[Novalug] draft email to the chairman of an electronic commerce policy committee

[Jay Sulzberger]

On Mon, 9 Nov 2009, Nino Pereira <pereira at speakeasy.net> wrote:

> List,
>
> in dealing with the US Government I regularly run into problems with
> MicroSoft only websites. In a desperate attempt to get some recognition
> of this problem I wrote the following email to a person who has
> something to do with these things.
>
> Could I have your comments? Do I say something that's not correct?
>
> Thank you,
>
> Nino
>
>
>
>
>
> I write to you in your capacity of the Electronic Work Group Chair of the
> Council that is overseeing the Grants.gov web site (and probably many more), to
> let you
> know how difficult it is to use these (and other) US Government sites if you do
> not use a version of the MicroSoft Windows operating system, and if you do not
> use its accompanying browser Internet Explorer.
>
> Many highly technical people like myself vastly prefer to work with other
> operating systems than Windows. Many use linux, including me. However, as a US
> Government/DoD contractor I am almost forced to purchase the Microsoft OS
> because many Government web sites seem to depend on certain non-standard
> features of Internet Explorer and Windows for their operation. As a result,
> people using other OSs have great difficulty doing electronic commerce with the
> US Government.
>
> If a bank uses software that does not accept all OSs (that adrere to international
> standards) I go to a different bank, if a shop doesn't let me use my preferred
> browser (Opera or Firefox) I don't shop there. But, I have only one Government:
> I can not go anywhere else. You are almost forced by the Government to purchase
> the MicroSoft Windows OS, just to participate. This is wrong: the
> Government should not favor one Company over another.
>

> Just this year Grants.gov started to accept the OS used by the
> Apple and/or the Mac. But, even though their newest versions
> are based on linux,

Ah, recent MacOSes are indeed Unices, but they do not have a
Linux kernel.  They have their own kernel, which presents as
something like BSD.  And they use various GNU and other standard
Unix applications.

Thank you for your letter!

oo--JS.


>                     Grants.gov does not yet seem to be able to
> work with linux itself. I now find myself forced to get another
> computer, either an apple or one with Windows. This is wrong.

>
> It seems to be a Government-wide problem. Worse than Grants.gov is the Wide Area
> Work Flow site (eb.wafw.mil) through which all invoices are submitted.
>
> I am most interested in your reaction.
>
> Thank you,
>
> Nino R. Pereira
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>