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.

Comments

That's a good start

[Visaris]

I'm pleased. Open source should be considered. And at the same time, I'm glad they didn't take things too far and require the use of open source. This is a positive influence yet doesn't seem too restrictive. Good for them :)

Re:That's a good start

[Gleef]

I'm glad they didn't require the use of Open Source, not because I don't think the freedoms that such a requirement would enforce are important, but because requiring them would be sufficient to torpedo the bill, and a partial measure like this is a good start.

One thing I do wish they would require, and I believe is feasible to require at this point, is Open Standards in data storage and transmission. The bill defines them, but doesn't insist on them. It is a Free Government's responsibility, as representatives of the people, to make sure that their workings are accessible to all the people without forcing the people to spend hundreds of dollars on Word or Excel just to look at a document.

How does MS feel about this?

[mgessner]

It'd be interesting to know what Oregon's northern neighbors in Redmond think about this.

It's a baaare faced challenge to the quality of M$'s products.

Go OREGON!

Re:How does MS feel about this?

[leviramsey]

It'd be interesting to know what Oregon's northern neighbors in Redmond think about this.

You know, I think Washington should activate their National Guard and invade Oregon over this. That would be really fun to watch on TV. I know, we have that as the 8:00 lead-in to the war in Iraq at 9:00. Dyn-o-mite!

Re:How does MS feel about this?

[binaryDigit]

You know, I think Washington should activate their National Guard and invade Oregon over this

I can see it now, Idaho will send human shields in to Oregon to protect valuable hiking grounds and fisheries. The French of course will not support Washington. Berkeley will pass a resolution to pout and not bath until Washington backs down. Meantime the Oregonian leaders will be out in Elmira with Ken Kesey chillin with some good jane wonderin what all the fuss is about. It would then be up to the white supremecists in Portland to defend the state.

Re:How does MS feel about this?

[Jason Earl]

Are you kidding? The last thing that any red-blooded Idahoan wants to do is protect Oregon's wildlife. We pray every night that the entire state of Oregon drops into the sea so that we can use our valuable river water in the way God intended, watering our fields.

Heck, most Oregonians are barely a step above your average Californian, and your average Californian is actually two or three steps below Satan himself. Not that the folks from Washington are much better.

thats all well and good

[NedTheNerd]

thats nice but we need people that know how to use compouters in goverment first :)

Re:thats all well and good

[TopShelf]

RTFA!

The open source bill -- HB 2892 -- is likely to end up in front of the General Government Committee, which is chaired by Rep. Jerry Krummel, who sells Linux-based computer security systems for SAGE, Inc. when he's not busy legislating and is, therefore, likely to be a friend rather than an enemy.

Re:thats all well and good

[kamelwalk]

While your comment is amusing...there's also a real crisis there. Government CAN'T get good IT people, or at least can't keep them (I work in IT for the government, so I have to be careful here :). Seriously, if there's anyone on the planet that you would want to have the best IT people it's your government...so they provide better services to the constituent. The problem is, the government just flat-out can't afford to keep IT people. They have no problem getting entry level people, which is where I began three years ago. Government jobs are fantastic if you're just getting into the field...you'll get LOTS of experience. Take me, for example. I run a Win2k network with Win2k servers, Red Hat servers, Cisco switches and router, SCO Unix server, and an NT server. I am the one-man IT department. It's great because I'm getting lots and lots of experience doing lots of different things. However, at some point the value of the knowledge I'm gaining here will be outweighed by what I could make applying the knowledge that I have in the private sector, and I'm gone! Not to digress from the main thread or anything, but I just wanted to insert my 2 cents in here.

I would gladly welcome this in my state

[greechneb]

As Illinois is currently facing a 5 billion deficit. While I would rather first see all the pork barrel projects come to an end, I know that would never happen. That would be like Microsoft cutting Internet Explorer out of windows.

Re:I would gladly welcome this in my state

[TopShelf]

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.

Re:I would gladly welcome this in my state

[stratjakt]

This is especially true in government applications where the code is 99% custom anyways.

Eg; I work for a company that writes and sells computer dispatching and records systems to cops and firemen. I see no CAD systems on sourceforge. They simply dont exist, and wont because much of the code required is very site specific and customized. It's a niche market that open source, for all its virtues, cannot fill.

Now if they want to run Red Hat Advanced Server on the backend instead of HP-UX or WinNT (which is what we offer now), more power to 'em, but it's still a few hundred bucks in a half-million dollar contract. A bit like pissing into niagra falls to warm it up.

This is reasonable

[HeelToe]

I think government should be compelled^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^Hrequired to look at all alternatives, but not forced into anythiing.

On the related topic of what license should software carry if government funds its creation, I feel like open source should be a requirement.

Of course, this opens up all the little issues like, well, if it's truly open sourced, Canada could use it against us in an upcoming war.

I know why they are doing this...

[saskboy]

This must be a Washington - Oregon rivalry, that is manifesting itself at the legislative level.

That is a fancy way of saying "Screw you Bill Gates, and your f'ing Seatle company".

Re:I know why they are doing this...

[jazman_777]

Didn't Gates hometown end up doing this? I remember reading somewhere about Windows not being up to the task of town management while Gates house was being built. Haven't found the article yet.

That would be the city of Medina. His property _doubled_ the amount of property paperwork for the small city (ie, he cost them $$$). They set up a linux box to run their stuff. They turned the monitor on one of the boxes to the window so passersby could see it was not running Windows.

I write code for government agencies

[stratjakt]

This means nothing. This is a no-tooth bill that has nothing to do with increasing open source usage, but merely placating a bunch of lobbyists.

Here's how it goes when an agency is looking to buy software:

- They decide what they want, and which vendor to get it from. They seek a budget for it.

- The rules say they must let contractors compete on the bid, so they put out an RFP (request for proposals).

- They word the questions in the RFP in such a way as to make sure that the only product that will be acceptable is the one they originally planned on.

I see this day in and day out. Just this morning I read an RFP. They were looking for an RMS system to complement their police dispatching system.

The first requirement was: Must work with the existing dispatching system.

Well, the only RMS out there that works with the dispatching system is the one from the vendor of the 20 year old dispatching system. The whole RFP process is a beurocratic circle jerk.

Now if all the systems were 'open source', would it make a difference? Not really, since we'd be unlikely to rewrite our RMS for each and every bid. An open format for data transmission would be nice, but a pipe dream, since every agency in the country has their own way of managing the data.

So while this is a nice warm and fuzzy bit of legislation, it wont affect how the system works at all. If they put out a contract for a bunch of OS's, it'd read "Must support DirectX 9" or some such to pigeonhole it into what they already decided on.

Re:I write code for government agencies

[Sgs-Cruz]

They were looking for an RMS system to complement their police dispatching system.

I can't see RMS complimenting anything, let alone his hippie software complementing the dispatching system run by the MAN! :)

Re:I write code for government agencies

[sharkey]

They were looking for an RMS system to complement their police dispatching system.

Here it is. Their dispatching system had better GNU/Something or he probably won't give it any complements.

Re:I write code for government agencies

[manyoso]

You have failed to read the bill.

The proposed law would create a new _requirement_ for all of those RFP's: the software _must_ use open formats that are transparent for data storage if they are even to be considered!

Most of the proprietary apps I know use proprietary formats for data storage... this would lead to a huge boon of either Open Source software in State government OR require the proprietary developers to use open formats!

READ THE BILL!

You need legislation for that...

[airrage]

I suppose I become, year after year, more of a libertarian: the less government the better. Why should one have to legislate this sort of thing?

Should we also put for legislation that governments must consider using aluminum-foil stop signs instead of metal? Isn't the stewardship of tax money impetus enough to find the "best" solution for a given municipality.

Of course the argument is two-fold: if open-source is so fantastic why does it need to be legislated -- like some sort of quota system. Yet, the flip side, which will hopefully avoid many similar posts is that their is a certain structual momentum that doesn't easily allow for change, much like racism I suppose.

When I grew up it wasn't a law that children wore bicycle helmets. Of course, helmets weren't readily available either. But you know what that made us? Stronger. Surer. More aware of our limitations. Now a child goes out into the world wearing full, active-camo kevlar and runs cycles through traffic with abandon. The point: it was better before the law. But as the parenting got worse, the laws got tougher.

So, now again, we are being parented by the government. We are not simply smart enough to decide that helmets are good thing individually -- we must have intelligencia decide it for us.

To wit, I think this is a poor idea on all fronts.

But I could be wrong ...

~Airrage ;)

Re:You need legislation for that...

[ichimunki]

Well, at least the intelligentsia hasn't outlawed poor spelling! :)

In this case, I think putting a requirement to consider or prefer open source software is a wise use of tax money. The collection and spending of taxes seems to be an inevitable activity, so why see if we can maximize the potential benefit for everyone? Supporting open code supports a code commons that all citizens can enjoy without spoiling it for others.

In fact, it is only pragmatism that suggests that unless national security is at stake that we insist the govenrnment use only public domain, BSD, or GPL software. If our tax dollars are being spent to install, maintain and use software, we ought to have as much right to inspection as possible to evaluate that spending.

Also, like many others, I believe the argument that says that TCO is lower in predominantly Free Software shops. And a large part of the fixed costs of Free Software-based systems is overcoming the inertia you mention.

This law, like all others, needs an expiration date. There are too many laws and rules on the books. I have to wonder if most of the people charged with creating laws, executing those laws, and determining the validity of the laws have even read them all.

Re:You need legislation for that...

[dmaxwell]

The proposed bill sets a mandate on how the government procures things. It has absolutely nothing to say about how non-govt. Joe Blow runs his IT department. Since you are a tax paying libertarian, I would think you would be in favor of anything that means the govt. spends less money or gets better return on what it does spend. Granted, the savings would be lost in the noise of all the other money governments waste.

It requires things that are entirely favorable to taxpayers. It mandates open formats for data storage which makes it less likely that the government would mandate say using Word to complete an electronic tax form. It legitimizes consideration of vendors and solutions the government couldn't consider. The consequences mean a bit more choice in how citizens interact with government. How is any of this a threat to libertarians?

Great bill, but...

[gpinzone]

Why is it important to enact a bill to say that the state should consider anything? I could work as an employee of some state controlled IT department and say, "I didn't choose the open source product because the sky is blue, but I did consider it." and be in compliance with this law (assuming it gets passed). It's a nice political statement, but nothing more.

Re:What a surprise...

[wembley]

Yeah, but who wants to get an Oregonish massage?

And on the border...

[wowbagger]

And on the border of Oregon and Washington State, the tanks are massing for an invasion of Oregon.

The Govenor of Washington was heard to refer to this operation as "Operation Make Bill Richer"...

Re:I hope this passes

[DenOfEarth]

I think this is actually a lousy thing, and points out the inherent lack of value that governments place on certain things. In a democracy, the way it is supposed to work is that the politicians find the best solution to the voters problems, using the voters money in the most efficient manner. If the government decides to spend way more money to do the same things, they should, in theory not be re-elected...unfortunately, that's not always the case, and potentially money saving things like open-source are ignored. So, now the government spends MORE money putting through bills that say stuff along the lines of "let's save money"...pretty stupid really, but I guess that's what government is all about.

Interview, Please!

[HaeMaker]

I bet slashdot could get an interview with him.

government cheese

[elohim]

The US government loves the low bidder. If an open source software candidate is free, and support costs are comparable to a closed source alternative, open source is going to win every time. I know of at least one example where the government's stinginess has backfired when pursuing the low bidder, but that's top secret. The difference with software, I think, is that the lower cost alternative is often better!

Will point out glaring gaps in opensource software

[poopie]

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.

...Is there such a thing as a FREE SOFTWARE LEECH?

Prize offered

[El_Smack]

$100 for the first politician to do the same thing....in the great State of Washington.

*tumbleweed rolls slowly by*

What, no takers?

Re:Prize offered

[TechnoVooDooDaddy]

uh... chances are MS has already out-bid you...

Re:Prize offered

[El_Smack]

No way man. In this country our elected representatives listen to "The People", not Big Business.

Re:Prize offered

[chinton]

No way man. In this country our elected representatives listen to "The People", not Big Business.

And which country is that?

Sow the wind...

[DSP_Geek]

...reap the freakin' whirlwind.

"Before he was elected to the legislature, Barnhart was a member of a local school board that was threatened with a software audit by Microsoft. Barnhart says, "It would have cost $60,000 just to perform the audit."

It looks like MS just made a New Friend. Licence 6.0 is making similar friends in the corporate world, too.

Francois.

Just remember...

[circusnews]

This is a bill, a proposal for a new law, not a law. I would encourage every Oregon resident reading this to write your state senitors/reps and encourage them to support this bill. Letters from out of state can also be helpful, even if they are not counted as highly.

Excellent Political Strategy

[Java Ape]

We've seen this before in a variety of guises. Nothing new here.

1. Politico from state with budget shortfall and M$ introduces pro-open source legislation. Total cost 30 minutes to scrawl it on a napkin and send it to his secretary for typing.
2. Politico voices strong support for bill, makes vaguely disparaging remarks about M$
3. M$ sends representative to "discuss" the issue, reiterate the fine qualities of M$ software, and generally defuse the situation.
4. Eventually there's a generous political contribution, and an offer to provide M$ products at "special discount pricing", possibly with an imdemnification against existing liscense violations.
5. Politico suddenly sees the light, disavows any allegience with open source, and dissapears in a shiny new Mercedes.

The only interesting part of this is how good a settlement M$ will have make to shut this guy up.

Gaps are everywhere

[TheConfusedOne]

The issue is what you can do when you find a gap and who benefits from plugging the gap.

In the opensource world you can either try to rally the masses or hire your own programmers to fill a gap. The new code then gets returned to the community for possible future use and refinement. (Or it may remain so unique that no one else can gain any use from it.)

In the commercial/proprietary world you usually wind up having to convince the software owner that this is a gap worth filling in. Then you have to wait through the release cycle or pay them extra to do the work for you. At the end of the day the other company owns the fix and you end up re-buying it each time you get another license/upgrade.

(If it's a customizable API then you're exactly where you were with the open source stuff we're you're paying programmers to do the work for you.)

At the end of the day you're probably going to have to pay for a programmer, it's just a question of what return you get on that investment.

Hey Barnhart...

[PsychoKiller]

Rep. Barnhart says, "I am a long-time lurker on Slashdot, so I have been aware of the [open source] issue for some time. I've been convinced for a long time that Windows is a difficult program -- wasteful and expensive." And, he adds, "The little experience I've had with open source has been very positive."

Get back to work!

Re:The BSA should be happy!

[manyoso]

To those of you who are posting asking, "Why do they need to write a law to 'consider'" ... you are missing the real power of the law which is located in the very last section. This proposed law *mandates* as a requirement of Oregon State that the software (whether Open Source or proprietary) adhere to open and transparent formats for data storage. In other words, Microsoft Office will not be allowed unless Microsoft *chooses* to alter Office to save files in an open/transparent way.

This is entirely upto Microsoft and is completely fair in the sense that the State of Oregon is saying that open formats are a *requirement* of all software purchased for state goverment.

READ THE BILL!

Re:Will point out glaring gaps in opensource softw

[Surak]

...Is there such a thing as a FREE SOFTWARE LEECH?

That's an interesting idea... You know what, though? Even if you're using open source software, and even if you have NO coding skills whatsoever, and you're not contributing to the actual development, there are OTHER ways to help out.

• 
  Testing: The more people that run the software in a real world environment, the more bugs that are found. Even running released software will help to overturn bugs that might not otherwise be discovered, because everyone uses software a little differently and in a different environment.
  
• 
  Evangelism: A government organization or big company that runs, say OpenOffice.org, evanglizes that software by simply using the program and the file formats. Telling other people your organization uses a particular software package also tends to make people in related businesses or organizations think "Hey, maybe that program will work for me?"
  
• Documentation: If you can't write code, you can always write docs if you're a gifted tech writer. Let me tell you, there's a LOT of open source software out there that could use some nice docs!
• 
  
  So just because you can't code, or don't have any developers doesn't mean your organization has nothing to contribute.
  

That is a violation of multiple laws ...

[FreeUser]

... and if true, your boss (or his boss, on up to whoever is doing what you describe) belongs in jail.

This means nothing. This is a no-tooth bill that has nothing to do with increasing open source usage, but merely placating a bunch of lobbyists.

Here's how it goes when an agency is looking to buy software:

- They decide what they want, and which vendor to get it from. They seek a budget for it.

- The rules say they must let contractors compete on the bid, so they put out an RFP (request for proposals).

- They word the questions in the RFP in such a way as to make sure that the only product that will be acceptable is the one they originally planned on.

Not only is that a violation of current law (and, as another suggested, you should get the media involved), but that would be a direct violation of this law as well, since obviously if the vendor is chosen first and then the bidding started, the free software solution wasn't ever in consideration to begin with (a violation of the proposed legislation).

The law will be good for those departments which do obey the law, and will be an additional charge to be filed against the leadership of those who do not. This, to me, appears to be a good thing on two fronts: more responsible and more open IT policies in government, and additional ammunition to punish the corrupt.

Re:Government sales support the software industry

[schon]

I think it's good that governments consider open source. But at the same time, the government buying comercial software supports my family.

Since when did open source and commercial software become mutually exclusive?

we sell very litte software without consulting and maintenance attached to it.

So what's to stop you from providing open-source versions of your software, and getting paid for the consulting and maintenance?

even if governments have to consider open source software, they're not likely going to go after something that doesn't have a commercial backing of some sort.

Again, a product being open-source doesn't preclude it from being commercial.

Problem with RFPs and OSS

[utuk99]

One of the problems with the RFP system and OSS especially free OSS is that there is often no one available to write the proposal.

Some effort has to be made to look for free software, no one is calling you to sell it to you. I find free software to use at my company occasionally. It usually takes a few hours on the internet to compare all of the free alternatives and can save thousands of dollars compared to what companies are trying to sell to us. Shouldn't the government at least look for alternatives before it shells out our money?

Re:Will point out glaring gaps in opensource softw

[pmz]

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 :).

Kind of like the NFL's Minority Hiring policy

[davemabe]

This sounds kind of like the NFL mandating that owners must interview at least one minority candidate when filling a coaching vacancy. That policy doesn't work too well - just look at the recent Lion's hire.

Re:Will point out glaring gaps in opensource softw

[EvilTwinSkippy]

...Is there such a thing as a FREE SOFTWARE LEECH?

By that measure, how many more people READ literature in this world than write it? How many more people VIEW art in this world than make it? How many more people LISTEN to music in this world than compose it, or even perform it?

The human race has been "Leeching" off of creative poeple at least since the discovery of fire. Up until we had this whole notion of Intellectual Property, this was considered by all parties to be a good thing.

Music without ears to hear it is a pattern of vibrations. Software without a user base is a random gob of bits.

More paperwork?

[pcraven]

I did development for USGS once about 8 years ago. The hiring process was terrible because of all the paper work. They hired several grad students, and one guy who had a semester's worth of programming. Why? Because he served in the Gulf war and was a Vet. So they were required to hire him if they hired us.

We also used Data General computers. Cheaper and better UNIX computers were out there, but the paperwork made them impossible to get. To use a new vendor you had to post that you were looking for equiptment. Then you had to see how many minorities were in the vendor company leadership. Those got preference. Bunch of other forms and regulations.

Require consideration of open source good idea? On paper. But that is the problem. There are too many good ideas on paper that became laws, and you have to pile through to do anything in government.

Being a slashdot user I didn't read the article. (Because the sites are always down after the slashdot post for some reason.) But are the comments about it are correct, that 'open source' was required to be on the approved list? Great, I can write a piece of crap and it is required to be approved? Hope not.

Trust the guy they hired to make the decision. Otherwise he shouldn't be in the position if he didn't deserve the trust. (Yes, I know about the stupid Oracle license story a while back.)

Re:State of Oregon: government agencies

[WetCat]

Suggest them
something from IBM Linux solutions. Why not?
Or something from
Novell that works from Linux platform

carefull

[ryusen]

Microsoft, might decide that they don't liek this and buy Oregon, break it into parts, then sell what they don't want to California and Seattle.

This fights the MS only mindset

[hellfire]

I'm shocked that there are so many in slashdot community who will, on one side, complain that IT departments in private corporations don't mandate that they consider open source products because the IT managers believe, based on false stereotypes and laziness of mind, that MS only is the way to go.

Now those slashdotters are complaining about a law who's sole purpose is to fight that mindset?

Of course this is politics, but its good politics. People who are hired in government IT departments are humans too and suffer from the same conceptions (or misconceptions if you will). Instead of shareholders who ask the CEO to make directives, lawmakers make directives of its subsidiary departments to make sure they fulfill certain goals.

Frankly, I think someone got the idea that Open source might save the taxpayers and the state money and that they are simply asking IT departments to make an effort to look at open source solutions rather than be lazy. Imagine that!

QCAD is GPL

[tjwhaynes]

Eg; I work for a company that writes and sells computer dispatching and records systems to cops and firemen. I see no CAD systems on sourceforge. They simply dont exist, and wont because much of the code req

Guess you haven't tried QCAD then. Or maybe it doesn't exist :-)

Cheers,
Toby Haynes

Re:QCAD is GPL

[Didion Sprague]

I think they're referring to 'Computer Aided Dispatch' -- not 'CAD' in the traditional, drawing sense.

911 emergency operators use CAD interfaces to assist with real-time law enforcment routing and dispatch.

The interesting part

[Anonymous Coward]

For those of you who didn't take the time to read the bill:

(2) For all new software acquisitions, the person or governing body charged with administering each administrative division of state government, including every department, division, agency, board or commission, without regard to the designation given the entity, shall:

[items a, b, c omitted]

(d) Avoid the acquisition of products that do not comply with open standards for interoperability or data storage; and

(e) Avoid the acquisition of products that are known to make unauthorized transfers of information to, or permit unauthorized control of or modification to state government's computer systems by, parties outside the control of state government.

So. No undocumented .DOC file formats, and no Windows Update or Turbo Tax-like spyware! Woohoo (theoretically)!

-AC

Hrrm

[jefu]

Oregon voters recently refused to raise taxes thus leaving the state facing serious cuts in spending at many levels. Replacing proprietary software with open source could help quite a bit.

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".

Re:Easy, M$ rivalry fanatics....

[jazman_777]

Not Everything Is A Conflict With Microsoft

What kind of warped world are _you_ living in?

Looking for teeth

[jeremy_hogan]

I've seen a couple of comments that an admin can say it's no viable and opt into proprietary solutions. That the bill is unenforcable or accomplishes little. Consider this:

1) It gets F/OSS on the list of allowable purchases
2) Portland school districts estimate 1.5M in licensing alone as pre-bill adopters. Savings indicative of larger statewide saving spotential.
3) Incentive for gov't focused VARs to deploy
4) Precludes use of EULA 6 type licensing
5) Considers the disposition of the a merit, protects integrity of public data systems


Not all of the benefits translate directly to savings, some will beget savings, some will encourage out of the box thinking, some are just the right things to do.

Completely off-topic:

[Futurepower(R)]

Why do hippies come to Oregon?

Because there are no jobs.

Re:Will point out glaring gaps in opensource softw

[starseeker]

"Is there such a thing as a FREE SOFTWARE LEECH?"

I take it by this you mean someone who uses the software without giving back to the community. Um.

Stop and think about this a second. Additional users are always helpful to software. They may spot bugs, someone may suggest a feature you haven't thought of. Even if you never hear from them, they may recommend it to someone else who then helps you out. And ultimately, you were going to write the software anyway. You're a volunteer. You can always bow out and let someone else take over. So why should you resent a "leech"? You want the software to be used.

And not to mention the warm fuzzy feeling you get when your work is actually downloaded and does something useful. Remember, in the open source world the motivation is not money. (Not that it isn't nice, but it's not the main focus.)

And finally, the bill's lead author speaks

[Mr. Firewall]

Hey, Ben -- chill out dude.

Yes, I wrote that bill at Phil Barnhart's request, with some very good help from Jeremy Hogan and Walt Pennington (who are hereby gratefully acknowledged) but I deliberately took myself out of the limelight when I wrote the press release -- and you'll notice that Jeremy and Walt aren't getting any credit at all for their contributions.

The story of how I came to write it is an interesting one that will supposedly show up on desktoplinux.com tomorrow.

I've been lurking here all day, just to see what people would say about this and I'm gratified that most of the comments are positive. Plus some VERY good jokes about Washington invading Oregon! But we're not worried 'bout those mean ol' Cougars and Dawgs with all of their claws and fangs coming down here and hurting us -- we Oregonians are well protected with...

... uh...

... ducks... and beavers... yeah, cute little Ducks and Beavers... they'll defend us, right?

We're not really worried about opposition coming from Micro$oft Corp. on this one. First of all, they have virtually no corporate presence in Oregon and secondly, I think we've caught them by surprise. Most of the key committee members have already heard our side of the story, and the only thing Micro$oft can do now is what they did in Maryland: Plaster the Speaker of the House with lots of money and liquor to get the bill diverted to a different committee. But now that I've mentioned that here, it will be a lot more difficult for M$ to get away with.

I'd love to write a long post explaining why we put certain things in the Bill and left certain other things out, but I won't. Basically it boils down to crafting a bill THIS year that we think has a chance of actually passing. Yes, it's watered down -- on purpose. As an IT admin myself, I don't want to anger a bunch of State IT people by telling them how to do their jobs -- so the Bill has lots of loopholes and "wiggle room" so that they hopefully won't object to it very strenuously. In the meantime the IT folks who WANT to implement Open Source will be able to do so without fear of losing their jobs.

That's a pretty good start. If it becomes law (not likely this time around) and too many state IT admins thumb their noses at it... well, the Legislature doesn't like to be ignored and they can sure as heck make it stronger down the road.

Stay tuned. This is going to be a lot of fun.

Ken Barber, aka "Mr. Firewall"

It's not Only MS

[Lucas Membrane]

IBM still has mainframes in the Oregon state government. They have piles of DL1, CICS, and all of that. Because the state is budget-crunched, they are not funding wholesale rewrites, conversions, and migrations. They are incrementally going to new technologies. The most popular of these for the IT managers in the state government is Webshpere. This is not an easy place for open source to win, because it will be hard to slowly migrate and do piecewise replacements of mainframe systems without going to something else that runs under the same mainframe OS, eg Websphere.

I live in Oregon and

[PotatoHead]

am really happy to see this.

We have made a couple of IT blunders that will end up costing us quite a bit over the next few years.

DMV computer system. BTW, most of the DMV computers run win32 to access an application via terminal emulator. I have never witnessed one of these clerks use anything but that terminal emulator for what they do.

Public Water billing system. This one is pretty scary. They contract the job out to a company that delivers a poor product. There are a number of project management problems with this system that have little to do with OSS, but I can't help but wonder if fixing it would not be easier if it were OSS software.

This bill made me think a little too about return on taxpayer dollars. Lets say we do correctly spec and develop a water billing system using Open Standards and tools. Lets also say it works. Why not hire out the group that built it to other cities currently under the thumb of whatever company sold them their billing system? Seems we could get back some of our investment with services dollars while doing something good at the same time.

The more cities that use the billing system, the cheaper ongoing repairs and upgrades will be because the interest in the code is shared.

My school district is currently working hard at getting the wrinkles out of the LTSP project. Pretty cool stuff really. The schools see the dollars they spend each year and are looking hard at reductions through OSS.

Lets hope this goes somewhere?

BTW, how does one know about the hearings? They would be interesting to attend.