I know this has nothing to do with what your talking about, but i want to say that the quebec government is so dumb and greedy that people who even want to go on vacation are taxes 2 times ,because the governemt does not even want to make people leave , listen up quebec get with the program or be embarresed.

Not for buying Microsoft, but for not evaluating alternatives. One guy at my company who makes purchasing decisions doesn't trust it if he doesn't pay for it, so he doesn't even look at it. The loophole that allows the Quebec government to do the same thing MUST be closed. The government may well end up going with proprietary software, but first they must be forced to look at alternatives and to provide rock-solid reasons for their final choice, especially if they choose to pay for it when good, free alternatives are available.

Hello,
First of all - FACIL means ease in Portuguese. But, for sure, they will not face the things easily. M$ costs $$$$$ and sale the myth of they do the better and the right software. The M$ people will hurry run to convince the Government about it.

But, it's not so complicated to understand the math involved on those issues.

Let's get just the PC OS(Windows)+Office pack, for us do a little calculus:

Each M$Office costs about U$300 + Win another U$200 - total U$500 per Computer.

Quebec may have about 5000 PC computers(just a guess)

If my numbers are not so wrong, let's calculate ---

5000(computers) X 500(Win+Off) = U$2,500,000.00

Ok, we have at least Open Office + Linux(a large variety of flavors) able to do the same - FOR FREE !!!!

Other approach... If Quebec have, at least, 5000 computers in a network. The need to use Servers and servers must run Win server OS...
Each Server OS costs about U$700, licenses for each 5 users.

So, Quebec must to buy about 1000 licenses and cost will be - 1,000 X U$700 = 700,000.00 Ok, a discount and U$ 500,000.00 seems as a good value - Once again Free and costless options are available.

So, for the Quebec use 5000 PC's they must to pay about U$3,000,000.00

Just to turn the machines On, write, letters, send/receive e-mails, etc.

Since we have cheaper and/or costless alternatives, to do it, in my point of view, FACIL are absolutely right to ask for the gov to use these money in a better way, in education, health, security, etc.

Regards,

...that I'm speaking for all people interested in FOSS and politics when I say: This should happen more often. Scrutiny on a public entity and its spending of tax money should be very emphasized.