Quebec Government Being Sued By Open-Source Association

The CBC is reporting that the government of Quebec is being sued by the province's open-source software association - Facil. The association says the government of Quebec refuses to entertain competing bids from software providers, choosing instead to purchase products from proprietary vendors such as Microsoft and Oracle. The CBC says "Government buyers are using an exception in provincial law that allows them to buy directly from a proprietary vendor when there are no options available, but Facil said that loophole is being abused and goes against other legal requirements to buy locally." Facil president Mathieu Lutfy told the CBC that "It goes against the public markets policy of the government, which requires them to stimulate competition and look for local alternatives. It's really an absurdity." Facil estimates that the government is spending over $80 million a year on licences for Windows Vista alone!

Quebec Court Orders Closure Of Downloading Site

The Quebec Superior Court has ordered the closure of downloading site Quebec Torrent granting a permanent injunction against the site and it's administrators. "We hope this judgment will have a dissuasive effect, because nothing prevents us now to target other sites that engage in the same kind of illegal transactions," said Slange Drouin the director-general of The Association québécoise de l'industrie du disque, du spectacle et de la vidéo (ADISQ), a provincial music, video and concert organization. ADISQ also sought $200,000 in damages but have indicated that they would not pursue the damages as Quebec Torrent has said they would not fight the injunction. The site specialized in Quebec content and claimed to have tens of thousands of members. Look out file sharing sites in Quebec! CBC story here.

Bell Recovers Stolen Data After Four Weeks

Montreal police searched 2 locations and arrested one individual in a case involving the theft of data on 3.4 million customers from Quebec and Ontario. The data is said not to have contained any financial information but did include names, addresses, phone numbers and the Bell services subscribed to. There were about 170,000 customers with unlisted and unpublished phone numbers amongst the data stolen and Bell is offering to change the numbers of anyone who requests it. Bell spokesman Mark Langton told CBCNews.ca that "There's no indication that this data has been used improperly," The arrested apparently was not an employee of Bell so the question remains, how was the data acquired? Once again I'm glad that I'm not a customer of the Bell family of companies...

Want Fast Internet Connection - Move to Quebec.

Quebec now boasts the fastest commercial Internet speeds in North America thanks to a service available to 112,000 households in Laval, just north of Montreal. Service provider Videotron intends to extend the service to Montreal and Quebec City later this year. It provides two tiers of service, a $64.95/month 30-mpbs plan and another at $75.95/month and 50-mbps. According to this CBC article, "Verizon Communications Inc., one of the largest U.S. internet service providers, also offers some customers speeds of up to 50 mbps over its fibre-optic network, but at $139.95 U.S. a month, it's nearly double the cost of Videotron's top service." The system built by Cisco Systems Inc. is said to be capable of 100-mbps speeds but Videotron decided to cap it at 50 because most servers are not able to pump out the information at that speed. "The network was too fast for the internet," says Isabelle Dessureault, general manager of communications for Videotron.