What Happened To Obama's Open Source Adviser?

gov_coder writes "Back in January of 2009, various news articles announced that former Sun CEO Scott McNealy was to become the Obama administration's Open Source Technology adviser. Currently, however, a search for Scott on the whitehouse.gov website yields zero results. Searching a bit more, I found that Scott is currently working on CurriWiki, a kind of Wikipedia for school curriculum. So my question is, what happened? Did some lobbyist block the appointment? Did Scott decide his other activities were more important? Scott, if you are out there — please tell us what happened. There are many people working in government IT, such as myself, who were really excited about the possibilities of an expanded role for open source software in government, and are now wondering what went wrong."

Comments

Maybe it was all for show?

[fortapocalypse]

Just a guess, but typically that's how things roll in politics...

Confirmation hell?

[l2718]

I would not be surprised if McNealy's appointment is stuck in confirmation hell. He probably requires confirmation by the Senate (see Article II, Section 2 of the Constitution). The Obama administration has been very slow in getting their people confirmed, in part because of the concentration on the Supreme Court vacancies, in part because of Republican intransigence (continuing the Democratic intransigence during the Bush administration, which harks back to the conflicts with Clinton, and back and forth it goes ...).

Re:Confirmation hell?

[Wyatt Earp]

I'm a Republican and I agree, it has gotten stupid.

It was stupid when the liberals were going after Bush following his reelection, but this is extra stupid.

Re:Confirmation hell?

[butalearner]

Are you suggesting that Democrats didn't go nuts with Bush hate, or that Republicans didn't go nuts with Clinton hate?

To this level? No. Have a look at the Senate voting history. Go to 2010 and click on a few, scroll down to the senators list. Republicans are always, without fail, either the exact opposite of the majority of Democrats (usually Nay) or Not Voting. Now go back and click on 2005. Pick any issue you want, and either some Democrats voted with Republicans or vice versa. It's not just people's imagination, the country really is more polarized than ever.

And the worst part about it is that the rest of your post is correct.

Re:Confirmation hell?

[CannonballHead]

Go to 2010 and click on a few, scroll down to the senators list. Republicans are always, without fail, either the exact opposite of the majority of Democrats (usually Nay) or Not Voting.

I hate to bring it up, but correlation != causation ;) No, what I mean is this: it could be that the agenda for 2010 by Democrats happen to be things Republicans particularly oppose, thus they will be the "exact opposite." Back in 2005, perhaps the agenda on the floor was not quite so divisive.

In other words, you can't just expect two parties to ALWAYS be bipartisan on EVERY issue or set of issues. I would not call Democrats "partisan" because a Republican-controlled senate and house happened to start bringing up bills that Democrats really, really, really dislike. I don't expect them to ignore their conscience (do politicians have those? ;) ) simply in the name of "bipartisanship."

And frankly, it would appear that the ignore-what-you-really-think-and-just-vote-with-us kind of bipartisanship is the only kind of bipartisanship that is acceptable to Democrats at the moment. Could be the only kind Republicans like, too, but Republicans aren't the one that are in the majority and thus are able to force the issue, bipartisan or not... thus I am more critical of Democrats right now, because they are the ones in the majority :)

Re:Confirmation hell?

[GoChickenFat]

The constant repetition of bald faced lies about bald faced lies is shaping public opinion.

Re:Confirmation hell?

[spun]

If you look at the statistics for voting and filibusters, you will see that you are completely wrong.
http://www.usnews.com/articles/opinion/2010/01/25/how-the-filibuster-changed-and-brought-tyranny-of-the-minority.html
http://www.pennlive.com/editorials/index.ssf/2010/02/filibuster_abuse_founding_fath.html
and a good graph showing just how wrong you are, here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Filibuster_(United_States_Senate)

You are drawing a false equivalency when you claim that both parties do it, perhaps in a misguided attempt to appear balanced. Both sides have NOT been doing the same thing for decades. This is new, unprecedented, and totally destructive to good governance. The Republicans appear to want to destroy the country in order to save it.

Re:Sun's "open" play was never convincing for me

[Bruce Perens]

I spent a good deal of time fighting him when he was in his anti-open-source mode and didn't believe in his conversion either.

Re:Let's check the timeline

[JO_DIE_THE_STAR_F***]

This Businessweek reference seems a little hokey to me...

Bill and Melinda Gates

(2003-07 GIVEN OR PLEDGED (MILLIONS)) - 3,519

(ESTIMATED LIFETIME GIVING* (MILLIONS)) - 28,144

Net Worth 59 Billion

Percentage 48%

What is the "Estimated Lifetime giving" ? All the other Philanthropists have a much smaller difference between estimated and given. The article says that the estimated is "*Based on public records and interviews with donors"

So what I get from this is that there is a record of 3.5 billion given but when asked in a interview Bill said he has given away 28 billion. Yeah, sure Billy, and I gave 2 trillion to orphans last year.

Also is that money from them personally or money they have raised thru the Bill and Melinda Gates foundation?

I hate to be petty but it bugs me when a rich guy gets a bunch of kudos for giving away money that he could not possibly spend in his lifetime yet poor slobs who proportionally give a lot more aren't even recognized.

Re:Not a lobbyist

[NevarMore]

+1, the EFF is a lobby.

Re:And the answer is...

[Machtyn]

Strangely, clicking on the "Did you mean:" option returns a different list (or order) than the first query. Or, at least, it did for me on the first (uncached) attempt.

Re:If only Obama knew....

[bandini]

Saw 'em when they came to DC. They seem pretty much exactly as they're being portrayed - or else they go to great lengths to conform to the 'bunch of cranks and racists' stereotype. In which case I want to congratulate whoever it is that's in charge of making sure every single sign they hold aloft has misspelled words and/or crudely expressed bigotry on it.

Re:Not a lobbyist

[thtrgremlin]

That is a good point. It was not till recently I realized how much influence clerks have in the supreme court. For example, when a petition for cert comes in, the justices do not look them over, the clerks / paralegals do and the ones of interest to them get shown to the justices and if four can be convinced then cert is granted. Sure it is not always that simple, but nothing is.

There is a good reason why there was meant to be a representative for every 30,000 people. I realize that is over 11,500 representatives today if we still followed the original constitution, but look at the staff of the average representative. How many representatives do you think have over 27 staff members? Why can't we just elect all of them? Make the districts smaller and maybe I won't be waiting around with nearly 2 million other people waiting to be heard by MY representative.

Lobbyists aside, only 3% of congress is elected... hmmm... basically leaving the Federal government completely unregulated, unaccountable, and hidden from public watch. Hell, there is a good argument there that lobbyists are far better regulated than our congress.