Don't worry, I think that's coming, although a lot of people now hold their nose at indpendant counsels after Kenneth Star's circus. Goodling needed immunity to testify because she new she was breaking the law by using political tests on *career* DOJ promotions. Frankly, oversight is part of congressional "back to work." And part of that is figuring out if the administration is routinely breaking the law. Believe it or not, the framers wanted the legislature and the executive to be at each other to help keep the system as a whole honest.
Here's the way it breaks down. There's a part of the country that will hate a Republican president even if he shat rose-smelling gold bars and cured lepers with a mere touch. There's a part of the population that will love a Republican president even if he stumbled out of a Limo, tweaked off his ass with a dead girl and a live boy. Maybe a third of Americans actually change their opinion on the president, given the news. So, even if they find out that the administration circulated a memo that said "Use Outside Email Accounts to do Illegal Shit," they will support the president. The first thing they usually say: "Yeah, but the previous administration did it first. Just business as usual, nothing to see." When someone says this (left or right) they're usually full of shit. It's like saying I stole a car, but it's okay because other people steal cars.
So that brings us to this fiasco with the Emails and the Roves and what not. It's true that in some cases you have outside e-mail accounts to avoid what's called the Hatch Act - which forbids using government resources or people for party work. However, this raises a real problem. That lovely Goodling woman admitted she vetted *career* DOJ people based on political affiliation which as a very bright line in the law (and illegal). She knew this very well and that's why she needed immunity to testify. Since so many top level people had outside accounts, and the volume of mail was not trivial (140k+ emails for Rove alone), a reasonable person would be surprised if they didn't conduct government business.
I also find suspect the number of different servers and accounts. I also find suspect that there's no backup. Although people recycle backup tapes, you also have tapes that go off-site and are never recycled. However, if you use a bunch of different accounts, all with poor data retention, you make it harder to track down lost e-mails. So, an investigator would have to subpeona the servers from several independant organizations, which will strenuously fight each subpeona request. If it were a Whitehouse server, it migh be picked up with one subpeona by an oversight subcommittee with legal authority. I think some of those emails are lost forever. And I think they were meant to be lost forever. Just like Nixon had his 18 minutes of blank tape.
A lot of people write off the Bush administration as a bunch of ingnorant buffoons that stumble their way from one embarassing mess to the next. They didn't get into the Whitehouse by being dottering old buffoons. They got there by being sharp people, many of them attourneys. So, as far as I can tell, they are people who should know better. Or rather, they are people that would know how to work the system to cover their tracks. They also know what's illegal. I also think people like Rove, Libby, and Goodling understand it's only illegal if you get caught. They have been pushing the envelope on all the basic civil liberty ammendments except the second ammendment.
So how does that play? Well, the current balance of Congress can't be changed until 2008, at which time we get a new president. For the most part, with two years to the election, they don't want the party tarnished so they will circle the wagons. They will FUD the issues, block progress, and scream up and down the halls of Congress "Witch Hunt!" That means Congress has only a small chance of acting on the matter, even if a resonable preson would say crimes were committed. Since Congress won't do much, most people and the press won't get jazzed about the issues. We're getting to the low point of the approval numbers - the part where people support the president no matter what - and so you won't see a major move there. Even if a majority of Americans support impeaching the President, there aren't the Congressional votes, unless the President does something so outrageously illegal that Republicans would feel that they would loose more seats in 2008 if they back the President. That means no impeachment, lots of investigatio
I don't think that should get you a pass on the purchasing decisions you make. For one thing it's just bad business. If word gets around you can't or won't pay debts, vendors start asking for escrow and cash-up-front deals. Paying the debt would help put what happened 17 years ago to rest. It would be tough, but over the long haul it would help the trustworthiness and credit rating of the district.
Hmmm... Interesting point. When I first read the article, I took it to mean no one at the school district was able to locate records. However, I don't think anyone was debating the equipment as purchased. Your post does raise an interesting scenario in mind: An unethical IBM sales rep sells equipment to the district that will never be delivered, because he has colluded with a school official to put in the order (knowing that the district horribly mis-managed it's equipment). They split his commission on the 5 mil. - say 2%. Each walks away with 50k. (33k-ish after taxes).
Or, more likely, IBM sold them the equipment. It was purchased. No one wanted to deal with it, so it sat in a warehouse. It may have been AS/400's RS/6000's, or Aptiva PC's, or IBM logo mouse-pads, but school beurocracies are notoriously inefficient. The paperwork got pushed around the school administrative offices until it finally "fell behind a filing cabinet." The boxes of "old computers" were finally moved, thrown away to make room for new football gear, or people learned there were boxes of free computers at some warehouse. In any case - it should not let the school district off the hook. On a loan of 5 million, IBM has been more than generous in not charging interest. At a 5% interest rate that's already more than 5 million in lost interest over 17 years.
From reading the article it sounds like the problem was one of management. It might even be a criminal problem if the equipment can't be located. Having worked with IBM on deals before (and remembering what IBM was like at that time), I'm sure it was the highest margin equipment on the market. However, just b/c the school district made a poor purchasing decision, mismanaged what it bought, and possibly permitted its theft, should not let them off the hook on a contract.
Most people in the US are stunned to realize that broadband access is often cheaper and faster in "foreign countries" with greater penetration. Most of my fellow Americans don't realize that compared to not just the UK, France, and Japan, but places like South Korea, we're getting rooked.
I've actually had quite the opposite problem. I was out at one site that had a good 3-4 days of downtime as Verizon tried to figure out what was wrong on their end. That's after something like a 5 week lead time to provision the circuit. I've found phone companies to be glacial in dealing with problems.
Actually, this is a very good question. First because it seems like better options are available with higher bandwidth that make T1's less attractive if you have a little more money to spend. For some applications where bandwidth guarantees are critical (like a VoIP phone system or PBX for a 200 person company), the fact you are guaranteed to get 1.5 Mbps is great. For small companies, like mine, even if the effective bandwidth drops to 256k, it is still plenty. I had a go-around with Verizon a few years back over SDSL. They were committed to offer only T1's, but I didn't need that much bandwidth and couldn't afford the quoted $800 a month and change. I bought a 384k SDSL (384k upload and download) line from Covad, and could have gone up to 768 for something like 250 a month. (At the time that included a whopping 32 static IP's as well).
I was banned from using the Encyclopedia Britannica during middle and high-school. It was not about the quality of information - most of it is quite reliable, but rather the depth of information. If I know absolutely nothing about a topic, Wikipedia is a good place to start. As good as the Encyclopedia, as far as I can tell, and much more portable. However, I know that reading one Wikipedia article (just like one Britannica aritcle) does not create knowledge or research with depth. What you can do with the Encyclopedia is to do a book report on Valley Forge from the factual content of the article, and then append a bunch of citations as if you'd read them. The goal is to get a student to find a couple of sources on the topic and read them. However, I don't buy the argument that Wikipedia is innacurate DEREK IS GAY as a general rule.
That's not true. That would imply that as long as the mail does not originate from the Whitehouse then there is no retention requirement. IANAL - but I find that highly incredible as I have some experience with meeting gov't retention standards.
The law specifically excludes "materials relating to private political associations, and having no relation to or direct effect upon the carrying out of constitutional, statutory, or other official or ceremonial duties of the President;"
All Whitehouse staff is REQUIRED to use the WHITEHOUSE e-mail system, with services like hotmail BLOCKED. And when is firing 8 US attourneys, that serve to pleasure the president, not "constitutional, statutory, or other official" duties?
Maybe they don't make money with the 360 initially, but neither is Sony (Nintendo is the only one trying to make money on its consoles day 1). Maybe it's late in the 360's life, or even with the 360's successor. (The 2*pi ?) Maybe it's when they allow the 360 to connect to your computer and play media like the Apple TV, but it has to be Vista. Windows 1 and 2 were laughable compared to Mac OS version 6. It took Microsoft until version 3.1 before they had wide acceptance. Before NT 4, there was 3.5 and 3.5.1.
Apple had to basically get the iPod right the first one out the door. Microsoft has the benefit of being able to make mistakes for quite a while before getting it right.
Actually, I was trying to underscore how Dvorak makes ridiculous claims for the sole purpose of drawing attention to himself. You're absolutely right that phones are a very different business from MP3 players. However, when Apple first introduced the iPod I thought it would be a ridiculous distraction for them, in the same way the Newton was. I think what's going to make/break the iPhone is the interface, which is a great deal more advanced than any phone I know of. The phones I've seen announed as "iPhone killers" (even before there's one iPhone sold), still require a physical keypad, or a stylus, or both.
And by the way, in 197x, RDBMSes were a new product.
And clicked on the "you tube" link from the Mad TV site only to find the content had been pulled from You Tube and Mad TV's account was suspended. (I don't know if this is still the case, as this happened a few days ago). I assume Mad TV had originally posted the material, since the link to You Tube was from the Mad TV official site. Anyway, that's not the only one I've come across where legitimate content, posted by the right hand of one company, was ordered to be pulled by the left hand of the same company. I think that You Tube represents a significant opportunity to get Viacom's content out there for people to watch. It's a shame they can't come to some sort of agreement. (And it's a shame Viacom doesn't like the law they helped pay for).
The Zune 1.0 doesn't make money. It's the Zune 3.1 that makes money. Microsoft can afford a few unprofitable years pushing the Zune, XBox or whatever, because of their deep pockets. Eventually they'll get a better mix of product features and bundling with Windows to create something that people will choose. Just like the XBox wasn't a short term decision for Microsoft, instead looking toward the XBox 360 and successors for the real revenue stream.
When dealing with Microsoft you have to remember that they don't make a killer product right out of the gate. They take what they have and build and improve to the point it becomes good or at least good enough. The first versions of IE were a me-too product. However, making it good enough and strapping it to Windows ensured its victory in the browser wars. Declaring Microsoft is "loosing the war" because generation 1 Zunes aren't selling great misses the fact that Microsoft will continue plugging away at it until the Zune (or whatever it morphs into) will be market dominant at some level.
I couldn't agree more. I always felt there was a disconnect between industry analysts and actual reality when they brought up subscription services. Most people I know would rather buy the song/album than "have access" to it.
I wouldn't put it past Microsoft to donate Zunes to various groups, i.e. schools. They helped push SQL Server by giving away consulting time to install/configure/integrate it into environments where they were competing with Oracle.
I don't know about that, but fashion is a pretty powerful motivator. There is a good chunk of research to support the notion that people make their decisions and then find justifications for the decision. People spend much more money on purchases like automobiles, granite kitchen counters, and stainless steel appliances than they will on phones, based largely on fashion.
Before commenting I always read the story or stories indicated. However, in this case I realized my mistake as soon as I clicked the link. I gave that bofoon one more hit to drive his hit count up. Maybe I'll start posting articles on my blog like:
Microsoft - Should get out of the operating systems business and start a chain of chicken finger restaurants. Oracle - Relational databases are just a fad, they should diversify into concrete. Apple - Should just liquidate the company and payout the sharholders (oops - Michael Dell beat me to that one). Hooters - Is there a Hooters O/S in the works? It should be built on BSD with a Linux Kernel,.NET GUI and Open GL based file-system. Linux - Who would ever use a non-Unix Unix clone? It'll never make it in the server market. Trovalds should build an aquarium. Google - Who needs search? I already have everything worth reading bookmarked. Gartner - They're always soo right about the future, they should publish lottery numbers. Amazon - No one will ever get that Amazon sells books, they should sell snakes, large bugs and other things found in the actual Amazon. NASA - Should use string cheese to build the world's first space elevator. Doctors - From now on they should only operate on the healthy, where survival is much more likely. Viagra - Should exclusively market itself on the Internet using spam.
and finally!!!
Slashdot - Nerds don't care about news. I bet they don't get any postings or hits.
This way I can drive my advertising revenue up and get quoted a lot, even if I'm bizarrly and outrageously mistaken.
Working for a computer and IT services vendor to the Fed. Govt. I was always mystified by the procurement procedures. As you put it so well, I did learn the key was in writing the specs. I also learned part of the key was helping my Govt. counterparts write the specs.
I'm sorry, but why do you think I said the GPL was bad? The original poster I replied made a remark that seemed to think it was hypocritical for free software people to raise licensing concerns. I think it's very valid to raise licensing concerns because the GPL does have real licensing terms. You are allowed to do aything you want with that software as long as you follow those terms. The terms of the GPL are less restrictive than any commercial license I've ever seen, but they still put some limits on the licensee. I was pointing out there are less restrictive licenses than GPL.
Your right. I was using sloppy phrasing. What I meant was you can't redistribute the binary as part of another product. However, you are correct that my internal use of the product is not restricted. What I'm sick and tired of is people treating the GPL like dirt because the software it ships with can be obtained for no cost. I believe telling people you can do anything you want with GPL software leads to the false impression that their rights to do "anything" extends to redistribution. Some people are under the mistaken impression that enforcing the GPL is hypocritical. For example, suing hadware vendors that include GPL software but fail to follow the GPL's requirements to release the software patches or changes. The original post I was responding to seemed to take this tack.
Slashdot Mirror
Don't worry, I think that's coming, although a lot of people now hold their nose at indpendant counsels after Kenneth Star's circus. Goodling needed immunity to testify because she new she was breaking the law by using political tests on *career* DOJ promotions. Frankly, oversight is part of congressional "back to work." And part of that is figuring out if the administration is routinely breaking the law. Believe it or not, the framers wanted the legislature and the executive to be at each other to help keep the system as a whole honest.
Here's the way it breaks down. There's a part of the country that will hate a Republican president even if he shat rose-smelling gold bars and cured lepers with a mere touch. There's a part of the population that will love a Republican president even if he stumbled out of a Limo, tweaked off his ass with a dead girl and a live boy. Maybe a third of Americans actually change their opinion on the president, given the news. So, even if they find out that the administration circulated a memo that said "Use Outside Email Accounts to do Illegal Shit," they will support the president. The first thing they usually say: "Yeah, but the previous administration did it first. Just business as usual, nothing to see." When someone says this (left or right) they're usually full of shit. It's like saying I stole a car, but it's okay because other people steal cars.
So that brings us to this fiasco with the Emails and the Roves and what not. It's true that in some cases you have outside e-mail accounts to avoid what's called the Hatch Act - which forbids using government resources or people for party work. However, this raises a real problem. That lovely Goodling woman admitted she vetted *career* DOJ people based on political affiliation which as a very bright line in the law (and illegal). She knew this very well and that's why she needed immunity to testify. Since so many top level people had outside accounts, and the volume of mail was not trivial (140k+ emails for Rove alone), a reasonable person would be surprised if they didn't conduct government business.
I also find suspect the number of different servers and accounts. I also find suspect that there's no backup. Although people recycle backup tapes, you also have tapes that go off-site and are never recycled. However, if you use a bunch of different accounts, all with poor data retention, you make it harder to track down lost e-mails. So, an investigator would have to subpeona the servers from several independant organizations, which will strenuously fight each subpeona request. If it were a Whitehouse server, it migh be picked up with one subpeona by an oversight subcommittee with legal authority. I think some of those emails are lost forever. And I think they were meant to be lost forever. Just like Nixon had his 18 minutes of blank tape.
A lot of people write off the Bush administration as a bunch of ingnorant buffoons that stumble their way from one embarassing mess to the next. They didn't get into the Whitehouse by being dottering old buffoons. They got there by being sharp people, many of them attourneys. So, as far as I can tell, they are people who should know better. Or rather, they are people that would know how to work the system to cover their tracks. They also know what's illegal. I also think people like Rove, Libby, and Goodling understand it's only illegal if you get caught. They have been pushing the envelope on all the basic civil liberty ammendments except the second ammendment.
So how does that play? Well, the current balance of Congress can't be changed until 2008, at which time we get a new president. For the most part, with two years to the election, they don't want the party tarnished so they will circle the wagons. They will FUD the issues, block progress, and scream up and down the halls of Congress "Witch Hunt!" That means Congress has only a small chance of acting on the matter, even if a resonable preson would say crimes were committed. Since Congress won't do much, most people and the press won't get jazzed about the issues. We're getting to the low point of the approval numbers - the part where people support the president no matter what - and so you won't see a major move there. Even if a majority of Americans support impeaching the President, there aren't the Congressional votes, unless the President does something so outrageously illegal that Republicans would feel that they would loose more seats in 2008 if they back the President. That means no impeachment, lots of investigatio
I don't think that should get you a pass on the purchasing decisions you make. For one thing it's just bad business. If word gets around you can't or won't pay debts, vendors start asking for escrow and cash-up-front deals. Paying the debt would help put what happened 17 years ago to rest. It would be tough, but over the long haul it would help the trustworthiness and credit rating of the district.
Hmmm... Interesting point. When I first read the article, I took it to mean no one at the school district was able to locate records. However, I don't think anyone was debating the equipment as purchased. Your post does raise an interesting scenario in mind: An unethical IBM sales rep sells equipment to the district that will never be delivered, because he has colluded with a school official to put in the order (knowing that the district horribly mis-managed it's equipment). They split his commission on the 5 mil. - say 2%. Each walks away with 50k. (33k-ish after taxes). Or, more likely, IBM sold them the equipment. It was purchased. No one wanted to deal with it, so it sat in a warehouse. It may have been AS/400's RS/6000's, or Aptiva PC's, or IBM logo mouse-pads, but school beurocracies are notoriously inefficient. The paperwork got pushed around the school administrative offices until it finally "fell behind a filing cabinet." The boxes of "old computers" were finally moved, thrown away to make room for new football gear, or people learned there were boxes of free computers at some warehouse. In any case - it should not let the school district off the hook. On a loan of 5 million, IBM has been more than generous in not charging interest. At a 5% interest rate that's already more than 5 million in lost interest over 17 years.
From reading the article it sounds like the problem was one of management. It might even be a criminal problem if the equipment can't be located. Having worked with IBM on deals before (and remembering what IBM was like at that time), I'm sure it was the highest margin equipment on the market. However, just b/c the school district made a poor purchasing decision, mismanaged what it bought, and possibly permitted its theft, should not let them off the hook on a contract.
Most people in the US are stunned to realize that broadband access is often cheaper and faster in "foreign countries" with greater penetration. Most of my fellow Americans don't realize that compared to not just the UK, France, and Japan, but places like South Korea, we're getting rooked.
I've actually had quite the opposite problem. I was out at one site that had a good 3-4 days of downtime as Verizon tried to figure out what was wrong on their end. That's after something like a 5 week lead time to provision the circuit. I've found phone companies to be glacial in dealing with problems.
Actually, this is a very good question. First because it seems like better options are available with higher bandwidth that make T1's less attractive if you have a little more money to spend. For some applications where bandwidth guarantees are critical (like a VoIP phone system or PBX for a 200 person company), the fact you are guaranteed to get 1.5 Mbps is great. For small companies, like mine, even if the effective bandwidth drops to 256k, it is still plenty. I had a go-around with Verizon a few years back over SDSL. They were committed to offer only T1's, but I didn't need that much bandwidth and couldn't afford the quoted $800 a month and change. I bought a 384k SDSL (384k upload and download) line from Covad, and could have gone up to 768 for something like 250 a month. (At the time that included a whopping 32 static IP's as well).
Or did they "borrow" the flat black look from Apple's Pro tools suites? Hmmmm...
Here's my take:
I was banned from using the Encyclopedia Britannica during middle and high-school. It was not about the quality of information - most of it is quite reliable, but rather the depth of information. If I know absolutely nothing about a topic, Wikipedia is a good place to start. As good as the Encyclopedia, as far as I can tell, and much more portable. However, I know that reading one Wikipedia article (just like one Britannica aritcle) does not create knowledge or research with depth. What you can do with the Encyclopedia is to do a book report on Valley Forge from the factual content of the article, and then append a bunch of citations as if you'd read them. The goal is to get a student to find a couple of sources on the topic and read them. However, I don't buy the argument that Wikipedia is innacurate DEREK IS GAY as a general rule.
That's not true. That would imply that as long as the mail does not originate from the Whitehouse then there is no retention requirement. IANAL - but I find that highly incredible as I have some experience with meeting gov't retention standards.
Eat too much lead paint as a kid?
All Whitehouse staff is REQUIRED to use the WHITEHOUSE e-mail system, with services like hotmail BLOCKED. And when is firing 8 US attourneys, that serve to pleasure the president, not "constitutional, statutory, or other official" duties?
Maybe they don't make money with the 360 initially, but neither is Sony (Nintendo is the only one trying to make money on its consoles day 1). Maybe it's late in the 360's life, or even with the 360's successor. (The 2*pi ?) Maybe it's when they allow the 360 to connect to your computer and play media like the Apple TV, but it has to be Vista. Windows 1 and 2 were laughable compared to Mac OS version 6. It took Microsoft until version 3.1 before they had wide acceptance. Before NT 4, there was 3.5 and 3.5.1.
Apple had to basically get the iPod right the first one out the door. Microsoft has the benefit of being able to make mistakes for quite a while before getting it right.
Actually, I was trying to underscore how Dvorak makes ridiculous claims for the sole purpose of drawing attention to himself. You're absolutely right that phones are a very different business from MP3 players. However, when Apple first introduced the iPod I thought it would be a ridiculous distraction for them, in the same way the Newton was. I think what's going to make/break the iPhone is the interface, which is a great deal more advanced than any phone I know of. The phones I've seen announed as "iPhone killers" (even before there's one iPhone sold), still require a physical keypad, or a stylus, or both.
And by the way, in 197x, RDBMSes were a new product.
And clicked on the "you tube" link from the Mad TV site only to find the content had been pulled from You Tube and Mad TV's account was suspended. (I don't know if this is still the case, as this happened a few days ago). I assume Mad TV had originally posted the material, since the link to You Tube was from the Mad TV official site. Anyway, that's not the only one I've come across where legitimate content, posted by the right hand of one company, was ordered to be pulled by the left hand of the same company. I think that You Tube represents a significant opportunity to get Viacom's content out there for people to watch. It's a shame they can't come to some sort of agreement. (And it's a shame Viacom doesn't like the law they helped pay for).
The Zune 1.0 doesn't make money. It's the Zune 3.1 that makes money. Microsoft can afford a few unprofitable years pushing the Zune, XBox or whatever, because of their deep pockets. Eventually they'll get a better mix of product features and bundling with Windows to create something that people will choose. Just like the XBox wasn't a short term decision for Microsoft, instead looking toward the XBox 360 and successors for the real revenue stream. When dealing with Microsoft you have to remember that they don't make a killer product right out of the gate. They take what they have and build and improve to the point it becomes good or at least good enough. The first versions of IE were a me-too product. However, making it good enough and strapping it to Windows ensured its victory in the browser wars. Declaring Microsoft is "loosing the war" because generation 1 Zunes aren't selling great misses the fact that Microsoft will continue plugging away at it until the Zune (or whatever it morphs into) will be market dominant at some level.
Yes, and nor do chickens frequent restaurants - or even have money to buy food. But that's the point - my outrageous suggestion caused a response.
I couldn't agree more. I always felt there was a disconnect between industry analysts and actual reality when they brought up subscription services. Most people I know would rather buy the song/album than "have access" to it.
I wouldn't put it past Microsoft to donate Zunes to various groups, i.e. schools. They helped push SQL Server by giving away consulting time to install/configure/integrate it into environments where they were competing with Oracle.
I don't know about that, but fashion is a pretty powerful motivator. There is a good chunk of research to support the notion that people make their decisions and then find justifications for the decision. People spend much more money on purchases like automobiles, granite kitchen counters, and stainless steel appliances than they will on phones, based largely on fashion.
Before commenting I always read the story or stories indicated. However, in this case I realized my mistake as soon as I clicked the link. I gave that bofoon one more hit to drive his hit count up. Maybe I'll start posting articles on my blog like:
.NET GUI and Open GL based file-system.
Microsoft - Should get out of the operating systems business and start a chain of chicken finger restaurants.
Oracle - Relational databases are just a fad, they should diversify into concrete.
Apple - Should just liquidate the company and payout the sharholders (oops - Michael Dell beat me to that one).
Hooters - Is there a Hooters O/S in the works? It should be built on BSD with a Linux Kernel,
Linux - Who would ever use a non-Unix Unix clone? It'll never make it in the server market. Trovalds should build an aquarium.
Google - Who needs search? I already have everything worth reading bookmarked.
Gartner - They're always soo right about the future, they should publish lottery numbers.
Amazon - No one will ever get that Amazon sells books, they should sell snakes, large bugs and other things found in the actual Amazon.
NASA - Should use string cheese to build the world's first space elevator.
Doctors - From now on they should only operate on the healthy, where survival is much more likely.
Viagra - Should exclusively market itself on the Internet using spam.
and finally!!!
Slashdot - Nerds don't care about news. I bet they don't get any postings or hits.
This way I can drive my advertising revenue up and get quoted a lot, even if I'm bizarrly and outrageously mistaken.
It's not specific to Apple. You find it in a lot of consumer electronics.
Working for a computer and IT services vendor to the Fed. Govt. I was always mystified by the procurement procedures. As you put it so well, I did learn the key was in writing the specs. I also learned part of the key was helping my Govt. counterparts write the specs.
I'm sorry, but why do you think I said the GPL was bad? The original poster I replied made a remark that seemed to think it was hypocritical for free software people to raise licensing concerns. I think it's very valid to raise licensing concerns because the GPL does have real licensing terms. You are allowed to do aything you want with that software as long as you follow those terms. The terms of the GPL are less restrictive than any commercial license I've ever seen, but they still put some limits on the licensee. I was pointing out there are less restrictive licenses than GPL.
Your right. I was using sloppy phrasing. What I meant was you can't redistribute the binary as part of another product. However, you are correct that my internal use of the product is not restricted. What I'm sick and tired of is people treating the GPL like dirt because the software it ships with can be obtained for no cost. I believe telling people you can do anything you want with GPL software leads to the false impression that their rights to do "anything" extends to redistribution. Some people are under the mistaken impression that enforcing the GPL is hypocritical. For example, suing hadware vendors that include GPL software but fail to follow the GPL's requirements to release the software patches or changes. The original post I was responding to seemed to take this tack.