The Swiss Parliament on Wednesday rejected a motion calling on the government to create vendor independent e-government services, Swiss newspapers report. With 14 votes against and 12 vote in favour, the Swiss Council of States (Ständerat) threw out a motion, submitted in 2011, requesting the government to create 'Non-discriminatory eGovernment solutions for Swiss farmers'.

The motion specifically asked the government to make the application that is to be used by farmers to report on transport of their animals also available for the Linux operating system. The application, called Agate, is currently only available for users of proprietary PC operating systems.

The motion also called on the Swiss Federal Council to make sure that all of its future e-government services are fully functional, regardless of which operating system or web browser is used.

According to Inside IT, a Swiss IT trade publication, the Council agrees with the principle, as long as it is not too costly.

Inside IT last Friday pointed to an article published earlier that day by the Neu Zürcher Zeitung, writing that there are few politicians that take an interest in this topic. NZZ writes that less than 30 of the 46 representatives of the Council of States were present for the vote: "The lack of interest is not least related to the fact that hardly any politician sitting in parliament has in-depth knowledge on the matter."

The motion was rejected without discussion, NZZ writes, adding that it doubts that all members of the Ständerat were aware of the scope of the motion.

The resolution had been accepted last year by the Swiss Nationalrat (Lower House). It was submitted by Nationalrat member for the Canton of Thurgau and Co-President of the Parliamentary Group for Digital Sustainability, Edith Graf-Litscher.

More information:
Inside IT news item (in German)
Neu Zürcher Zeitung news item (in German)
Motion: Non-discriminatory eGovernment solutions for Swiss farmers (in German)

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