Challenge to Transfer IT Power in MA

Andy Updegrove writes "Linda Hamel, the General Counsel of the Massachusetts department that is struggling to establish ODF for state use, has prepared a challenge to those in the State Senate that would strip State CIO Peter Quinn of his power to set IT policy. Her analysis graphically describes why a task force of political appointees has no business telling more than 2000 IT professionals what to do."

Comments

I blinked...

[Seraphnote]

So the ODF opponents couldn't win their arguments to stick with MS formats, so instead they try restructuring the Government of MA??? This is just plum sick!

As a MA resident....

[superid]

....I just want them to get their collective scat together. I am on the board of a non-profit organization and I have to file "articles of amendment" using a state form. It is a pdf. It was not authored as a fill-in form and as far as I can tell it is not editable in any way (I made a half hearted attempt with a full version of Adobe 5)

I asked the office of the secretary of state if there was an alternative format since I could not edit the document for electronic submittal. I was told (actual quote) "Our only suggestion would be to locate a typewriter; most likely at your local public library."

What I think is quite 'kewl' about this is

[zappepcs]

that no matter what decision is made in Mass., it *WILL* affect similar decisions around the globe. Even if the 'govermment' of Mass. decides to do things in a completely hair-brined way, others will see it for what it is. Not every state has a setup where the position of state CIO is in question, or could be.

The simple fact that this is becoming a 3-ring circus of zealous charicatures means that it will continue to be an issue around the globe for longer than it takes Mass. to cash the checks from Microsoft. More likely than not, if MS wins the 'contract' battle, another virus will put paid to the value of that decision. Even if ODF is not firmly established in the Mass. IT arena, it is gaining ground elsewhere, and this circus just gives more publicity to the reasons for having ODF in the first place.

extremism

[eobanb]

EVERY SINGLE COMMENT 'dada21' makes appears to be anarcho-capitalist in some way, for good, for bad.

The 'free market' --in this case, everyone stuck on Microsoft proprietary formats--IS NOT FREE IN ANY WAY.

If it was up to dada21 the USA would abandon all of its social programs. Does he understand that this is not the state governments telling companies what to do, it is their own damn internal policy?

"Taxachusetts"? Ever been to Europe, buddy? Alabama (failing schools, shitty roads, ridiculous poverty) is not the centre of the universe.

Nice troll.

Re:Yeah, this is important...

[Chaos1]

Regardless of your opinion on the subjects, there is the war in Iraq, Social Security, Health Care, Education, the Economy and about a dozen other topics that deserve some attention before anyone should be cusading for a new document format.

I'm not exactly sure what the state of MA IT Director has to do with any of these topics, but choosing a standardized document format would be right up his alley. Unless of course MA's Head IT Guy has a Super-Gov-MegaBot which can cure everyone, end wars, fix SS, Education and the Economy in one fell swoop...

Big Problem: Transfer Power from Local to State

[Nova Express]

First the disclaimer: I don't live in Massachusetts (thank Ghod) and haven't actually read all the material involved. On the surface it just looks like the transfer of power from one set of non-elected bureaucrats to another set of non-elected bureaucrats. But this tidbit caught my eye

I have previously noted that the amendment would not only take control of procurement and standards policy away from the State agencies directly involved in architecting, buying, deploying and training, but would also take the same power away from the heretofore autonomous municipalities of Massachusetts as well - exercising hegemony, in other words, over thousands of town halls, libraries, first responders, and much more.

For me, if true, this is the deal-breaker and sufficient reason to oppose the transfer: it violates the principles of federalism and subsidiarity, i.e., that power should always devolve to the lowest level of government capable of carrying it out, or to the people themselves. Any transfer from local government, which tends to be more accesable to actual citizens, to higher echelons of non-elected bureaucratic elites, is Bad News. (Absolute centeralization of power corrupts absolutely. For more on that, see the UN Oil-for-Food scandal.) That is reason enough alone to oppose the measure, regardless of any other issues involved.

Re:Big Problem: Transfer Power from Local to State

[general_re]

it violates the principles of federalism and subsidiarity, i.e., that power should always devolve to the lowest level of government capable of carrying it out, or to the people themselves.

That's certainly not a principle of the American federal system. The state is the unit of sovereignty, historically speaking - power flows to local governments from the state, not to the state from local governments as you assert. Municipalities have as much or as little legal authority as the state grants them - no more and no less. In that light, this move is perfectly in accord with American traditions of federalism - the state of Massachusetts is simply retaking a power it almost certainly granted to local governments in the first place.

This should not be construed as an argument that it's necessarily a wise move, merely that the principles of federalism are not somehow discordant with it. You can certainly also argue that power should flow the way you wish it to, from the bottom up, but that's definitely not how it is now, nor is that how it's ever been.

Re:Abandon all hope...

[Kaboom13]

The situation is different. When the government appoints people to the FDA, they don't pick a random yahoo off the street. They pick doctors and people experienced in medical research. They pick economists for the SEC, and educators for the DOE, etc. Sometimes cronyism happens and they dont pick the best possible candidates, but they still have qualifications in the feild. If you read the article, you would see this task force is made up of

And who would make up this task force? That would be two industry representatives (one with a telecom background, and one with IT experience) and the balance being the following State officials: the CIO, the Supervisor of Records, the Archivist, the Treasurer, the Secretary of State, and the Auditor (or, in the case of the last three officers, his or her designee). In short, there would be an eight person task force, only three members of which would be sure to have any relevant knowledge at all, and all of whom would have full time, or more than full time, jobs in addition to their duties on the task force.

In other words, almost entirely people with no qualifactions in IT. Those people are supposed to decide on all the tech used in Massachusetts, Hardware, software, the works (the relevant duties are all quoted in the article). That would be a big job for 8 full time IT professionals, much less a group of amateurs.
In this case, the IT professionals have a legitimate grievance, not that they are somehow being oppressed, but that this legislation is going to be a nightmare for all IT employees in Mass. and it's citizens. This is a case of politicians legislating something they dont understand. They are showing they have no respect for the IT profession and no understanding of the IT requirements of a state.

Scope creep?

[Ashtead]

So basically, from the featured article, an "amendment" to an economic bill can result in rather severe changes to how the various parts of the MA government can operate? Somehow this seems familiar, we've seen these things happen before in the EU and elsewhere in the US when certain big mono- and oligopolists wants something which is not quite within scope of the currently proposed legislation, something that would be more obviously suspect if proposed as a separate bill.

Perhaps it is time for general ban "riders" and "amendments" that change the overall meaning of some proposed regulation, unless their consequences have been evaluated, or perhaps just an overall ban: if a bill is to be changed or augmented, it has to be cancelled and reintroduced from scratch. Something needs to be done about rampant law-making in general, this part of governments have been allowed to run riot and overwhelm the judicial processes. In MA as elsewhere.

Of course, this would just be another law, adding to the mess...

Re:Abandon all hope...

[mr100percent]

The fifth amendment protects a person under oath from incriminating himself, i.e. a right to remain silent. Microsoft didn't do anything of the kind; they lied in a court of law by presenting "evidence" of how much slower a IE-less Windows ran, and the prosecution proved and forced them to admit that the video was doctored. Self-incrimiation and trying to lie under oath are two very different things.

Also, I reject your fallacy of trying to redefine what I say as some sort of land analogy. I said nothing of the kind. See my reply in the cousin thread.

Just like any company

[cryogenix]

Most companies, people who have called the IT department because they could not figure out how to turn on their computers will set IT policy or will mandate technology shifts because they got sold by someone that sounded good. Meanwhile, the IT people who actually know about the stuff are forced to impliment bad decisions knowing it will usually cost more and mean more work for them.

Re:temper tantrum

[drivekiller]

You are so off the mark I hardly know where to begin. The CIO is appointed, get over it. There are lots and lots of people hired by state government to carry out the business of the state. It would be a disaster if a state CIO had to raise funds and campaign for office.

The decision to adopt ODF was not an arbitrary CIO decision. A process was followed to identify the needs of the Commonwealth. Then there was a panel composed of industry representatives, (Microsoft, Sun, Novell, Redhat and others were all there.) PDF and ODF were determined to be the best fit for document formats that meet the needs of the Commonwealth. Being open formats, they are well documented, they will be readable generations from now, and their openness ensures that Massachusetts can accept bids from a variety of vendors. There's also a big piece about converting data from legacy systems.

As for the elected officials being concerned with the document format --- consider if the IT department does nothing. Within a few years everyone will be creating MSXML formatted documents, with no input from elected officials, and what's more to the point, with absolutely no examination of the implications of that format change.

"If the ELECTED officials want to form a task force of qualified industry specialists to analyze a change in THEIR state that will affect the people they represent they are not only entitled to do so, but should." -- Did you read the article? The task force consists of 8 people, possibly 3 of whom will know anything about technology. Of those 3, two will be representatives from industry -- one in IT, one in telecom. The remaining 5 people all have other full time duties. The point of the fine article is that the CIO is being strongly supported by the General Counsel to the department that will be affected by the ODF document policy. (In case you didn't realize it, the move to ODF was a policy decision within the Executive Branch, the response is coming in the form of an amendment being considered by the Legislative Branch-- an amendment which, according to general counsel, will effectively paralyze the Commonwealth.

So getting back on track here, keep the following points in mind. (1) Mass. ITD did something well within their mandate, and they did it in a public and proper way. (2) A member of the Mass. legislature became upset or fearful, perhaps due to influence from a large corporation's lobbyists (3) In response, an amendment with far-reaching effects on the commonwealth's ability to conduct business was attached to an unrelated bill. (4) A department whose job is to point out the implications of government decisions has weighed in against the amendment.

In summary, this is a good thing. Whether you are for or against vendors actually meeting the stated needs of their customers, you must agree that an ill-considered amendment to an unrelated bill is not the best way for a legislator to deal with his fear of change.

Re:So what?

[killjoe]

The salient point here is that the CIO makes a decision that MS does not like. MS then "meets" with the executive branch and exchanges "goodwill" and a few nudges and winks. Next think you know the executive branch wants to strip the CIO of the power to make technological decisions.

If I was a MA resident I would be extremely alarmed.

Re:Abandon all hope...

[bit01]

In Massachussetts, what percentage of the people are using Microsoft Word or Adobe PDF, and what percentage of them are using software that support ODF?

So what you're saying is that because we use a closed format today we should use it tomorrow. And because we use it tomorrow we should use it the next day? And so on ad infinitum?

Sometimes you need to make a short term investment for long term gain. This is one of those times.

The same applies to any organisation with vendor lockin, on an upgrade train or lacking needed transparency.

---

Paid marketers are the worst zealots.

That's just silly

[NickFortune]

If Peter Quin was just interested in getting a discount on MS software, I think the deal would have been done by now. If he was interested in a little private graft, ditto.

Think of how much it must have cost MS to "influence" all the people needed so that restructuring a state legislature isn't dismissed out of hand. To say nothing of the PR groups, the pay-for-pay reporting (mentioning no names, Boston Globe) and all the rest of it.

Anything Quinn might have wanted - it would have been cheaper to just give it to him. The fact that this wrangle is still going on suggests that this isn't about negotiated discounts or personal profit. Especially since Microsoft's preserving their highly lucrative office software monopoly with its 75% profit margins remains a far more plausible explanation.

Oh, and speaking of the Boston Globe, did you know they printed complete retraction of the smear job they did on Qinn? Right in the back where no-one would see it, but printed nevertheless. With all the current attempts to smear Quinn, I think any genuine dirt would have surfaced by now.

Lacking any actual wrongdoing, the best they can manage is cheap innuendo

s/executive/legislative/g

[CrazedWalrus]

Sorry, but I need to pick a nit. It seems that the nudge-n-wink was directed to the legislature, in an effort to deprive the executive branch of their IT autonomy. I know people here are eager to dump on "this administration", whomever that may be at the time, but this time, "this administration" are our heroes.

I laughed

[twitter]

[M$] couldn't win their arguments to stick with MS formats, so instead they try restructuring the Government of MA???

People joke that Louisiana is the northernmost bananna republic. I hope not to have to welcome Mass to the club, but turnabout is fair play.

The more I think about it, the more Microsoft looks like the United Fruit Company. The only differences are that the United Fruit Company actually built real infrastructure, like railroads, and you can only grow a bananna in the tropics. It looks like you can farm PCs and treat their users like peons at any latitude.

Let's see if a great US state with some of the best IT staff and best universities for IT in the world can resist bribery and persue excellence. If they can't, no one can. That's what this is all about. The world is watching and M$ is desperate to "demonstrate" that IT experts want M$ junk.

What's funny is that their demonstration proves only that M$ is used only because it's forced on people by idiots.