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."

Comments

Guts

[Doc Ruby]

At worst, if Quinn got free vacations at OSS conferences paid by OSS corporations, it will show that at least OSS corporations are fighting proprietary corporations like Microsoft in an arena where victories are won every day: buying political decisions. The OSS revolution is a practical one, not an ideological one (though some ideologues like Stallman can be useful). Maybe once the tiny sector of government that is its technology formats and software is open and transparent, we'll have some luck fixing the political part. Until then, I remember the fortune cookie "it's best not to know how laws and sausages are made".

Re:Hopefully, this is misunderstanding, but may no

[Compholio]

I'm huge Open Source, linux, anti-Microsoft (in the "I-wish-they-would-cut-out-the-monopolistic-abuse- crap" sense), but not at the cost of ethics.

Then I suggest you read both articles carefully, the boston globe one doesn't even list any violations that make sense in reality-land. For example:

Even though a galaxy of computer companies are listed as sponsors of many of the conferences, Quinn did not list any of them on his authorization forms or the business relationships any of them have with the Commonwealth.

If you've ever been to a tech conference you know that the list of sponsors is immense, it would not make sense to list a single company on that list because it is the conference itself (not its sponsors) who decide to pay for your visit when you're a guest. The globe article even points out earlier in the story that the guy's legal advisor didn't know exactly what he needed to do with regards to listing who paid for the trip - and later in the story it notes that when his expenses were paid by a single company he did list the name of the company.

Re:Who the hell

[ClickOnThis]

here a quote from Bernard Golden of IDG: Microsoft has reached out to a couple of politicians in Massachusetts and gotten them to object to the process of this decision. The politicians have raised issues that mandating ODF would also mandate use of OpenOffice and that OpenOffice's open source license would mean that any commercial product that attempted to comply with the mandate would also become open source.

Wow, two FUD-bites in one quote: (1) mandating ODF would mandate (i.e., force) use of OpenOffice; and (2) vendors that create products compliant with ODF are forced to become open-source. Obviously 200% bull, but an impressive serving of it.

Not that I doubt the veracity of what you're saying, but do you possibly have a link for this quote? Really, it belongs in a FUD gallery somewhere.

a political liability for Gov. Mitt Romney

[miked98]

This story is a caricature of a purposefully leaked, politically motivated hatchet job that -- to the glee of the "unnamed sources" who served it up -- got past the Thanksgiving rag tag staff and onto Page One.

It's unclear what this very public investigation about is even about. Misuse of taxpayer dollars? Quinn paid *his own way* to attend two of these technical conferences and was an invited expenses-paid speaker for others. Cozy relationships with corporate sponsors? The article notes that his expenses-paid conferences were sponsored by a "galaxy of computer companies" -- e.g. the free market. Not filling out the proper paperwork? Since when is improper paperwork Page One material? (Maybe Quinn never got the memo about those TPS reports).

So what is Peter J. Quinn guilty of? Being a political liability for Governor and Presidential Hopeful Mitt Romney. Having one of your employees piss off the bosses of the world's richest software company is no way to kick off your 2008 campaign fundraising drive.

We Simply Sought His Advice

[Uggy]

I'm the CTO of Altamente, mentioned in the article. We invited Peter to the conference in Puerto Rico simply because we felt that the government of Puerto Rico needed to hear what Massachusetts was doing with regard to IT. How simple is that? We don't do any business in/with Mass.

It was a great opportunity for one government to share with another some of the challanges and difficulties of budgeting information technology and one possible solution that Peter's office had proposed. Since we're an open source company, it makes perfect sense that we like what he was doing with OpenDocument.

It's just a stupid witch hunt. His trip to Brazil, Puerto Rico and most of the far flung conferences were paid by people who wanted to hear what he had to say, what he was doing, and how they could do the same. As many people wanted to listen to Dr. Edgar David Villanueva from Peru, lots of people want to hear what Peter Quinn has to say as well. Same deal.