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USDOI Goes 100% Microsoft
SatanIsHere writes: "A memo (here, here, here, and here) dated September 19th, 2002 from the Department of the Interior's Acting CIO notes the new policy of a "Department-wide standard for computer operating systems (desktop and server)" Of course the good news is that this will herald a new era in government transparancy for the Department of the Interior.
SatanIsHere Continues: "On September 13, 2002, the Assistant Secretary for Policy, Management and Budget signed the attached Findings and Determination establishing Microsoft Corporation's enterprise desktop and server software as the Department-wide standard for computer operating systems (desktop and server), office automation, and asset management software.... Benefits of establishing this new Department-wide standard include:
- Lower Total Cost of Ownership for the desktop, including lower user training costs.
- Centralized and efficient security policy administration
- Greater flexibility and management functionality from products that offer a broader range of management solutions that integrate with non-Microsoft environments
- Greater productivity and reliability attributed to less downtime.
- Extended support for a large base of software applications.
Business specific application software requirements (such as Sun/Solaris, IBM, AIX, etc.) outside the established Microsoft standard may be addressed through the OCIO waiver process."
This looks to freeze out an entire Federal Department (70,000+ employees) from non-Microsoft solutions, requiring a "waiver" to use anything non-MS. One more step to complete Microsoft World Domination. This is particularly ironic considering the problems DOI has had recently regarding IT security. If this isn't leveraging a desktop monopoly into other areas I don't know what is. :-P"
Software is cheap, a few hundred bucks, much less then paying the employee for a few days.
I use linux at home, but at work I gladly use windows & MS Office, it is the best solution, or at least a decent one for many situations.
Hopefully the waiver process isn't so difficult that people can still select the best tool for the job.
I think the two things that stick out are:
1. This applies not just to desktop but to ALL servers as well. and...
2. In order to use non-MicroSoft stuff, you need a waiver (which, based on the way government works, I'm sure is easy to get.)
Sorry to state the obvious, but this seems rather closed-minded on the DOI's part. Especially when you consider MicroSoft's track record for security.
Did you even read any of the above? Or did you just go into 'Troll' mode?
The opposite of progress is congress
I'd complain just as bitterly if some naive bureaucrat declared "nothing but open source is allowed to be considered". So what's your point?
What the head article fails to mention is that a Federal judge ordered the Department of the Interior to shut down all internet connections last year. With no from-the-outside network attacks, the Microsoft systems might stay up for days, even.
The problem with a bid process is that, for the government, this means ONLY commerical entities. Getting Open Source into this process would be very difficult.
From my experience with the bidding process there was probably a requirement in the RFP that any software be able to 100% read MS word/excel documents. Again, very difficult to prove.
The Government RFP process makes it very difficult to factor in TCO for a purchase. They generally can only look at the lowest initial cost (that meets the requirements).
And this time they didnt boil the frog, the put it in hot water first!
On the other hand, all is there is something by satanishere, geocities is trashed. So no proof. Is this story true? And Mr.Editors you know too well not to post links to geocities.. dont you. Better aproach would have been to download the images and then put them on slashdot.Nobody here knows what that memo contains, what is there in it, so before this post goes to the HALL OF FAME maybe we can see the images please.
Another thing, apparently DOI has 70000 employees, are any of them on slashdot.. I really want to hear what they say about it. Or if none of them are there onMy Aurora : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o91ZsGwJYyg
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I hear ya brother! Amen.
;)
At work, we have a win2k server which shares our internet connection, provides a domain controller for the windows boxen, and basically serves files all day. Big deal...
Problem. DNS entries and isp continues to be flaky. Solution? reboot the win2k server..
How is that a diagnostic solution? It isn't... Which is why I am steering people to the linux world, and other alternatives.
Microsoft has been a joke in security, configuration and ease of use for YEARS. I think the masses are finally starting to sense something wrong with the herd, and moving on to a better pasture.
Hopefully.
Your comment is totally on the money, even though you ARE an AC, but I'll let that slide.
user@host$ diff
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As a taxpayer, I don't like the idea of my tax dollars being used to get locked into some monopoly; and I'm not talking about MS' business monopoly here. For example: all the documents created in Office2K or whatever will not readable (faithfully) by any other software, including OpenOffice.
If USDOI wants to go with MS exclusively, then they should have a plan in place to be able to use replacement software in an emergency situation. In other words, make MS release the specs for the documents created using MSOffice before finalising this deal.
I urge all the readers to contact your local congressperson and state Senator about this. Here's a list of the senators in the Interior subcommittee (the department comes under Appropriations):
Senators Byrd, Leahy, Hollings, Reid, Dorgan, Feinstein, Murray, Inouye, Burns, Stevens, Cochran, Domenici, Bennett, Gregg, Campbell.
Of these, Sen Feinstein may be the one who can be most influenced by the geeks here.
If possible, write (deadtree letter) or FAX them; an email just doesn't cut it.
I don't know about what others think, but the fact that they are standardizing on the single most expensive solution bothers me. I am also bothered by the fact that they have either subscribed to microsoft FUD or just don't care. The vast majority of those 70,000 need word processing, web browsing, and email for which MS is a stupidly expensive solution. I would rather see them all using 5 year old hardware running a stripped down, custom Linux distro with Mozilla and an office suite.
The effective of a MS solution is not justified by its cost period - and as a taxpayer, I say its a problem.
Did they go through the appropriate bidding process that is needed whenever a substantial government contract is offered?
If you used all Sun, Linux, or Apple software/hardware, you'd have the same compatibility bonuses as you do with Microsoft. Compatibility is not unique, or even native, to Microsoft. Hell, they removed from Office XP the ability to open other office suites' documents with the default install; isn't that a step BACKWARDS for compatibility?
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I mean, think about it, we have a president, who doesn't give a rats ass about anything except corporations and the military. Look at the economy, it has to be every one else's fault but the administration's. Yell at Congress to lower spending, so we can raise military spending, and then keep pointing to Iraq as doing what they do, drawing attention away from the economy and from Isreal basically doing what Bush moans that Iraq might do in the future. What utter nonsense!
But we knew this would happen. With a pro-corp prez in place, MS would get off, and now it is being espoused by the government. Nice going, morons. We don't want to punish MS for being a monopoly, no, we want to have them continue to publish wonderless software, and we'll even use them!
If I could convince my gf and my ex (for the kids), I'd move to Canada already, or even Europe. Sure, freedoms and technology are not the same, but so what. These areas of the world are getting it (except Blair, what's he gonna get for his support?). Some Superpower....what's that saying? Power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Thanks Bushki!
They stuck me in an institution, said it was the only solution, to...protect me from the enemy, myself
All specialized applications are UNIX, and will be waived.
The major problem is with administrators. There arent enough qualified people here to run a multimode environment. They cant pay enough to get qualified Americans to work for them, and they cant contract out to H1Bs.
in short, I dont think this will have much of an effect.
People who think they know everything really piss off those of us that actually do.
There is a strong case to be made for conformance of systems
And I'd say take that one step further had have conformance of systems...but conformance to a published open standard...so you can have competition without conformance degration.
Once you start down the MS road and start using software that does not conform to a published standard you are locked in and the cost of switch over to any else becomes extremely high..and higher after every release cycle.
Its hard to talk about conformance when the issues at hand are vendor specific since the vendor can force change on you via updates. You can get conformance and competition if you limit yourself to an open specification that all vendors can compete for. Once you let the vendor dictate to you what features are worth using and what features you are going to get...your stuck...without paying a huge penalty to get out. But if you don't pay the huge penalty in the short term you pay a gigantic penalty in the long term after several upgrade cycles, where you have lost the power to make decisions as to what you really need and who can provide the software and the systems.
Honestly, sometimes, it makes sense to standardize
It sure does...so stop using MS...becuase MS software does not conform to OPEN standards. How standard is a standard if there isn't a neutral 3rd body overseeing conformance to that standard.
If we used a standard of length measurement only sold to us by MS, we'd have to upgrade our rulers every 2 years becuase the standard would surely change.
-jef
Objects in the blog are closer then they ap
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I'm sure Hollings will be really receptive to my concerns about locking in the DOI to Microsoft-only systems. Not.
But, as you pointed out, my interest does run deeper than making "snide remarks." I am a taxpayer. I live in Raleigh, N.C. I plan to call Senator Jesse Helms' office and ask him to review the DOI's decision to lock out non-Microsoft products in favor of those made by Microsoft -- a monopoly currently being prosecuted by the federal government. I'll point out that there are other U.S. software companies that make fine products, and it's in the government's interest to avoid single sources for their systems. I'll mention RedHat -- based in Raleigh, just like Senator Helms. I'll mention Sun and Apple. I'll mention IBM and Oracle.
Napster-to-go says "Fill and refill your compatible MP3 player", which is a lie. It's not MP3. It's WMA with DRM.
Here is a clue for you. The US constitution grants three powers to the federal government. Military is on there... social services and economic wrestling are not. While this is undoubtedly a bad decision for the DOI to make and their stated reasons are a bit ironic, it does not change the fact that we have yet to slip into a socialist state. However with the help of sheep like you, that is happening slowly over time.
Any economist (of any political spectrum) can prove that top down economic changes take several years to begin to show in the actual economy. Grassroots, which is very difficult to control can be instantanious. An example of a grassroots (or bottom up) issue would be if people (justified or not) began to believe that normal computers and monitors actually caused illness in 90% of humans. If people stopped wanting to use, trust or be near computers after that our economy would collapse very soon. Here it would be the duty of the government to first gather and present the relevant facts, then in the case that computers really were that bad, help organize (but not run) people together to work around the problem and reroute the economic shift (imagine how good paper companies would do for a short while).
If you realized how pathetic people like you sound, and how much people like you lend credibility to arguments that not everyone should be able to vote... it is people like you that put monsters like Hitler and Stalin into power. Microsoft got to where it is because of stupid sheep like you. I have a feeling that this reason alone is the major cause for animosity towards MS by meat puppets such as yourself. (clue: you see yourself in both MS and their supporters) If you want to help squash MS, then please start helping organize alternatives. There are plenty of hackers out there, what we need now are more engineers. We need more people that can organize information so as to make it very easy (yes I said easy, not just easier) for a newbie to pick up linux and start using it... not a hacker picking it apart and programming his own scripts and apps, but just Joe Enduser. The arrogance that has prevented this is exactly what is causing the problem. Stop depending on the government to fix your problems and carry you around. Our country was founded under the principle that mankind can govern and take care of themselves. If you go against that, then you are saying that people cannot survive without being told what to do and are unreliable for their own lives... that then justifies the grey hairs to control aspects of your life that you will not like too much. "When we seek to control our neighbors, we seek to empower them to control us"
A policy like this is PREVENTING them to running a solution that fits their needs best. If you think that "run whatever Microsoft gives us" is running the best solution, you are either pretty gullible or have Microsoft-stock (or both as being gullible is a prerequesite for having Microsoft-stock, just look at their P/E)
It also illustrates the incredible Microsoft double-standard. A Microsoft-only policy is great, but an open-source-only policy (which is much less restricting because it is multi-vendor) is evil, evil, evil.
I personally don't like either policy, BTW.
Beside the fact that the employees probably had almost nothing to do with the decision, it is objectively bad for the government to lock up our information in a propriatary format.
The real tragedy of this will come down the road, when not even current MS crap (if they survive) will be able to read the obsolete Word2002 formats stored in the archive. Even today, I expect that you would have some problems reading at least some old windows document formats in the most current editions.
MS development processes are so ad-hoc and market driven that they cannot even keep track of all the external representation formats that they have created. They just don't get it. The reason that experienced and skilled software architects and designers insist on supporting mature standards is because otherwise it turns into an unmanagable mess. Stability is way more important than wiz bang features. Note that this is also the source of many of their security problems, at least the ones that aren't due to allowing program fragments to run from untrusted sources, but I digress.
This is also why the Linux platform is so much better. Even though it is not yet at a maturity and stability level that satisfies us, it is still completely usable because it doesn't just abandon standards in an attempt to gain market dominance. Once a standard is established and has become stable, you can be certain that it will be widely adopted. In this environment, any number of projects can implement that standard, and users have a choice to stay with the old reliable tool, or upgrade to get more features and functionality. Or even use both situationally.
You're obviously better than the average MSCE.
Part of the problem is the attitude apparently shipped with MS products that MSCE==competent sysadmin for those systems.
I don't have the numbers on my fingertips, but I suspect that none of the major Win-exploits of the past few years used a new hole. They spread so badly because of poor administration. By that token, it would seem that a competent sysadmin could indeed run a secure Win-based business.
But a few weeks back there was a new kid in town, and this time it hit Linux - slapper. From what I understand, this was a newly discovered hole that was made into a worm in record time. Still the infection rate turned out to be minor, mostly because of competent sysadmins and the **rapid release** of a security fix.
Slapper broke new ground in several respects, between hole-to-worm time and its use of peer-to-peer. Now try running this combination against the more common (not yours obviously, though you can only deploy released patches) Windows security environment. Add to this the chilling effect of the DMCA on grey-hat activities, especially in the closed-source security arena.
The living have better things to do than to continue hating the dead.
So, first you still have to get all of your machines up to Win 2K/XP. Then you have to have a sufficient number of test machines to test those patches against. (2K SP 3 breaks Office 2000 install. NT 4 SP 6 disabled Notes. NT 4 SP 2 completely hosed NTFS machines when installed over the network.)
Now, let's look at a modern WAN. You've got regional offices scatterred all across the US. Do you need local servers to redistribute those patches down to? Maybe you want the 5 XP machines in the little RI office to completely flood their 128K frame relay connection back to the main office pulling down the latest Microsoft VM patch? How about that travelling guy with a laptop and a dial-in connection?
Now, how about provisioning that new box in the RI office? Are you going to be constantly updating a stream-lining patch set so that they don't have to download 20 seperate patches and reboot after many of them?
It takes a hell of a lot more time than your 5-10 minutes *per week*.
--- I wish I could hear the soundtrack to my life. That way I'd know when to duck.
The cited reasons for making this move are all rather interesting and generally interestingly flawed.
-
Lower Total Cost of Ownership for the desktop, including lower user training costs.
- Centralized and efficient security policy administration
- Greater flexibility and management functionality from products that offer a broader range of management solutions that integrate with non-Microsoft environments
- Greater productivity and reliability attributed to less downtime.
-
Extended support for a large base of software applications. Applications almost entirely written by Microsoft?
I can't find this on the DOI site but I do note that the front page (on mozilla) has the search entry/button going right across the eyes of the presidents on Mt Rushmore.I'm interested in how they determine total cost of ownership, but even so "lower user training costs" is a fun one. Translates to "All our users already know windows, so give it to them ". Seems reasonable, but if this becomes normal in the government, then everyone will need a Windows UI because no users will ever know anything else. Self fulfilling prophecy (profitcy?) anyone?
I guess they're getting Windows for free too as getting a linux distribution for the entire DOI would have cost (just for the software) essentially nothing. (If they're getting it cheaply enough, one must wonder if the consumer isn't subsidizing the government - including consumers in (say) Peru.)
Then too, while it would take a bit of training, I expect I could, with only a few (however radical) changes change the total cost of using most of their tools down by probably 80%. The learning curve would be steep and the users would scream their heads off. In the long runthough, I believe they'd save enough that it would far overcome the training costs.
I don't know to what extent windows boxes can be set up as remote GUI servers (such as Xterms) but I'd bet that with the number of seats they need, that a good deal could be found for minimal UI boxes and with an openMosix like system behind them. I suspect this would lower the total cost of hardware by 50% or more since most of the time most of the computers on someone's desk are running screensavers while the user is drinking coffee or on the phone.
Unix has allowed this for years. Long before microsoft even invented networking.
This is a wonderfully fun one - since Microsoft has said from time to time that it is their policy to not "integrate" with any system they don't approve of - especially open source systems.
It does seem to be true that windows 2000 is doing well for staying up for long periods of time - but I've had linux boxes that (several years back) stayed up for a year or so without problems. This at a time when one person I knew -- a true Windows NT fanatic -- reinstalled everything every two weeks because he claimed the system wasn't stable if he didn't do that.
Do they also have a policy of writing their web pages for only IE? (Assuming it works on IE) (I don't remember which, but at least one other US government web site only works right with IE and the webmaster told me that they were "considering" using the standards, but that it would be a lot of work and I should not expect it quickly.)
obmisquote "Malt does more than anyone can To justify the government's ways to Man"
Apparently Gale Norton decided she'd better spend all the money the DoI has kept from Native American tribes. Ah, free software: damned if you're free, damned if you're not....
C - A language that combines the speed of assembly with the ease of use of assembly.
It's about competent administration.
Your story is yet another of the scores of examples which contradict the long-touted "feature" of (NT|2k|XP) that it is "easy to administer." If it was truly easy to administer, then the administration would not need to be done by competent administration; i.e., anyone should be able to do it.
I maintain that (NT|2k|XP) is equally difficult to administer as *nix and has always been. One may be better than the other for certain tasks, but effective administration for both has been and still is difficult and requires highly skilled professionals to do it right.
I think that my biggest problems with NT systems was the outright deceit which pervaded the marketing surrounding said systems. (See also: "NT Workstation and NT Server are completely different operating systems. Really. I mean it. Pay no attention to the identical kernels.")
I don't make the rules. I just make fun of them.