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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."
What Happened To Obama's Open Source Adviser?
He was invited to One Microsoft Way in Redmond, WA and while there discussing standards had a very unfortunate ... shall we say ... "accident?" Which left his voice sounding very metallic and his movements very jerky and unnatural. It was shortly after this that he stood up at the next White House IT meeting and declared, "Whitehouse.gov should be running on Silverlight and Silverlight only let's set so double the killer delete select all blue blue blue blue blue blue ... " At which point the administration decided that it just wasn't working out and removed the position quietly altogether and unexisted Mr. McNealy (or what was left of him anyway).
My work here is dung.
...with a small shell script.
Who wants to know?
Just because a lobbyist has no legal authority doesn't mean they're powerless or without influence.
Did you learn everything about politics and government from Schoolhouse Rock?
"Prefiero morir de pie que vivir siempre arrodillado!"
He's still got a page at Sourceforge, but he hasn't been updated in months and his developer stopped answering emails.
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
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 ...).
Am I the only one here who never really bought-in to Sun's latter-day 'open' evangelism?
To me Sun's 'open' efforts always seemed to me to fall into one of the following categories:
1. "Fsuk M$!" - e.g. Open Office
2. Forced to do it by their own guys - e.g. Java
3. Desperate attempt to stay alive/relevant (too late) - e.g. 'open' Solaris, (a bit of a FOSS joke, since most of the work was done by Sun employees)
I'll admit that I'm not fan of Scott McNealy, who - in my opinion - failed to navigate the dotcom bust, and subsequent massive fall in hardware revenues, and then presided over the gradual, sad demise of a formerly pretty good company.
Putting aside my bias, I'll still advance that there are plenty of other people better qualified to be a FOSS tzar.
Your nominations?
It's even more obvious than you think. He's open-sourced the advisory position so anyone can fill the position and make changes.
Did you learn everything about politics and government from Schoolhouse Rock?
Well...... yes.
Flexible bare-metal recovery for Linux/UNIX
Gates applauds Indian rich guy for sharing wealth: 4.2010 - saying that the norm in the US is 20% and that US benefactors need to give more along the lines of 40% ~ 50% while not mentioning that he & Melinda give along the lines of 1% ~ 2%.
Please provide a reference for your claim.
According to Businessweek, Bill Gates has given $28 billion out of a net worth of $59 billion, placing him second on the list after Warren Buffett. That appears to be considerably higher than 1-2%.
Slashdot - the place where you can look like a genius by restating the obvious
Lobbyists have no power when the electorate is well informed and active. WE are failing and causing these problems by allowing these lobbyists to have influence. The only way a lobbyist can have influence is if the gain from more money to a campaign offsets the number of people who leave because a politician was bought off and voted against his constituents interest. Please keep money in government especially when it helps the candidates I like. If a politician votes against my interests I refuse to vote for him. No amount of fancy campaign ads will ever change that. However there are more people who will vote for a candidate just because of a fancy and expensive ad. These people offset me and many other voters who vote not for nicest campaign ad but voting record and their ability to represent us. This is the fundamental problem with our country. Believing anything else is delusional and seeking a simple short term solution, the voters are the problem, until they take their civic duty seriously by ignoring nice haircuts and expensive ads and voting for actual substance we will not have a government that represents us.
every anarchist is a baffled dictator. Benito_Mussolini
"You have zero privacy anyway. Get over it."
didn't help.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
According to this article, he was merely asked to write a paper. That hardly sounds like it was a full-time position as an advisor to the administration.
I live ze unknown. I love ze unknown. I am ze unknown.
Who would have modded that recursive?
Who would have modded that recursive?
Who would have modded that recursive?
Who would have modded that recursive?
Who would have modded that recursive?
Who would have modded that recursive?
When you're afraid to download music illegally in your own home, then the terrorists have won!
Lobbyists aren't always bad, they don't always achieve their goals by unscrupulous means, and they don't always represent corporate interests with tons of money to throw around.
Lobbyists are an exceptionally effective means for people to communicate with their elected representatives, being a sort of representative themselves. They can provide a clear voice for large groups of similarly minded people, who would otherwise be lost in the noise.
"Prefiero morir de pie que vivir siempre arrodillado!"
Actually, the one news article linked from the text "various news articles" in the summary, as well as every other web source I can find, indicates McNealy was asked to write one position paper on the use of open source software by the administration, and that was apparently presented to the Administration shortly after the request was made (this article from late February discusses some actions that occurred after the paper was presented.)
The issue was never about McNealy being hired as for the position of "Open Source Adviser", it was about McNealy providing one-time advice on the use of open source software.
http://www.google.com/search?q=recursion Check out the "Did you mean:" option.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
+1, the EFF is a lobby.
You've got your facts wrong. Scott McNealy was never slated to become the Obama administration's Open Source Technology adviser. According to the articles you referenced, all he was going to do was write a paper:
Scott McNealy "revealed he has been asked to prepare a paper on the subject (open source technologies and products) for the new administration."
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/7841486.stm
"According to BBC News, the Obama administration has asked Sun chairman McNealy for a position statement justifying the administration's use of open source software. The BBC wasn't clear on who specifically asked him, but McNealy's spokesperson, on a query by the Linux community, acknowledged that McNealy had been meeting over the last year with members of the administration's new technology initiative, which apparently led to this request."
http://www.linux-magazine.com/Online/News/Sun-s-McNealy-Advises-Obama-Administration-on-Open-Source
I don't know if Scott ever got around to writing that paper. Searching the White House website for papers on Open Source, the only one I found was here:
Open Source Software and Cyber Defense
A White Paper provided to the National Security Council and Homeland Security Council as input to the White House Review of Communications and Information Infrastructure.
Bob Gourley, Chief Technology Officer, Crucial Point LLC
http://www.whitehouse.gov/files/documents/cyber/Gourley_Bob_Open_Source_Software_and_Cyber_Defense_01_April_2009.pdf