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Advocating Open Source Within the Gov't
There's an interesting piece running on Newsforge concerning advocacy of Open Source within the (US) Federal Government. The Feds, as we've talked about here before, are caught in an interesting cross fire - and based on personal experience, I can tell you that they are looking at it. Carpe Diem, folks.
one stumbling block is that government agencies (like the one i work for) shy away from products that have no old-school support structure.
One of my biggest concerns regarding the adoption of Linux by the public sector is the availability of human resources. Having worked for several non-profits I can say that it is a lot harder for public institutions (and especially government) to hire the right people because there are always political problems. For example, how many Linux professionals come from areas outside the United States? If the government can only hire US citizens, then it will have to cut out a significant portion of its applicant pool. A pool that even on a world-wide level is not that big. As a result, it will have to step up and compete for a resource like a "Linux Systems Administrator" in the US labor market. Given the short supply of these types of people in the US, the price of labor (i.e. the salaries expected from these people) will be too high for a public institution to compete against a private one. Consequently, the public institutions will have to hire folks with lower salary expectations (probably as a result of a lack of experience). Therefore, public institutions will likely have more problems with their systems and blame it all on Linux.
This is just one scenario that I have seen played out in the government (or government sponsored) institutions that I've worked at.
w o r l d w i d e w e b e r
as a dedicated n. virginia crapflooder and government IT slob, I can tell you that a lot of people in the gov't are giving open sores a look. New projects and things are constantly getting piled on but no money to do them - no one has money to pay the ms licenses everytime you need a new server.
the problems are that some of the people here whore themselves out to the many vendors and the vendors want everyone to buy their proprietary crap so that no one else can come in when they start slacking off on support.
I pimp open sores solutions when and where I can - a lot of the ground level tech guys use it whenever they can. As money for non homeland defense dollars get squeezed and MS keeps increasing their licensing war, more government IT people will start moving to open sores.
I've said this before, but here goes again...
The Linux we all know and love, the notion of free [beer/speech] Linux won't make it by itself, that's because the Political system responds to money and power. Linux won't cut it there... But pair Linux to some big biz with big bucks. and it might happen....
The political system only responds to those who have money. Think of it this way. You're a senator or congressman or pres/vp or state elected official. You need money to stay in your job - a job you really wanted, else you wouldn't have gone through the hassle to get in the first place. Now, to get money, you have to be a "good" investment. (An aside - these rules are more true for higher $ political races, and apply less and less as the job gets "smaller")
Now, Corp A or Very Rich Man B want to give you money - why? - because they want an investment vehicle. These "investors" will continue to invest only as long as you make a return for them. If they find someone who offers better returns, they'll invest elsewhere.
So, you only have so much time or influence. If you value your job, you'll maximize your return (campaign contributions) by maximizing the return on your biggest job security people (the people who donate the most money).
So in base, if you're not able to play with the big boys (big contributors) your chance of making a difference is very small. I would suggest that that only way you will, is if you are unopposed by a moneyied (sp) interest. If you are on the opposing side of an issue against a interest with money, and you don't have money, or nearly as much, just kiss it goodbye.
So, we have to pair Linux to IBM or others who will play the money political game, we can win. But that will probably end up changing Linux to some degree too.
It's sort of like a pact with the devil. I say go for it, and try to keep Linux true to its' ideals.
Cheers!
The skepticism with which some of the early posts view this possibility is disheartening. Some may forget that the U.S. Government spent a fortune in the 1980s buying computer equipment from Wang in a desperate and untimately unsuccessful attempt to prop up that failing company. When Wang (inevitably) imploded in bankruptcy, Uncle Sam was left holding the bag with a lot of equipment and no support. The point? It didn't make much sense to buy Wang, and "credible" reports may argue against adopting Linux, but if powerful agents on The Hill are backing a project, deals go through in spite of conventional wisdom. To the extent that Weathersby's Machiavellian approach to Hill politics fosters the adoption of open source, his efforts are to be commended - and supported - such that for once, the log may roll in favor of diffuse interests. Winter
It may be cold, but at least it's clear.
Steps like this are key to solving the Linux Equation. Clearly Linux is superior in every way to Windows (especially for the government) but without a critical mass it will never take over. Hopefully efforts like this (and the one in Germany) will push it past the critical mass stage and Linux will become The OS and not just another OS.
"I agree with you. The best and the brightest would demand the most money for their time (that's part of being considered "the brightest.")"
Spoken like a true RandDroid.
Your statement only makes sense if you assume that everyone worships money...it's simply not true. Some people go into government because, for one reason or another, they are fascinated with doing something that services or affects the public at large. By your logic, no one should be interested in entrepreneurialship (sp?) or working for small businesses either, because they can get earn more as a cog in a giant, unthinking machine.
Bill Clinton: Pimp we can believe in. - The Shirt!!!
I'm all for the government using open source, funding it's development, and all the other things that are mentioned in the article, but I think it should go farther than that.
The government should start buying things that have already been produced and put them in the public domain. And in the more egregious cases, it could use its power of eminent domain to buy the source whether the company wants to sell it or not.
-- where's that "-1 didn't read article" moderator choice when you need it?
That's about the worst thing that could happen. Who gets this public money? Anybody that throws his hat in the ring, including my neighbor Jim-Bob who's just doing it for the cash? How do you decide who qualifies, and how it's apportioned? If it's based on previous elections, you've just decided to keep incumbent parties in office forever, which is precisely the current problem. What about third parties? What about people (like me) who object to subsidizing views I don't agree with? Or apolitical types who don't want to fund politicians at all? Why should you steal from (tax) them for politicians' gain? Thomas Jefferson said, "To compel a man to furnish funds for the propagation of ideas he disbelieves and abhors is sinful and tyrannical." Some of us still believe that. If I want to support X's campaign, I will...but I don't expect you to, nor would I force you to. If you want to support his opponent Y, you can go ahead, but don't expect or force me to help you.
(The Constitution and Libertarian parties refuse to accept any government money they qualify for on this principle. Rare to find a candidate that is willing to stand on principles these days.)
What we need is not campaign finance reform but electoral process reform. I should be able to give unlimited support to support the views I agree with. There should be no caps, no spending limits. However, current electoral process favors the incumbent Duopoly and discourages third parties. Why are they called "third" parties? Because plurality voting exposes a false sense of a two-party system! Ever heard of the "wasted vote" problem, or voting for "the lesser of two evils"? We should not have to choose between two evils! Condorcet voting gives every contender a fair chance, because voters' freedom of conscience is preserved.
Changing to the Condorcet method would be the single best thing that could happen to American politics. I don't see reforms like this happening any time soon. The entrenched parties have too much to lose, so they're not likely to make it easier to defeat them. But something must be done.
Constitutionally Correct
Well, you've never worked an IT job in the gov't then. I've worked as a contractor at several gov't sites, and all of them had top notch IT guys. True, there were a lot of morons, but I didn't feel the percentages were any different from the private sector jobs I've worked. And once you got past the entry level positions, almost all the IT people at the gov't sites I've worked were knowledgeable. Now the management over the IT folks has been abysmal at every gov't site I've worked, but most of the IT people have been smart enough to know that and just work on getting the job done without getting the bosses in trouble. That way, the boss leaves the IT people alone, and the IT people get to surf pr0n all day after the job is done.
And I must say, some of the coolest work I've gotten to do has been done at gov't sites (IDS and vulnerability testing stuff comes to mind).
RagManX
Due to some unusual circumstances, I had an oppertunity to speak before a multi-agency federal conference, held at the National Science Foundation last month. It was an interesting group as it included some fairly senior level people from several agencies.
This conference was not announced for until the Friday before, and yet was fairly well attended, for reasons that became appearent fairly appearent even by the OPEN remarks made by the by some.
To understand the context of those remarks, one must understand I have had some experiance in federal contracting in the past. Occasionally federal employees would complain about certain vendors entirely in private, and certainly some vendors achieved some level of dislike and disgust in the past, particularly telecomm vendors.
However, never before had I been in a room with federal employees showing such open and complete contempt for a given vendor. The reason became clear when one of them spoke openly of how reps of this particular vendor had targetted her and the process and methods used to harrass her and other federal employees who would consider to openly choose other products. That this would happen in front of outsiders and also in front of some senior policy people, was a complete shock to me.
To have one such person in any completely random meeting of federal employees that this might happen to would be surprising. To have this same circumstances explained to me by others, some later in private, and some in other venues since that I had known in the past because I became curious and called some people I used to know, is statistically mind boggling.
The vendor in question would use a very simple method of intimidation to those that it's reps identified. The next time they would speak to a given person they would make it clear they are watching them and are reporting any inappropriate activity to their superior, the threat implied and clear. They would state specific complaints, whether valid or not, and then that employee would find his/her manager asking about these same things a few weeks later.
Never in all my years dealing with federal employees had I ever before, personally, or even second hand, heard of ANY vendor doing anything like this, let alone on the scale and scope required for people from random agencies to have much the same story to tell. To say I was and still am very angry is an understatement.
Out of this it was clear also a grave miscalculation has occured. It became clear that for every person so harrassed, perhaps 10 others would become aware it happened, and all 11 would become rightly angry. There is a groundswell of support for free software in the fed, and really for ANY other software, and this vendor has created it!
Other things came out of this conference that were also interesting. Certainly there are some who "get" free software, who understands what it means and could do for them, who would prefer it. Certainly it was also true that there were others who would do anything to never have to purchase, install, or deploy any product ever made by such a vendor ever again. I would love to talk more about each these things, and particularly about those who understood free software.
The reaction of the more senior level agency people was most ammusing of all. For years these people had "friends" who would try to help them with their it needs. These vendor "friends" were of course paid to be such a "friend" to a key agency person, what some might call a "buddy" in the parlance of that particular vendor. For years, they would tell these people free software was not usable, would describe editing and word processing as or in terms of emacs and vi, etc.
To show these people gnome, kde, abiWord, open office, etc, this was very much an eye opening experiance for many of these senior agency people.
Clearly those that would be the enemies of free (and open source) software depend on ignore and terror to sell their products. Clearly we must respond with education, enlightenment, and make it clear they alone are the terrorists.
David
I can't imagine the 'best and brightest' out there would really be interested in working on some of the most boring code available... and at ridiculously low wages compared to what they could be earning in the IT industry.
:) and I have the freedom to experiment. I could certainly "cut it" in the private sector (in fact, I have and I still get offers) but why on earth would anyone who considers themselves the "best and brightest" want to put up with that nightmare of a job market? I read Dilbert because it is funny, not because it is the life I want to lead :)
Let me set up a situation for you. I am 23. While most of my friends went to work in private industry for high wages, I chose to work for a boring university for much less pay. Working on mainframe systems no less!
Fast forward to today. Nearly all of my friends are out of work. Dot coms gone, stock options tanked, private sector hurting. I'm still working (just promoted in fact), and enjoying what I do. I don't have to worry about the changing tides of the economy (so much), I don't have to worry if what I'm doing is contributing to stock holder value, I don't even have to put up with a restrictive work environment as far as technology choices go. I get to take classes for a fourth of the price, I have great benefits, and I spend my time working with cool technology (linux on s/390 is cool to me, ok
Finkployd
>And of course, you know that's doesn't really happen, right ?
>
>Companies like HP or Sun don't jump because a customer says so. Much less in 4 hours.
Nonsense. You can get under-4-hour support for most any IBM product, you just have to pay a lot for that support.
For example, one of our mainframe controllers blew both power supplies. IBM flew a lear jet from Atlanta to Mississippi and had the part installed within 2 hours of us placing the service call.
Steven V>
I patented screwing your mom. But it got revoked for "prior art."
I think the Feds may be our best hope. Call me chicken little, but tell me, what do you get when you combine: (1) a digital rights management OS, (2) encrypted network communications, (3) proprietary code. If you can, throw in SSSCA for good measure.
This is what you get: you have no idea what you get. What's going over that wire? Who knows? What's your OS doing in its secret private places. Giving you a wank job, for all you know.
Any government that would agree to run, or should I say "be run", by such systems would have to be nuts. Now maybe the US could pressure MS into allowing government auditors code access. Maybe they could get a backdoor, too. But I doubt that priviledge would extend to governments around the world.
I've heard said (I don't know this for sure) that the reason PC boxes are beige, is that some federal gov't standard mandated that color. The governent being the hugest customer around, the cost effective thing to do was to manufacture to their standards. Whether this is a true story or not, the fact remains that no organization has clout like the US federal government. It looks to me that unless the Feds want MS to give them a poke in the eye, that they might seriously like to consider alternatives.
--Lawrence Lessig for Congress!
what you said is 100% accurate. The current mindset in the US is of laziness IMHO. A rep doesnt have to worry about being voted out right now, so he/she can listen to the corps and do their bidding. If they knew that the public would not re-elect them, it would be the opposite. Campaigns contribs do not matter if the public doesnt want that person anymore. Im talking about public as the people who are not involved, besides the occasional voting. If I'm a rep, and i do what xyz company wants, but i am still re-elected, I will keep doing what the xyz company wants. It would take a considerable stand to stop this from happening. Not even a huge amount of people, just a commited group. (still needs a fair number of people). Look at the anti-abortion, hardcore family value people. They make up a small percentage of voters. They have the appearance of a large percentage, the loudest voice wins.