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Open Source in California Government
catfoo writes "California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger has recently posted the California Performance Review Report, a 2,500 page plan to overhaul state government and save $32 billion over the next five years. Part of the proposal: Open Source alternatives. Imagine that..."
The Governator should be applauded for his adoption of Open Source in the government. My only question is whether the Open Source solutions will have to be made in California, because it is my understanding that The Governator is against Hollywood productions saving money by filming up north in Canada. I think this is a *great* move to use Open Source in the government because it will help keep everything much more secure and stable than going with expensive closed source anti-solutions. I only wonder if this will mean that Allnold will be moderating his anti-Canadian rhetoric any time soon? A great deal of Open Source comes from Canada.
The dangers of knowledge trigger emotional distress in human beings.
Currently running IIS and an average uptime of about three days. See here.
BSD. Yes, California should finally use BSD more than just a research project. Finally put their spent tax money to work for them. That's my opinion.
...a serious Republican like Arnold would let something like this out. I figured he and his people would've thought Open Source software was too fast-and-loose appearing, too ideologically different to use.
I didn't think the house band in Hell would play this badly.
His political representation has nothing to do with this move. He has gone against the norm and has proposed the use of Open Source on a large scale. I'm not too sure if this is a first, but it is still revolutionary. If this goes into affect, this may mark the beginning of the true war between Micro$oft and Linux
I had no idea a government-produced document could be so clear, concise, and easy to follow. If OSS really takes off in California, maybe other states will turn to this justification. I honestly believe that if more lay-people read similar descriptions of open source software, the doors would be opened to Linux users everywhere.
Live free or die
..most governments over the world have realized the benefits of OSS.
To have a glimpse of OSS and governments all over the world, just use good ol' google
Interesting to read is CNET on Governments push open-source software
There's even a Getting Open Source Logic INto Governments (GOSLING) Community
http://efil.blogspot.com/
So SkyNet runs on BSD?
"There is no teacher but the enemy."-Mazer Rackham
- The Governor should direct the state Chief Information Officer to obtain copyright and patent protection on the code owned by the state to protect this valuable resource as an intellectual property.
While it might look like a plan to simply create a code library, the real goal is, of course, to license this valuable intellectual property:The whole suggestion is mangling of ideas, where the author treats "copyright" and "patents" as if they were the same thing. Here's my favorite paragraph:
- Computer application programs over the last few years have evolved into programming languages that are designed to be easily modified to work in various environments. For example, HTML, XML, Java, LINUX and others are written in modular formats that can be connected in different pieces of code to accomplish a variety of functions.In computer terminology, each computer operating system is called a platform and language code that can be used on more than one platform is called "cross platform code."
Where to begin with that? I hadn't realized that applications had "evolved into programming languages". What "cross platform" code has to do with anything is beyond me.They go on to claim that by using a code library - which will only need four librarians to handle all the code in the State:
- The State Chief Information Officer should issue a directive requiring all departments to follow the standards and submit all code developed to the library
we'll be able to code faster, cheaper, and stop using contractors:Fortunately, we've got a 30 day period for public comment, so folk from California might want to chime in here!
> one can say a lot about Arnold being a Republican and all
I'd actually say Arnold is a fairly traditional republican. The problem is that the republican party is
currently represented by people like Bush and Ashcroft, who are, depending on your word choice, fascist,
neo-fascist, corporatist, or somewhat more politely, neo-conservative. And before you rush to flame
or moderate over the mention of fascism, look up how mussolini defined the
ideology.
People who believe in true, traditional republican values don't have a party right now. Kerry is MUCH closer to
traditional Republicans than Bush is.
25% Funny, 25% Insightful, 25% Informative, 25% Troll
But, I don't suspect that this is something to get people like Microsoft to come down. Face it, in order to under bid open source, they'd have to give it out for free. You don't need a MS employee to come and install it, you just need a technician who knows what he's doing; likewise, some random from Red Hat doesn't have to come out and install Linux for you, some guy from MySQL AB doesn't have to come out and install MySQL, etc. You just need a random who knows what he's doing. Or in California's case, a whole lot of said randoms.
Now, that's not to say they'll work for free; they will naturally want to be put on the state payroll. Either way, you HAVE to pay somebody, and I suspect it probably won't be nearly as much as Microsoft would suggest with their "lower TCO" argument that they like to use with their examples of 7-11.
So, we'll wait and see.
And before people spec that CA will reneg on the deal, remember that Munich re-renegged.
This sig no verb.
This is the reason why you shouldn't learn about politics from the movies or TV. While I like Moore's movies because I find them to be thought provoking, the problem is that his facts are extremly one-sided.
Unless a bill is higly controversial, it's pretty much guaranteed to pass once it makes it past appropriate committees, because even though they hate to admit it, the both parties negotiate those things behind the scenes (e.i. I'll pass your bill if you pass mine). In that case, reading of the bill on the floor is merely for following the formal procedure as the vote's already been decided.
1f u c4n r34d th1s u r34lly n33d t0 g37 l41d
Nice way to copy a website. In rebuttal:
# People who use drugs deserve compassion and understanding -- unless their drug of choice is tobacco.
# Children can be exposed to years of violent and sexually-explicit imagery in popular culture with no ill effects, but an adult who is exposed to a racially insensitive remark is emotionally scarred for life.
# Banning abortions will only drive them underground, but banning guns will make them disappear.
# Teaching children about safe sex in school will make them sexually responsible, but teaching children about safe gun handling in school would make them violent killers.
# The Enron accounting scandal is an indictment of free markets as such, but UNSCAM is no big deal.
# An unemployment rate of 5.6% during the Clinton administration was unusually low, but an unemployment rate of 5.6% during the Bush administration is unusually high.
# Successful government programs should be praised and publicized -- unless the program is welfare reform.
# A work of art portraying Jesus submersed in urine is daring and avant garde, but a work of art portraying Mohammad submersed in urine would be bigoted and hateful.
# George Bush invaded Iraq for the oil, but the many profiteers from the oil-for-food program opposed the war out of principle.
# Janet Jackson's breast is protected by the First Amendment, but political advocacy ads are not.
# Scientists and engineers can't build a safe nuclear reactor, but global warming activists can accurately predict the weather.
# Education should be value-neutral, except for values like multiculturalism and environmentalism.
# We need to move beyond 9/11, so we can get back to obsessing over Vietnam.
# The Second Amendment does not protect the right to keep and bear arms, but the Fourteenth Amendment mandates race preferences.
# Fetuses do not have rights, but animals do.
# Parents should have a choice over whether their children are born, but not what school they attend.
# American corporations outsourcing jobs to poor foreign workers is bad; taxing American corporations and sending money to foreign dictators who promise to give it to poor foreigners, but actually squirrel it away in Swiss bank accounts, is good.
... it's the bureaucratic minded people involved.
I was involved in a major California project in the early 90's where my company was a sub to Lockheed. Some of you may have heard of it as "Dead Beat Dad" tracking.
The goal was to automate and establish information sharing between cities and counties in California with the additional tie-in of Federal data sharing.
The result hit the news well after I left the company; I was offered to take over the Project Management duties and I flatly refused. I worked long enough on the project in a support role to see the underlying flaws and why the project would never deliver to goal.
In order to meet the overall goal, it would require some 50+ county and several hundred city governments to literally cooperate on various details. Of course, the Los Angeles Metro area insisted on being treated like its own little kingdom.
You'll never get that many bureaucrats and policy wonks to ever cooperate toward a common goal.
Open Source won't do anything useful toward cost cutting since the technology isn't the cost load factor toward final cost.
Mod me troll, if you must, I can't help it.
"# For potential immediate savings, departments should take an inventory of software purchases and software renewals in the Fiscal Year 2004-2005 and implement open source alternatives where feasible." yes - immediate savings and finaly my tax dolloars being spent wisely. thank you Arnold
Imagine all the programming power available through senior projects and grad thesis of the University of California and the California State systems. The state of California has an awesome potential to direct that government specific open source software be created or tailored or reviewed to fit their specific needs.
Word is an example, here is another.
In Geographical Information Systems(GIS) software, one awesome resource is a set of high resolution 3D maps that cover most of the United States. This data was collected with taxpayer money and it is freely available to the public. The catch? The catch is that in order to view it, or even to convert it to a relatively open 3D mesh format like DXF, you need to own a set of products made by a closed source company called ArcView who intentionally designs their products to only work on WinNT/XP. That is fucking bullshit.
I'm supposed to be pissed about some single mom suporting two kids in a slum getting a welfare check while my government is handing over my tax dollars to publicly traded software conglomorates as an entitlement? Who made that fucked up decision? If this guy was really going to live up to his name as the Governator he should be insisting on Open Source and cutting budgets of non-compliant branches of government. If they can't comply, fuck 'em. They've lost their funding.
Screw corporate welfare.
The problem isn't that there aren't enough moderates, the problem for you is that you don't see any candidates who agree with you on (almost) every issue. But that's not a reasonable expectation, unless YOU run for office.
----- Question authority, but not ours. Hate the man, but we're not him.