So the Gov2 Taskforce has released the contract that everyone who wishes to participate in any Gov2 Taskforce projects has to sign. Fair enough, no one expected it to be carte blanch.
However what people weren't expecting was having to sign on as a Contractor to Microsoft in order to access the funds being allocated by the Government. Before I go on, I would like to point out that this is not specifically an anti-Microsoft rant. I would have the same issues regardless of which private company was imposing conditions on a Government operated project.
Rob Manson has put together a list of many of the issues that this contract has, especially with regards to the Open Australia project.
For myself the biggest issues relate to the IP and ability of Microsoft to dictate how a project is to be conducted, down the to the fact that Microsoft has the ability to both demand the signee to replace employees on the project without recourse (employees being a major issue for community projects who don't tend to have employees). Microsoft can also demand that employees of the signee must be trained as per Microsofts requirements.
With regards to the IP of any project, it doesn't seem to allow for Open Source licensing at all. Rather seeking to invest all rights to the nominated party (in this case the Federal Government). This seems to preclude the use of Open Source software, it also seems to affect third party projects that may wish to participate.
Now I am not a lawyer and I may be reading too much into this, however to my mind the agreement needs to be between the Gov2 Taskforce (and its descendants) and the signee, not Microsoft or anyone else.