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Texas Senate Proposes a Budget With a No-Vista-Upgrades Rider
CWmike writes "The Texas state Senate yesterday gave preliminary approval to a state budget that includes a provision forbidding government agencies from upgrading to Windows Vista without written consent of the legislature. Sen. Juan Hinojosa, vice chairman of the Finance Committee, proposed the rider because 'of the many reports of problems with Vista ... We are not in any way, shape or form trying to pick on Microsoft, but the problems with this particular [operating] system are known nationwide,' Hinojosa said during a Senate session debating the rider (starting at 4:42 of this RealMedia video stream). 'And the XP operating system is working very well.' A Microsoft spokeswoman said in response, 'We're surprised that the Texas Senate Finance Committee adopted a rider which, in effect, singles out a specific corporation and product for unequal treatment. We hope as the budget continues to go through the process, this language will be removed.'"
I'm sure Microsoft can pay to have that done.
With Windows 7 just around the corner, it makes far more sense to wait for the first service pack of Windows 7, then to upgrade XP to a soon to be replaced OS.
Wow, sent an e-mail as suggested when clicking on "use classic" banner, and got a fast response that addressed my msg
As much as I'm unimpressed by Vista(and dread the eventual move of the PC side of the operation I work for) and amused by this bill, it is a stupid idea.
It is perfectly acceptable, indeed kind of the whole point, for legislatures to make laws, and handle budget matters, and this would give them the legal authority to do something like this; but that doesn't make micromanagement a good practice. If Texas' state IT minions are so incompetent that they need politicians to tell them what software to use, based on anecdotal evidence, then they should be fired at once. If not, then they should be treated like reasonably responsible adults, and allowed to do their jobs to the best of their expertise.
Broad requirements like "thou shalt use only open, interoperable systems" are perfectly appropriate; but "thou shalt not use item X" is just stupid, even if I happen to dislike item X.
Several/many Federal agencies already have done this as a agency-wide policy, i.e. "XP is fine, we're not officially approving or allowing Vista purchases". (Though I approve in general I'd prefer if it was left to IT in agencies to make the choice, not legislative mandate).
Looks good so far, reasonable, tech savvy-- he just wants to ensure everyone uses stable, functioning software, and---
*facepalm*
UTF-8: There and Back Again
Why bother upgrading to Vista at all. Just wait another two years or so until Windows 7 comes out and either upgrade machines at that time or purchase new machines which will come with Windows 7 installed.
If it would cost a lot to upgrade from XP to 7, then it's time to either switch to Linux or at least start talking about it so that Microsoft will help make the transition available for a more reasonable cost.
Considering that we're at a point where computational power is considered to be sufficient or in excess for normal, non-power users, in two years this should allow the government to purchase some low-end machines that have more than enough power to take care of the work that will probably be done on most of them.
Umm. Only if "producing a product that some customers believe isn't worth buying" is now a crime...
As I said in another comment, I think that this is a bad piece of law. However, the legislature has the legal authority to write up the budget, that is, and historically has been, one of the most important legislative powers. "Don't buy X without special permission" is a perfectly licit thing to put in a budget.
If they were trying to make the sale of Vista illegal in Texas, you'd have a stronger case, though probably not strong enough; but exercising budgetary control to not buy something is totally licit.
If they are enterprise, they most likely have a MOLP, which if its current they paid for Vista anyway.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
So, does this person actually know anything about operating systems? Or is this "my friend heard from a friend heard from that friendly Mac guy" type of silliness?
I mean, where I work we're not upgrading to Vista either. But that was a decision made by IT, after actually looking into it. I highly doubt the politicians have any idea of what they're talking about.
Remember, next month they could just as easily say "no upgrading to Linux, everyone knows that's socialism!" It'd have just as much research behind it as this legislation does.
-- "So they told me that using the download page to download something was not something they anticipated." - Bill Gates
The problem is that there's really no reason to "upgrade" to Vista, and at twice the price for slower speeds and performance, not to mention the mandatory RAM and video card costs, this is a wise budgetary precaution.
Just don't mandate netbooks - they have a tendancy to walk away.
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
If any agency already has a contract their law means diddly squat. The historical meaning of bill of attainder is to try and convict a person or group in the legislature. It may apply to a product if it can be seen as inflicting punishment on Microsoft.
No bill of attainder, ex post facto law, retroactive law, or any law impairing the obligation of contracts, shall be made.
Texas's constitution still has the post WWII eugenics provisions, how quaint.
I'd go on a Vegan diet but the delivery time from Vega is too long. --brownkitty
It's not a micromanagement choice when he's responsible for a government that has perhaps 50,000 workstations, each needing a $200-300 license. Conservatively. I have no idea how many workstations the entire state educational system has, but I'd bet 50,000 is a lowball estimate. But still, that's $10 million, minimum, for an upgrade. For an educational agency's budget, that's not small potatoes. That could pay for the salaries of 57 primary school teachers for the next 5 years. The fact that the upgrade has questionable value for the educational agencies in the state is a supporting point! Why spend that much money for something with no real return on investment? Or, we could just ignore the huge economic question here and cry "evil microsoft!" or "how dare they single out a single company!" Yes... Those arguments make so much more sense than it's uneconomical.
#fuckbeta #iamslashdot #dicemustdie
As an IT manager for a small govt org in Texas, it would not surprise me one bit if this was not actually requested by some of my more politically influential colleagues.
I and my group are avoiding Vista like the plague, mostly because of the unnecessary expense of the hardware upgrades it'll require, but also additionally because of the additional end-user training it'll require.
We're having a hell of a time just getting our users to recover their productivity after the Office 2007 mess that was rammed down our throats, and most of them still hate Office 2007 with a bloody passion. We do not wish to repeat this ordeal with a changeout of the whole desktop operating system anytime soon.
But I guess it's harder to disallow a specific product via the same method.
No texas government agency shall install an operating system that has a name starting with a "V" and ends in "ista," from a company that rhymes with "schmicrosoft."
What they tell their constituents is different from real life. Neo-cons, like Tom Delay was, LOVE to be paid to change their opinion. In fact, I would not be surprised if large amounts of funds show up in Texan pols re-elect funds, with the disappearance of that language.
Actually it isn't. Moving From XP to Vista is a big issue, especially if you have a lot of legacy apps.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
"If any agency already has a contract their law means [nothing]."
You are saying that if there is a contract with a company, and the company delivers a poor product, the government can do nothing? Don't forget that Microsoft top managers deliberately and knowingly delivered an unfinished product, as court records have shown. The costs of dealing with the hassles of Vista are far greater than the price of Vista. (And Microsoft has done that before: Windows ME and DOS 4.0 are just two examples.)
The following quote may need translation for those who are unfamiliar with habitual abuse:
"A Microsoft spokeswoman said in response, 'We're surprised that the Texas Senate Finance Committee adopted a rider which, in effect, singles out a specific corporation and product for unequal treatment.' "
Translation:
"We're a corporation. Corporations should be allowed to be as abusive as they want, without comment from you political peons who are far below us in power and hierarchy."
So in order to guarantee continuity of supply of XP, it's probably helpful to have a policy that allows agency buyers to respond to MS reps by saying, I'm sorry, we want to buy XP, and its XP or nothing ... so stop fucking us around and sell us the damned operating system that we've already standardised on and want to keep using. Or sod off.
This isn't singling out Microsoft. Singling out Microsoft would be, if they still refuse to play ball, classifying them as an "unsafe supplier" and ruling that all government departments whose systems are considered mission-critical should move all future development and IT work to open-source software for security reasons, since the current manufacturer clearly can't be trusted with continuity of supply. If US government projects and infrastructure is being threatened by a supplier's refusal to supply the proprietary systems that are needed to keep things running, then that becomes a potential Homeland Security issue.
Protection of key government systems and infrastructure, an' all that.
Eric Baird
The software cost of upgrading is often effectively nil, because most large enterprise environments are on multi-year Enterprise Agreement contracts that allow for no-additional-cost software upgrades...
Like they haven't been already burned before by that company, at least once, by similar claims.
Deciding that a specific product is inappropriate is out of their purview...
Except if that product is known bad. They have an obligation to prevent further damage and / or to prevent good money from being thrown after bad. The recession is a depression in many areas, as evidenced by among other things, deflation. Regardless of recession or depression the times are harder, and not through getting harder, than has been experience for a few generations. And with that in mind, any wasted money means lost jobs. That wasted money can come through unnecessary licensing as well as lost efficiency.
If the French Gendarmerie can reduce IT costs by 70% through use of FOSS, why isn't Texas allowed to do so as well? Or, as the original post states, why not at least be able to avoid shelling out for MS Vista upgrades and upgrade headaches?
Beta is broken and the link to classic doesn't work. Stop wasting our time or there won't be anybody left here.