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Oregon Bill Would Require Open Source Consideration
VeniDormi writes "I just found out that House Bill 2892 was introduced in the Oregon House of Representatives by Representative Phil Barnhart. The summary: 'Requires state government to consider using open source software when acquiring new software. Sets other requirements for acquiring software.'
Rep. Barnhart has a few comments on the bill." A NewsForge story has more information, including some words from Rep. Barnhart.
Sorry to say, but I highly doubt that such a law would result in making anything more than a microscopic-size dent in a $5 billion deficit. The TCO for open-source vs. proprietary systems isn't a slam-dunk either way, it has to be judged on a case-by-case basis against the value that each provides.
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I bet slashdot could get an interview with him.
Requires state government to consider using open source software when acquiring new software. Sets other requirements for acquiring software.
In many cases where highly specialized applications are required, the consideration of opensource alternatives will show that while linux has multiple nice desktops, multiple nice office suites, multiple nice browsers, multiple nice email clients... it still has a number of fronts to work on.
When you compare all enterprise commercial apps against the most mature and most turnkey opensource ones, you'll find a lot of projects with good intentions but little functionality compared to commercial offerings.
The free software world is all about code and component reuse and sharing, and the attitude of 'hope someone can find use for this thing that I wrote - if it doesn't meet your needs or doesn't work, let me know and I might choose to do something about it... better yet, can you help? Here's the sourcecode'
If the government is committed to hiring software developers to *MAKE* opensource software work by *ENHANCING* it and *EXTENDING* it's functionality, then... HORRAY! We all Win.
When you compare all enterprise commercial apps against the most mature and most turnkey opensource ones, you'll find a lot of projects with good intentions but little functionality compared to commercial offerings.
:).
Open Source software is the final destination of products that are destined to become commodities. Operating systems, word processing, personal finance, and some games, for example.
The software products that will likey never become open source serves domains so specialized, complex, or competitive that only businesses can drive them. In other words, no one would want to put up with such software in their spare time. A good example of this would be high-end computer-aided manufacturing and process planning. The problem domain and the hardware, such as multi-axis milling machines, are so expensive and complex that the cost and risk associated with proprietary software isn't that big of a deal. Also, there are so few people who can write such software well, that they deserve to recieve a salary for their work.
It's all these other "me too" products, such as Microsoft Office, Microsoft Windows, etc., that belong in the public domain
Healthcare article at Kuro5hin
However...
Requiring state agencies to "consider" open source is likely only to raise costs. Someone will spend a couple extra days saying they're considering open source, then go back to the safe choice. (At some point in the past, when IBM was king, the saying was that "Nobody ever got fired for recommending IBM")
If Oregon were to find all the places where open source could be dropped in with minimal disruption and then actually do it, the state could probably save a fair bit.
For example, in the town I live in in Oregon, there is a Community College (they like to call themselves a University, but tend to act like a Community College). Essentially all the faculty run Windows and run mostly screen savers, word, email and a browser (there are a few exceptions running Macs). All of these could easily be replaced with open source alternatives. They probably never will be - the Computing Services folks have bought big into MS and they will support the whines of the faculty who'll say "I can't learn anything new".