[PLUG] M$ Only Government Sites, was Accessing Old Microsoft Files With OO.o-2.1

[John Jason Jordan]

On Tue, 19 Feb 2008 10:54:02 -0800
"Richard C. Steffens" <rsteff at comcast.net> dijo:

> This year is the year the local multiple listing service, RMLS, is
> supposed to come out with a site that can be accessed with browsers
> other than IE. I was hoping to be able to migrate my real estate work to
> a Linux machine, but it looks like I'll still have to keep IE around to
> be able to access Multnomah County's GIS information site, SAIL. If you
> visit http://www.co.multnomah.or.us/dbcs/it/maps/ and look over on the
> right hand side, and down towards the bottom of the page, you'll find
> "Sail--Interactive and GIS Search", this link:
> 
> http://gis.co.multnomah.or.us/sail
> 
> Visiting it with Firefox or Konqueror returns this message:
> 
> SAIL requires Microsoft Internet Explorer (IE) 4.x and above

Smells like restraint of trade. Governments are not immune from the
Sherman and Clayton Acts. Oregon has similar laws which are sometimes
more restrictive. A word to the county attorney would probably be
ignored, but is worth thinking about, especially if it comes from your
corporate counsel.

I'm not an expert on anti-trust laws, but Google might turn up
something with IE +antitrust.