Petronius Arbiter writes:
The US federal government is requiring that proposals for grants etc be submitted using a common system at http://grants.gov/ . That's would be a good idea, except that, effectively, you must use Windows and Explorer. See http://www.grants.gov/resources/download_software. jsp :
To operate PureEdge Viewer, your computer must meet the following system requirements: Windows 98, ME, NT 4.0, 2000, XP... PureEdge on Grants.gov will not run within the Firefox browser.
They do have a Citrix substitute for non-Windows users. However:
Note that a limited amount of users can access the Citrix Server at any one time... Finally, you will find the best time to work and submit an application via Citrix is during off-peak hours, usually between 10 p.m. and 10 a.m., EST.
Finally, if your organization has more than 10 non-Windows users, they want you to add a dedicated Windows box to handle the traffic.
Why is it legal for the federal government to require applicants to use an expensive, proprietary system with terrible security? This is particularly surprising because many technical people, from program officers to computer administrators, in the government personally like open source and detest MS.
As a crazy guess, over 100,000 different people each year submit proposals. That's 100,000 people who must have MS Windows licenses whether they want to or not.
Anyone who was concerned about the open format fight in Massachusetts last year should be concerned about grants.gov.
Finally, for National Science Foundation clients, this is a big step backwards. NSF has had an excellent online system, http://fastlane.nsf.gov/ for years. Fastlane has no bias towards MS. However, by federal edict, NSF people must also use grants.gov.
