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Peter J. Quinn Investigated for Travel Omissions
tadelste writes to tell us O'Reilly is reporting that a recent story in the Boston News about Peter J. Quinn is nothing more than a desperate attempt to slant public opinion in the Massachusetts OpenDocument frenzy. While we have documents showing Microsoft's lobbyists paying for big trips for the former House Majority Leader and his family to go to England and Scotland, Mr. Quinn seems to be getting the spotlight for incomplete travel records. From the article in question: "On most of the trips, Quinn said, his travel and other expenses were paid for by the sponsors of the conferences. On two of the trips -- to Tucson and Washington, D.C. -- Quinn paid his own way, according to state records and an interview with Quinn."
Microsoft is already paying for development of an ODF converter for MS Office. They'd rather feed smear stories to the press and buy off politicians than give their customers what they want, but they'll readily support OpenDocument if they start losing those customers.
Either way, it looks like the days of the Office monopoly are numbered, and the 75% monopoly rent profit margin too. Micosoft only has itself to blame if it doesn't want to compete on a level playing field.
Given what I know about working for Mass, I strongly suspect that's the case.
<begin anecdote>Back in my last job, I did some consulting for the MBTA. There was no problem with traveling within the state on project business. However, traveling out of the state on project business was a big deal, requiring several levels of approval. At one point we needed to fly to Colorado to conduct some testing - it would have cost several $million to test locally, and several $thousand to test in CO. I think it took something like 2 months for the approval to come through. Since the testing wasn't too time-critical, we just waited for the T to give us approval.
<end anecdote>Given my experience working for the state, and my experience going to conferences, I don't find it hard to believe that Mr. Quinn may have been running against conference registration deadlines, hotel room deadlines, and airfare deadlines - I suspect that he followed proper procedures when he could, but if there was a time crunch (maybe it took too long for a gov't bean counter to approve the first of 12 forms), he may have just asked his boss (and council as TFA noted) for verbal approval.
Frankly, as a Mass taxpayer, I'm happy that state workers are going to conferences. Of course if it was a golfing junket, it would be a different matter. But (IMNSHO) technical people need to go to conferences to expose themselves to news ideas, to meet contacts, and, yes, to schmooze with vendors.
He's the CIO of Massachusetts. A real stand-up guy, I translated for him for three days when he came to Japan. Committed to open source, very concerned about open document formats specifically because he thinks governmental organizations need access to documents in perpetuity and shouldn't lock-in to a vendor.
Help poke pirates in the eyepatch, arr.
... bit if they're determined to screw honest people over this badly, send him to Canada. We like the cut of his jib.
I sent the following to the Boston Globe Editor:
Microsoft's campaign against industry standards has sunk to new lows. Stephen Kurkjian's Nov 26th muck-raking article on Massachusetts CIO Peter Quinn paints Quinn's personal dedication and industry outreach as potential scandal and corruption. Is a $543 trip to a conference on digital governance by the Commonwealth's CIO really worthy of a front-page article?
Kurkjian writes "a galaxy of computer companies are listed as sponsors of many of the conferences", but then notes that Quinn "did not list any of them on his authorization forms or the business relationships any of them have with the Commonwealth." It was the conference organizers, not sponsors, who paid for Quinn's trips. Should Quinn also be required to list every conference's advertisers and their business relationships with the Commonwealth? That would certainly be a galaxy of paperwork!
Quinn is doing his job. Moving to the OpenDocument format is the equivalent of trying to convert the Commonwealth of Massachusetts to standardized printer paper. He should be praised for his dedication to the Commonwealth in the face of an 800lb industry gorilla, not dragged through the mud for attending industry conferences.
http://plausible.coop