Slashdot Mirror
New York City Examines Law Mandating Open Source
An anonymous submitter writes "The New York Council held a hearing on the 'SOFTWARE WARS.' The Select Committee on Technology in Government, chaired by Council Member Gale A. Brewer (D-Manhattan), held a public hearing Tuesday on software procurement practices by state and local governments. Representatives from the City's Department of Information Technology and Telecommunications, Microsoft, as well as numerous local software companies testified. Newsforge is carrying the testimony at the hearing of Tony Stanco, Director of The Center of Open Source & Government." Newsforge and Slashdot are both part of OSDN.
I keep wondering why they weren't considering open-source in the first place. After all, if big companies like IBM are using open-source software now, you'd think the IT staff at a large organization like a state or large city government wouldn't be in the dark about open source. If students can do it, shouldn't IT pros?
The problem seems to be that too many politicians and civil servants are incompetent and poorly qualified and if they're not presently capable of making a well-informed decision without legislation, then they're not going to make a good decision with legislation. Forcing them to consider open-source is going to confuse these morons. They'll want to call "open-source" in to make a powerpoint presentation, and will become quite confused when they can't find a number in the phone book.
To use open-source software, you need a qualified IT staff, and if you have a qualified IT staff, you're probably already considering (not necessarily using, but at least considering) open-source.
I think some firings. some better hiring practices, and perhaps requiring more basic computer knowledge of bureaucrats in general would go a lot farther than any of this legislation will. I do believe that open-source has general advantages for government, so I think a general pro-open position is a good idea, I just think that until we see some other changes, it's not going to do much.
I'm from Toronto. I'm not sure how many of you saw our mayor interviewed on TV the other day about SARS. If you did, you'll understand why I think the people running our cities are morons. Our city staff managed to blow insane amounts of money on computer services that we never even received. These people don't know shit about computers. They just know that their brother-in-law or their golf partner or whoever owns a computer consulting company, so they give him a massive contract and then they never think about computers again until they get busted by the auditor.
This thread should be titled "New York City Examines Law Mandating Linux". Why does Linux continually hide under the guise of open source? If Windows was open source this article would take on a somewhat curious tone right? I mean, we'd be confused about whose open source they suggest. Ok, so they should use open (as in readable) software, that just makes sense right? What about open source applications that run on a closed source OS? Would that be ok? If not, should the entire hardware platform be open too? You need open source hardware spec too? Since Linux -is- the only open source platform, there's no reason to minc words. Say what you mean.
+2 cents.