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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.
The title of this post seems to imply that the decision to use open source should be mandatory. This is as harmful to the world of open source as it is helpful. Remember guys, it's all about decision - and the ability to use the best tool for the job. I've got a Windows workstation, a Linux server, and a Mac laptop on my desk. I feel that each OS is best suited to that particular role, and I use them accordingly.
The article states in regards to lobbying against OSS: " This is a very subtle silencing of Open Source. It is supremely disingenuous, and violates the fundamental principle of a free market: fully informed decision-making. Why shouldn't procurement officers be asked to consider Open Source software?
Fully informed decision making is far from mandatory policies.
Representatives from the City's Department of Information Technology and Telecommunications, Microsoft, as well as numerous local software companies testified.
;)
I assume that was meant to read 'Representatives from the City's Department of Information Technology and Telecommunications AND Microsoft, as well as numerous local software companies testified.'?
Not that we didn't already suspect there was evil at work in government...
It's a [______] thing...you wouldn't understand.
I hope this story hits the mainstream news wires soon. As a volunteer firefighter 10 minutes from the City line, it's depressing and disturbing to hear that the City's funds are so mismanaged that eight FDNY firehouses have to be closed. Maybe the UFA (the firefighters' union) should pick up on this story and run some numbers past the mayor and the council.
Go Tony!
Unix: Where
Why wouldn't it be a War? It's fairly evident that corporate america's view of competition is war. Particularly when they try and use tactics like forcing government places (i.e. schools) to use things like Windows over cheaper and more secure alternatives.
- tristan
The sticking point is how to define what is most suitable, and to ensure that all options are considered (often they are not).
Shrugging it off with "it's as easy as that" is rather naive - it assumes civil servants are perfectly informed and completely neutral, something that unfortunately is not the case in the real world.
Seeing how the city is almost broke and getting no support from Albany.(I live in NYC) And thinking about raising taxes or levies as they call it. I guess purchasing expensive MS products is out of the question. So I guess opensource would be the logical choice.
NYC is staring a $10 BILLION deficit this year alone and this is all they can talk about?
What a waste of everyone's time and taxpayer money. Maybe they should do something more productive, like taking classes on accounting and business management so they can solve the REAL problems facing the city.
This shouldn't even be an issue for a government.
Whatever way you look at this you have to heopt he the NY council will get the right tool for the right job. If you have a system that is old,closed source but works for months on end then why should you change it?
Also if you think about the machines on workers desktops should they all be switch to Linux as its free? I personally would say no as you will soon lose more with a drop in productivity as people have to learn something new.
Just my $0.02
Rus
Cheap UK and US VPS
I'd agree, but it's impossible to legislate common sense. Especially in a country such as the USA where it seems to be a rare commodity item.
catch (HumourFailureException e) { e.user.send("You, sir, are a humourless idiot."); }
I happen to work for NYC government, and this post makes me want to cry.
Something people need to understand - city/federal government isn't anything similar to amazon or google. They can save money using open source - but we're the government - we're not running a search engine here, or selling books on the web. Most of what any city government IT department does is desktop support for people who use computers to do their jobs, usually entering some kind of information into one database or another.
Something else to keep in mind - we're not exactly paying the big bucks on salary either, especially for NYC. The kind of people who use these computers are very frequently people on a welfare assistance program that requires you to work to get your welfare check. Most of the time, these are some pretty great people, but they didn't exactly grow up with a computer in the house... ease of use is a big issue, and I think that it's still safe to say that crown belongs to Microsoft.
The only other big thing is communication. E-mail and the like. We use Groupwise in my agency, which is much lower cost than exchange, since Novell cuts us some pretty good deals on state contract. But we need to communicate to other people - the central IT agency for the city currently mandates that we maintain an exchange gateway, since there is no anti-virus product I can find that can scan attachments in groupwise. Even if that wasn't an issue, these are fairly important political figures, and so they demand blackberries - Mayor Bloomberg is *huge* on these things, and insists that people have them, and be able to respond to any e-mail within 10 minutes. If you can tell me how to get the BES (Blackberry Enterprise Server) running on Linux, I'll give you a great big cookie. There's countless things like this.
And back to those databases? Honestly, many of them still pop open a DOS window, for crying out loud. Even more require a *terminal emulator* to connect to an IBM mainframe. I think it's safe to say that we've been keeping the software budget on the cheap. Our standard workstation runs Windows 98, with Office 97. And keep in mind, they *come with the PC's*... so we're not exactly hosing money around here.
Sorry. A little bitterness slipped through there. =)
I'll sum up. Open source is good, and we use it when we can. We have a few Linux servers in production, and have used it for DNS, DHCP, Jabber, and firewalling. But mandating open source is just a *bad* thing.
Governments should not mandate the use of a specific tool, but should mandate that the documents and files created are stored in an open (fully documented and non-proprietary) form so that legacy data cannot be held hostage and can be accessed by citizens regardless of their software preferences.
/. If the government wants us to respect the law, it should set a better example.
The title to the /. article looks like it's wrong.
Having actually RTFA, it sounds like they're not advotacting mandating open source - they're trying to *prevent* mandating *commercial software*. It sounds like MS has been lobbying that allowing open souce software would unfairly impact them, and this is people trying to fight it down.
I thought we had already discussed this with the bill in Oregon. To me the best comment out of the whole discussion is the one about making open standards mandatory rather than oss. Looks like politicians do not read /. !!
MOST of thse closed firehouses are in northern Brooklyn in East Williamsburg, Bushwick, Bed-Sty, etc... These firehouses date from when these were the most popular neighborhoods in Brooklyn (1880-1920). When many were built, southern areas like Bensonhurst still had farms. Today, this part of Brooklyn is among the worst ghetto in the city and the population is far less than it once was. Even though the population density of Bensonhurst, Bay Ridge, and the southern neighborhoods have grown tenfold, they have not received further fire coverage.
These neighorhoods will have fire coverage in line with the city average.
I believe one firehouse is being closed downtown, a relic from when more people lived there. It could be argued that trend is reversing (I mean, look at the price for an apartment on the Lower East Side, a total ghetto just 10 years ago)... But most of those firehouses just don't need to be there.
I don't read or respond to AC posts
To me, software is a tool and currently the state of affairs is much like going to work and not being able to use a free tool because the boss only wants Craftsman or Snap-on. In the real world, this legislation would be similar to saying "before paying money to someone for something, first see if it is available for free".
When put that way it seems like the legislation would be needless, but the problem is that software companies have 2 marketing/sales folks for every one developer. Most open source projects have zero marketing guys, and the only projects who have any would be corporate folks in a mixed model like redhat or mysql.
In summary (while typing on my windows98 machine) I think this sort of direction is important from the government. The most important thing about this is that the data be stored in a non-proprietary, open format that is well documented. I don't want to have to pay for (via taxes) a copy of microsoft exchange so that I can communicate with my legislative body via email when there are 20+ FREE products that can do the same thing for much less money.
Now we should get about 20 Microsoft ROI monkeys who will try and explain how microsoft product X is cheaper than product Y. Give it up, we all know that ROI stands for Really Optimistic Ignorance! L8R
I suspect large bribes*cough*grants will be paid and the whole issue will be quietly dropped.
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
I think that companies and administration need to take care on the perpetuity of the information they store and use. Backup is important but what append if you cannot read the data from you backup? And what is happening if the application says 'bad registration key'. Please call our commercial departement...' and the software company no more exist?
If you're using Open Source software you can finfd solution because you can fix the problem by yourself (or pay somebody). But if you are using propietary software you can't an may not fix the problem.
It's why I think that if you use proprietary software you need to impose that they use standardized data format so you can change from software provider and keeping you data.
"Use cases are fairy tales..." I. S. 2005
I have to add my concern here. I am all for open source software, products, services, etc. I use linux at work. I have used linux of several years now. I have watched it mature into a robust server OS, and a bloated workstation OS. I enjoy working with it, and other than the GUI being slow with all but a few WMs, I enjoy it. This includes kernel rebuilds, driver hunts, rpm nightmares and the like.
That said, I am not sure how I feel about mandating OSS. Why? Because this economy is horrible right now. If you are in IT, and have a job, don't think of quitting anytime soon, if you want to stay in IT. Jobs are cut all over, and workloads are heaped on those that do have jobs. But IT isn't the only sector hit. I am speaking of NYC looking to lay off 1000s of people soon. If they 'mandate' OSS, then they can use that same purchasing principal to hiring people to work on those systems- at very low wages (hell, maybe even internships). Doesn't make sense, right? Well, it appears that in the business world, if they purchase a very expensive system, companies think they need high end good IT people to work on them. Our industry benefits from this by getting just wages. But if the system is dirt cheap or free, then they look at that and think 'well, we cut costs in IT here, let's keep our costs low and bring in a qualified person at a lower wage'. They hire at a lower wage. And, they are less likely to try to use IT to help the business make money. No incentive. IT becomes the money pit businesses claim it is.
Now, this isn't typical in all businesses, mostly in large businesses and governments. Small to medium businesses usually understand (even if they aren't too thrilled about it) the costs required to upkeep systems, and are more open minded to getting low cost solutions and hiring IT people at decent (not great) wages.
But most of those firehouses just don't need to be there.
First, that's simply not true. Fire houses, at least in NYC, tend to be spaced in such a way that minimizes response time for the whole city, not just one neighborhood, regardless of population density or income level. Traffic is still traffic. Also, if the rig in your local firehouse is out on a job, and you report a fire in your house, the engine that reports comes from the next-nearest firehouse, and the entire battalion, and eventually the entire borough, fans out to fill the gaps. Fewer fire houses farther apart breaks the whole system down, and can, in theory, lead to higher response times borough-wide.
But besides all that, you're missing my point. This is a way to save the city a few bucks. What's better -- closed firehouses and slot machines in the city (another wonderful Bloomberg idea), or open firehouses and open source?
Unix: Where
Democratic Implications: I don't know if I would phrase it as "democratic implications", but his point about having data formats be open is excellent. The second argument about transparency in voting software is a bit of a stretch. People already use proprietary software for all kinds of important government functions, and the republic still stands. Presumably if someone really pressured a company to have their e-voting source code examined by an independent person, they could allow it without going full "open source".
Privacy: This might be a good buzzword, but a bad argument. Why can't open source software transmit or leak privacy data? The vague monopoly reference I suppose will play well in a state that was one of the parties to the DOJ Microsoft lawsuit.
Cost: I think it is best not to focus on cost. First of all because the price of software is such a small part and there are more support options for some proprietary software. But mostly because institutions already consider cost when making buying decisions.
R&D/Technology Transfer: Doubtful. Telling a government to buy such-and-such because of a "general good to society/it's the right thing to do" argument is not going to fly in a time of budget crunch.
Education: Not a bad argument, but still not something governments can probably afford to worry about right now. Perhaps you could argue that the programmers working for the city/state itself could benefit from seeing the source.
Job Creation: NO NO NO. Don't say this. It will not work to argue that the open source industry, with its share prices around $1, is a better way to create jobs then the closed source one with Microsoft, Oracle, etc.
Security: This is a good argument, but badly stated. 1) the "more eyeballs" theory of open source code quality is not proven 2) The quote in question relates to *banning* open source software and apparently simply refers to the fact that open source applications such as sendmail are heavily used by the DoD. I think a much better way to approach security is to talk about security of the *data* stored by open source, because it is easier to access.
So in summary -- the real argument should be for open data formats, not open source. That's the argument that Microsoft is going to have a hard time with.
- adam
Ghetto areas have the most fires. Today few houses in good neighborhoods go up in flames because of new saftey features.
Poor areas, areas with lots of abandoned building in particular, are vulnerable to kids and lunatics who get a thrill out of setting things on fire. When abandoned buildings go up, they have a tendency to spread quickly and create problems.
In middle class areas, 70% of firemen's duties are acting as first responders and paramedics for anything from car accidents to gas leaks and medical emergencies. the other 30% is divided between code inspections and fires.
I'd be hesitant to close firehouses in a city the size of new york, particularly when you consider the size and waste of other city agencies...
Conformity is the jailer of freedom and enemy of growth. -JFK
The author writes very clearly, but focuses on the issues important to the Open Source community, not on the issues important to the audience.
Democratic implications? It's a wonderful ideal, an I support it and I'm sure some of the audience does, but if that's one of the first arguments you offer, you look pretty weak. Maybe I'm misjudging the audience.
Educate the next generation of IT professionals? That's wonderful, but is the user base geeks-in-training or city workers? Even in schools, most students -- believe it not -- aren't studying comp. sci. Heck, I'm an IT professional, and the hassles of Linux aren't worth it for my desktop either.
Privacy? Few people have the obsession with it that is found (rightfully, I think) on Slashdot.
Their concern is price and performance. Focus on the markets where OSS can kill.
* Provide software to all city employees that perform one task, for free
* Sure, some managers need Excel, and someone writing a manual might want something proprietary, but you can provide software to all those employees writing letters and memos for free
* Back end basic infrustructure -- You only need proprietary software in specialized cases. E-mail is a commodity.
etc. I don't know much about the needs of city gov't, so I'm only guessing above. But I doubt their interests align so neatly with the open source community. The point of marketing and sales is to learn your customers needs and address them. OSS serves the developers, not the customers, but don't be surprised when the customers aren't interested.
...job security for Union Members trumps fire safety...
No, job security for UFA members is fire safety. More firefighters on duty means quicker response time. Quicker response time means more lives saved.
This isn't quantum physics. You cook a turkey at 350 degrees (Fahrenheit). Your average house fire cooks somewhere around 1200 degrees. The quicker the FD gets to that fire and gets people out, the greater the chance of survival for the occupants. The farther the firefighters have to travel to get to the fire scene -- especially in NYC traffic -- the lower the occupants' chance of survival.
As a side note, IIRC, the city has already closed the Bronx borough fire inspector's office. This means more arsons will go undetected, because lots of evidence can be destroyed in the 20 minutes it'll take for an inspector from Manhattan to trek up there. That means higher home insurance rates for everyone, not just NYC or even NYS residents.
Unix: Where
I had someone send me a schedule in MS Word format.
I opened it and looked at it on KWord.
After some disagreement about what it said, I took it to MS Word, and sure enough, the document was completely different. I think I was seeing something that had been deleted and replaced, actually.
Likewise, equations, pictures, tables, all do not translate successfully, regularly. Shoot, MS Word can't even read old MS Word files, and sometimes can't read new MS Word files, you would think that they have the full source code available within their company, anyhow.
If I were directing a government, I would INSIST that no public document be kept in MS Word format. MS Word format is not stable, and documents are not even safe if you buy the licensed software.
[P.S. : I have had the same trouble with AbiWord and OpenOffice -- but I uninstalled those on my system, because they are slower than KWord.]
Correct Horse Battery Staple: 72 bits of entropy. Enter "Correct H" into google. When it generates the phrase, that's
Most procurement systems are biased against open-source software. They are designed specifically to cater to commercial entities. For instance, many bids that go out are mandated by policy to include certain types of software, often name-specific.
Also, by the very fact they go out to bid indicates money must be spent. Software is not represented by a commercial entity is at a disadvantage.
The problem with a monopoly is that it warps the market space-time around it, like a black hole. Decisions are made not by "value propositions," but by control of the distribution points. History (and internal memos released during the anti-trust trial) shows that Microsoft is a master manipulator: of public opinion, of the stock market (if you discount the money they print as stock options, MS is not very profitable at all), and especially of the distribution chain.
The recent spate of proposed local- and state-level legislation merely provides an alternative to commercial-only procurements. There is no "forcing down their throats."
Microsoft is to software what Budweiser is to beer.