchases, 
then they can get locked into higher prices in the long term, he said.
"It's not rational for governments to act as if the relevant time period 
is a two-, three-, four-year commitment," Love said. "They get these 
systems and get locked in."
"Microsoft has demonstrated time and time again that to the degree they 
can get lock-in, you will pay the price later because the minute they 
don't face any competition, they're going to jack up prices," he charged.
Love made a distinction between client applications and servers, saying 
that with servers, open-source competitors are strong enough to make it 
"completely irrational" for anyone to choose the Microsoft product NT.
He acknowledged that open-source applications including those made by 
Linux have not been as strong as Microsoft's. But he said governments 
could make better use of their procurement power to encourage 
competition as the costs of Microsoft's applications have increased.
The World Intellectual Property Organization has agreed to hold a 
meeting on the issue next year, Love said.



-- 
Manon Anne Ress
Consumer Project on Technology
www.cptech.org
PO Box 19367, Washington, DC 20036
manon.ress@cptech.org, voice: 1.202.387.8030, fax: 1.202.234.5176