Computacenter gags Bristol City Council over anti-open source ‘bias’

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Computacenter has prevented Bristol City Council from publishing details of a consulting project that has been overshadowed by allegations of anti-open source bias.

Bristol refused to release advice received from Computacenter concerning the choice of infrastructure to support the council’s 7,000 PCs and the allocation of more than £8m of public money.

Computer Weekly requested details about the pilot project under the Freedom of Information (FOI) Act after MPs investigating the relationship between government and IT suppliers were told by a key expert witness that Computacenter had skewed its parameters to favour Microsoft, thereby undermining Bristol’s seven-year campaign to replace proprietary computing platforms with open source software.

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