“Sensible & pragmatic”: MS on open source policy
The company that many consider to be the poster child for proprietary software has publicly welcomed a significant new Federal Government policy which will require departments and agencies to evaluate open source software wherever possible, describing it as "sensible and pragmatic".
Withdrawing from its 2005 declared position of “informed neutrality” on open source, in late January the Federal Government announced government agencies would have to consider open source software equally alongside proprietary software when buying products worth more than $80,000. The change of policy came days after a decision of the Australian Government Information Management Office to standardise Microsoft’s Office Open XML — a rival format to the ODF standard being promoted by sections of the open source community.
In a statement published on Microsoft Australia’s GovTech blog late yesterday, the company’s local director of corporate affairs Simon Edwards said the company “welcomed” the new policy. ” … the policy’s requirement to consider open source software in all software procurements seems both sensible and pragmatic,” he wrote.
