This is the landing page of the website of the Romanian Senate (half of the bicameral parliament)
http://www.senat.ro/
" We are sorry for the inconviences caused to some internet browsers users.
At this time we are involved in a compatibility transformation process of this website.
For WINDOWS systems you have to follow this link to view our website.
For UNIX-based systems you have to follow this link to view our website. "
Basically they recommend IE and nothing else seems to work. This has been the case for over a week now.
I can't help but wonder whether this is a simple case of incompetence or a devious scheme to put Linux in a bad light somewhere where buying solutions for e-government and other buzzword-clad frauds are being perpetrated.
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26 comments:
Crezi ca e cazul sa punem de o campanie mai puternica in "blogosfera"? Ma gindesc cit de util/potrivit ar fi o postare pe fedoraproject.ro
Save yourself the whole circus of installing internet worst browser (MSIE)
Use user-agent switcher of firefox (https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/59) and select of coarse Windows Vista M$IE-7. OK not everywhere very well rendered, but it works.
Opera renders it well also (with user agent spoofing of course), the menus span a bit outside the designated area, but they're usable. I don't see why asp poses such a big compatibility problem for the senate's it guys...
@nicu: orice sensibilizare e ok. Pana nu se vorbeste si critica destul, nu se facce nimic.
@all: user agent switching is not a desired solution. Things have to work out of the box, this is 2009.
User agent filtering in a website isn't either, standards compliance is, but that's a completely different issue. Since I'm not going to throw ies4linux on my box user agent spoofing is an immediate solution. Luckily, I don't need to use the senate's site too much.
The question is: are they doing something about compatibility or they're just keep directing people to ie/ies4linux?
strange, the romanian and the french version appears to work well ;)
I sooo misread this as "Romulan senate".
- Chris
Ouch... I tried identity spoofing on Konqueror... and the website crashed Konqueror! They probably need to hire new devs...
http://www.cdep.ro/
Weird this works just fine.
I think it's just a case of pure incompetence
We should write a letter or something to some EU commission. I've read that France try to convince EU countries to switch to Linux from Microsoft. Maybe EU will put some pressure over Romanian Senate to hurry up the process.
It's not a scheme against Linux, note that the author of the webpage points to the only website that distributes Internet Explorer for Linux.
The fastest way to fix this would be to contact the site administrator.
@Alex, the devs may point to IE4linux but that still makes this practically unusable. Linux users, especially newbies are not installing that ie4l just for this page.
If this is the result of bureaucratic teamwork they can even plead http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plausible_deniability
We have seen way too many SNAFUs where noone was actually to blame but that were not exactly unintentional either.
@Alexandru: I don't think contacting the administrator would help, he is fully aware, so the warning page is shown. Some effect would be obtained probably contacting the administrator's boss, some politician who doesn't get public exposure (the large percentage of Romanian Firefox users) due to a defective website.
This is so disappointing. I spent a good part of my talk at eLiberatica 2007 talking about how the Romanian government is leasing the country's information infrastructure to Microsoft.
You'd think that being dominated by the Roman Empire, the Byzantines, the Turks, and the Habsburgs would engender a strong sense of independence and a deep distrust of relying on foreign powers.
I guess history isn't something the Romanian Senate cares much about.
Great post. Keep us informed as things progress, please.
by the opposite Kurt, after so much servitude probably we got used to be slaves.
Nicu,
Maybe the older generations feel that way. But I have faith in the newer generations. I could almost taste this philosophical gap as soon as I arrived at Otopeni.
Prove me right. :)
Of course everyone here including the author of this post wrote to the site's admins and inquired before jumping to conclusions.
It's not like "At this time we are involved in a compatibility transformation process of this website." hints at what's happening! That would be too weird :)
What happened to being helpful ? Offer your help as a tester, relay results of what version/browsers don't work as it is ?
@Fab, as I said that text is not a temporary page, it has been there for a while. The senate is not exactly a poor NGO whose site is being operated on a volunteer basis by student in a basement; it is not excusabe for them not to make a cross platform site and to try out whatever their fancy new code is on a staging server.
From experience, the best way to get something moving is to expose it's defects. If a request is made it is ignored _unless_ it is backed by a link to some PR - damaging content.
@Fab, I forgot: offer myself as a tester? As far as I am concerned state institutions are more like companies not NGOs. They should have a team of testers and responsible deployment plans. I'd rather spend my free time on volunteer projects not state-run black holes.
After spoofing a user agent, I just called the bureau of the senate.
They literally told me it was "a problem with Mozilla Firefox" being used to break into their system. It is not safe for us to allow Mozilla Firefox. That is the description we received from our IT department."
Sending them an email right now. They promised me to email me this exact answer if I sent them a formal question by email.
@markvdb: what email address did they give you ?
Probably the entire problem has started from here: http://www.zoso.ro/2008/06/am-ajuns-senator.html
I remember that after zoso posted that post, senat.ro fixed the problem in this way. Maybe they marked the bug as fixed and forget about it.
Renders OK with javascript disabled, but the menu is inactive.
Quick look at the page source:
meta name="GENERATOR" Content="Microsoft Visual Studio .NET 7.1"
Some "smart developers/smart managers" are using my money the wrong way (again).
Come on, VS.NET for a website?
I wonder if they have all the licences involved...
http://zisinoapte.blogspot.com/2009/01/no-access-until-you-pay-microsoft.html
This is a reply I got from
webmaster@senat.ro:
"
In maxim 2 luni problema va fi rezolvata prin aparitia unui nou site al Senatului
"
http://www.gdd.ro/stiri/318-discriminare-it-la-senatul-romaniei-pe-banii-nostri.html
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