Such simple changes in U.S. government procurement policies would have a ripple effect across the worldwide software marketplace, creating an instant market for Linux, Apple and even BeOS, Love tells NewsForge. The U.S. government alone would have the purchasing power to force such changes in the entire software market, he adds.
"Our position is the government can do everything it needs to do, and everything it wants to do, just by making conditions on government purchases," says Love, director of the Consumer Project on Technology. "The government is spending millions of dollars to knock down the Microsoft monopoly in antitrust litigation and billions of dollars to support the Microsoft monopoly in procurement."
Nader and Love met with federal Office of Management and Budget officials in early April to talk about procurement policies and about putting government contracts online. They sent a follow-up letter to OMB director Mitchell E. Daniels Jr. today. In the letter, Love and Nader suggest several courses of action that would create more competition among software vendors for U.S. government contracts.
The OMB could set a limit on the percentage of machines run by one operating system, creating a "non-trivial" market for Linux and other operating systems, Love says. He and Nader also throw out the idea of using a carrot or stick to encourage Microsoft software's compatibility with other operating systems. For example, if Microsoft Office runs on four operating systems, Office could be used on 70% of the government's desktops, but if Office only ran on two OSes, it'd be capped at 50% of government desktops.
"You could essentially use market forces and economic incentives to get what you wanted," Love says. "I'm just saying this is an alternative to spending your life before judges."
Such procurement policies already have a history in U.S. government, says Love, who's the cousin of Caldera CEO Ransom Love. The government used similar policies to keep IBM from dominating the government market back when IBM was the only major mainframe player.
The Nader/Love letter raises questions about federal software spending:
How much money does the government spend on Microsoft products and is the company's government marketshare increasing or decreasing?
Would it be cheaper for the federal government to purchase the source code to an office suite and give away that office suite than to continue to pay for Microsoft licenses every year? "I think you could buy Corel for $100 million," Love says. "How much do they spend every year in licensing Microsoft Office?"
Does a "monoculture" of software in the federal government, at least on desktops, make the government more vulnerable to viruses or other security problems?
Love says OMB's Daniels and Angela Styles, administrator of the federal procurement policy, have been receptive to talking with him and Nader. Daniels, he says, is also interested in their proposal to put government contracts online.
"We know, from Angela, that there's a lot of pressure by the software vendors to have the government act with a take-it-or-leave-it attitude, like it's walking into Best Buy when it comes to offering to buy software," Love says. "The position of the software vendors is to have the government be a completely passive consumer, so the government just acts like any small business does in terms of the products and prices, which we think is not a good deal for the taxpayers."
Styles didn't immediately return an email seeking comment on the Nader/Love ideas.
Love hopes the April meeting and today's letter will be part of a continuing dialog about federal procurement and how it now favors the Microsoft monopoly. He says the ideas in the letter could be just the start of a discussion. "We've identified different suggestions of things they could do, but obviously, there's a little room for creativity here."
Love and Nader have also bounced their ideas off members of the American Bar Association interested in antitrust. One lawyer wrote back and said he would be opposed to the U.S. government using its monopolistic power to fight Microsoft's monopolistic power and that government software purchasing should be based on the best tool for the job at the best price.
Love encourages people supportive of the letter's ideas to contact Styles or other OMB officials. Contact information for OMB officials is at this PDF document.
