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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."
It is funny how anti-government geeks can be when it matters to them and how anti-freedom they can be when it is about controlling others. In "Taxachusetts" regulations are especially violent professional opinion and private rights.
I recommend dismantling the FDA and letting professionals do their jobs -- the doctors and researchers.
I recommend dismantling the SEC and letting professionals do their jobs -- the brokers and economists.
I recommend dismantling the DOEd and letting professionals do their jobs -- the teachers and testers.
I recommend dismantling FEMA and letting professionals do their jobs -- the insurers and engineers.
Now, when someone recommends that bureaucrats set IT standards, it's tyranny!
Look at what you're wanting: free market decisions created competitively by experts. Look at what you'll get from your previous voting records: bureaucrats with the power to set legal monopolies.
Enter room. Make bed. Sleep in it.
Oh fine. You wanted to play with a new toy, so you spend all of 3 days LEARNING how to how to set up a linux webserver and lock it down. Yeah, you're a l33t IT professional all right. I'm sure those three whole days fully qualified you to implement a mission-critical solution on a totally new platform for that business.
Is/was the rest of the shop Windows-based? Did you stop to think that just MAYBE the former boss had a reason to not want to add yet another platform to the mix? And now that you've implemented the new platform, who supports it when you leave? Because you sound exactly like the type that would have fully documented everything.
And people wonder why corporate-management-types resist professional Linux solutions...
Any sect, cult, or religion will legislate its creed into law if it acquires the political power to do so.
No, they didn't do that. They decided the formats up front, not by writing a set of specification and going out to bid with it. They basically did this in such a way that it locks several vendors out of the running, the most prominent being MS. If you go read my previous post again, you see that I said the right way would be for them to draft a spec, and then go to RFP for bid.
Basically, what they did was say "any vendor could be chosen, as long as they support OpenDocument" instead of "any vendor can be chosen, as long as they support an open format". They would also define what "open format" meant. They could have done that in such a way that the only one out there that fit was OpenDocument, even. They didn't go through the set mechanisms to decide these things, either. They goofed, and now there are all kinds of unhappy things going on because of it. Hopefully MS won't get their way because of ITD's screwups.
Anyway, this is what happens when the People elect those that they like, rather than those that are qualified. It's what happens when people take the lazy choice on product rather than the best for the task. We're in this position with MS because we put them there. MS is doing no different than any other entity would do in a similar situation. It's the situation and what we allowed them to do that is the problem you have, from what I can tell.
If you want MS to not do business again, you can either encourage people to not use their products, and not use them yourself, or you can try to get their home state to revoke their corporate charter. You can't just magically decide that they can do no business. No amount of Federal anti-trust law can decide that, either. Hell, most of *those* laws are unconstitutional anyway. Regardless, this either has to happen through the market, or from the State. *I* am doing something about it, are you doing more than whining on Slashdot?
First the disclaimer: I don't live in Massachusetts (thank Ghod)
Could be worse.
You could be from Texas.
DOH!