I agree

I agree that writing to the prez will do nothing.

BUT, "lets use crap software because we've always used it" is an AWFUL argument, and I do agree with Redhat etc. writing a letter, even if it's probably pointlessl. Deptartments. continuing expensive, insecure deployments of Microsoft software... expensive copies of Oracle... etc. should not be used unless there's a damn good reason for it.

For special projects, agencies should insist on having the source. (I think a medical records system would be a FINE example of this). As it is now, it's all too common to have a vendor work on a project... if it doesn't work out, the vendor and product are scrapped and it's all started over with the second vendor. If the agency has the source, if the vendor works out things work exactly as now (agency keeps paying vendor for bug fixes and feature requests.) If it DOESN'T work out, the second vendor has the option of fixing this code up rather than having to start from scratch.

Drivel

It's articles like this that make me wish el reg allowed me to filter out authors the same way slashdot does.

I don't know whether to call this article Trolling, FUD, or just the sad result of Microsoft brain washing, but either way reading it was very much a waste of my time.

What planet are you on?

"Because if the idea was really that good, it would thrive without a federal mandate."

How do you reconcile that with...

"You can put the best engineering in the world into your product, but if you don't know how to market, your project will rot in the source repository."

The best way to market something is to make it sound good to the guys in charge. Governments are all strapped for cash at the moment and they're saying "This will save you some money and let you make some 'feel good' announcements". Whether they are telling the truth or not is irrelevant - this is government lobbying.

Good article

Nothing wrong with Open Source, but begging to the new president of the USA is pretty weak.

To be honest, from the point of view of everyone other than a geek, there's no difference if the code is open or not. It needs to be usable and reliable. That's pretty much it. Unfortunatly FOSS is only really getting started on the former point, and let's face it - a big point that Ted was making is that the FOSS crowd can't bloody market it's products.

He's got a point!

Yeah, sure Ted*

* for the uninitiated, a catchphrase from an old Australian sitcom used when a certain blowhard Ted Bullpit** went into one of his inevitable rants.

The show was not noted for its subtlety.

Realistic, but without depth

I think he's not THAT far off base in this article, but he leaves a few things out.

Firstly, that ol' chestnut security. It is a FACT that "anything but Microsoft" systems are more secure by default. Not 100% safe, but less of an open invitation to malice for the outsider. That is a risk people know about, given the tremendous sales of anti-virus products. It is also a nigh-unfixable problem for MS as the OS is fundamentally a hack of a single user system as opposed to the alternatives which come from a multi-user world.

Secondly, conversion. If I build an OSS solution it will cost me the same amount of effort (roughly), but I will need to get engineers first who know about Open Source. It takes a shocking amount of time to convert a business, more so for government. For someone who is judged at the end of the year, the long term benefits (which there provably are) are too long term to be of any use for them. And thus, yes, no change. Oh, and that's why interoperability won't stand a chance either until someone sues the gov for wrongful restriction of trade.

Thirdly, money. Do you really think a gov official is going for the bearded club when he/she(it can obtain flights, meals, conference attendance, in short, every jolly going (still!) from a vendor who wants business? Think again.

Forthly, alike replacement. Until there is an Open Source Outlook, no dice for me. Every mobile phone I use installs for Outlook sync. It's a battle under Linux because you never get collaboration from the provider - I don't have to be selective in Windows. This is not to say that I *like* Outlook (especially anythong 2007 is seriously crap), but it integrates what I need. What's more, I am STILL waiting for Thunderbird to allow mail archives like Outlook. AFAIK they're still talking about which implementation - it's been an outstanding feature request for YEARS. I can take a bunch of mail and contacts, ram it into a separate file and so make the travelling mailbox light without losing data. The Thunderbird directory is several GB - no option but all or nothing.

I have been using Linux from when it came on a pile of floppies. Its gone a lot better, but there are still too many people being fanatic without trying to understand the user they're talking to. Unless you address the issues USERS have it ain't gonna happen. Sure, OSS *is* eating into Bill's cake, but if you have the only cake in the world it's easy to get a piece, and a percentage move is too often heralded as the "end of MS". OSS is far from "there" - I can't see this happen for at least another 3 years or so.

So, I think he's not far off. He just didn't argue it far enough, but risk aversion and stasis is a more powerful driver than "it's better and cheaper" - the story has to change for OSS to be making real inroads. Drugs addicts and smokers rarely change brands..

A good start...

...would be for the procurement people to properly examine the IP issues before signing a services contract.

I've seen cases where government pays for a load of software to be written, believing they will own it, and it turns out the contract says all software assets are property of the supplier. This is justified because some monkey copy-pasted some util classes from a code repository, thus the new software becomes a derived work.

Also, for some reason ending up contractual dispute/stalemate/court isn't seen as a failure, and the possibility of this isn't seen as a risk. This is the only explanation I can think of for why govt proceeds merrily with obviously shaky-looking procurements with huge IT suppliers.

Well but open source gets money out into the public

I mean if you hand 1 Million to microsoft it will end up in the pockets of a few managers. From where it probably will go into some hedge funds buying some companies in order to destroy them.

With open source solutions the local admins will suddenly be possible to actually do something. Fixing a machine will be more than just re-installing the OS several times until some non-user accessible configuration is right.

Closed source software barely is good bang for the buck if you want employment, unless you want it in India.

open source just wants to make money off the Govt.

I resent the comments, I have worked for both private sector and public sector, a state. I saw much more waste in the private sector. You want to get fired by the govt.? try working for a state the word is layoff, un-paid days off, etc. but not fired. "tax payers" seem to want it all. lots and lots of services, oh but don't tax us, the police have to show up when we call, but don't tax us, we want teachers to baby sit our children, but don't tax us. We want to vote on laws to spend money on our pet projects but when the govt has to cut other programs to cover the newly voted on and mandated programs they get mad at not cutting the "pork", even when there are layoffs and staff is not able to keep up. So lets say we take a federal agency that has 30,000 employees all running novel on the servers and for desktop communication and microsoft as the desktop suite. The IS dept. is able to cover all the needs and keep everything running well. How much do you think it will take in time and money to retrain all the IS staff and users? I'm not saying its a bad idea but do you think the "citizens" will like the idea of spending money when there is a "perfectly good" way of doing things now? My experience is that the "taxpayers" want the change but with no impact to them, and they don't look to the long term, they are concerned about NOW not two years from now. If you can convince red hat and the others to donate their services, products, and training for free (absolutely no cost what-so-ever) for the next 5 years you may have something. But as the private sector is in business to make money, off the tax payers if possible, I cant see it.

Don't wait for Help or Incentives/Virtual Permissions, just do IT if you can

"If open source is going to make any real headway in the government, there needs to be an incentive to choose it, not a rule. "

Ted,

Would a threat which collapses Systems be enough of an incentive to choose/use it? And it is very easy for open source and ITs Source Sorcerors/Wacky Wizards and Witches to manage the Windows environment.

* Permissions smack of One still being in Child Mode with Unresolved Issues going Far into the Future of One's Own Life ....... a Lack of Sustainable Effortless Vision.

Agree with Saucerhead

"Ruby on Rails won't save the planet" - so therefore the government should not consider open source in the most perfunctory manner?

Ted, I'm in tremendous pain

So charging lots of money for software is an incentive and charging no money for well written software is not an incentive. I'm sure if I work at it I'll be able to figure it out but for the moment your word puzzle has bested me.

Don't confuse the unkempt hair and possible birkenstocks of opensourcers with patchouli doused hippys . The open source movement are .commies and they are dismantling the stranglehold of capitalism on those without capital. They turned on, tuned in, read dilbert and dropped out.

Lastly the vast majority of reg readers are not opposed to open source so I don't know who this bullshit article was meant to entertain.

Your argument is not sound

Sometimes, to get the right thing done, legislation is needed. An example: if the Disability Discrimination Act in the UK and Section 508 in the US, most Web site developers would have done squat about Web site accessibility and most businesses would have no awareness of their requirements. The current status quo is not a level playing field as you suggest, where software is assessed on its own merits. Microsoft - and other big companies - spend millions in soft-dollar marketing to get their products promoted into governments. When that fails they apply pressure and in some cases drop their prices drastically to keep the business. Open source does not have the financial lever. The final say is that when it comes to taxpayers' money there SHOULD be a legal requirement to consider cheaper solutions that are as effective with an open mind. Nope, I don't use Linux and I'm not a freetard - but I think I'm more open-minded that you.

One exception

The fact is that using open source is better for the economies of all countries save one, the USA. Why? Because most if not all the big software sellers are American. And from what I've seen a lot of open source software isn't. Given the amount of coziness between the US government and US companies, they're mostly part of the same clan really. That's what an plutocracy is all about after all. So for the USA, their government buying Made-in-America software actually makes sense. For them.

For the same reason, it makes no sense for the government of any other country to be buying Made-in-America software, putting all the control in the hands of American corporations, and sending all the profits outside the country. Therefore, it's all the countries that aren't the USA that should be pushing open source software in their governments, and outlawing the use of that closed source foreign crap.

Aw, he's just acting up

I did a search for Mr Dziuba after posting above.

It is obvious he's a young guy, wants to make a name for himself, so this is his method, trying to be IT's answer to Frank Black.

Aw, bless.

You're no Frank Black son.

So what should they do?

I didn't know the author was Ted until I read these comments, then I went back to the article to check - yup, it's Ted; a bit more mellow that I'm used to but the old cynicism shines through if you scratch away those finely crafted and swearword free sentences.

OK, they made the wrong pitch, but it can't have done any harm and maybe, just maybe, the Prez will ask someone about this and a little awareness may spread to the right places?

In reality, I'm sure that there are many able and aware people at various levels of government who have thought about this for a while and maybe even tried to do something about it. After a short time, horrible reality (as described by Ted) will have hit them and they'll have decided that not rocking the boat is an easier and a safer way to live.

So Ted, how can the open-source people make headway in government procurement? What should the approach be and how should they go about it? It's a tricky problem and needs long term planning, monitoring................ It's not easy is it?

Maybe there are readers/commenters out there who have experience and examples of where open-source has been able to make headway in the government swamp, and also tell us how it was able to happen.

RE: "For special projects, agencies should insist on having the source"

Which, in the real world of bespoke software development will triple the cost if you're lucky, quadruple it if you're realistic and make it a double monkey fudge bucket amount bigger when the invoice comes in.

@Jack Harrer

No, the problem with OSS / Linux / Freeware etc. is that it is not supported.

Big companies and governments are not prepared to invest millions if they do not have the security of the vendor's support infrastructure at the other end of a phone.

All other arguments are missing the point by a mile.

End of.

When MS goes bust

what happens - its gradually becoming apparrent to those even not in the know that MS have been winging it for years - they have to wait for the Samba project to document their inter-machine communicatione before they can get them right. They cant even write code for a standard that they spent billions creating. It wasnt maliciousness that caused them to create OOXML over ODF - they are not up to the task of writing something more complicated than space invaders game: theyve given up on flight simulator!

Even now they're offering $1/4M to someone who wrote a virus - they're obviously desperate for someone who understands how windows programming works.

Zune, rhymes with tune and thats about all. XBox - popular if you can sell it at a huge loss.

In 10 years time when they have fizzled out who will be left holding the ordure - governments who use open standards and open source and may actually utilise their data - or those that repeatedly pay those who know better to build rubbish systems to build more rubbish systems that, as they are closed source, are 'maintainable' by nobody.

Again, with the 'proprietry will prevail because w're all tallentless lazy bastards' argument

This seems to be the last line of defence. "People are to lazy, too stupid, too scared. They'll wonder where the 'Blue E' has gone because (hearty, commisioned-ranks-only chuckle, here) they're all IDIOTS - hohoho".

If the argument really has got to the stage where these authors are saying that users deserve Windows because they're too tallentless to be worth anything better, then where does this picture sit, in a labour market where anyone with any iota of tallent is fighting, tooth and nail, to hang onto their jobs and demonstrate that they're still worth a salary?

In a market where dozens of Windows sys admins are being pitched out of their Halo 3 - I mean SERVER - rooms, and into the dole queues... how many of those guys are going to lazily and stupidly hunt around for another company daft enough to pay them to sit in a cupboard all day playing computer games, while wondering whether they should get around to rolling out that patch, that Microsoft issued last autumn? Perhaps a few of them will realise that playing computer games all day, and acting passive-agressive towards 'stupid users' with network problems, might have been a contributory factor in why they're suddenly living on 50 quid a week?

Or is Dzuiba simply saying that HE's too stupid, and we're all very mean for using a technology he doesn't understand? Is there a sense of panic, in his writiing - while we wonders what he'll do, when there's no one left, to pay him to write patronising articles about how users are idiots and deserve the crap that IT foists upon them?

They're only asking to be considered.

Most people buy MS because it's the only thing they've ever used and they're comfortable with that however that brand loyalty allows a company to stagnate and therefore cease to be value for money even though it's still the "only" choice and very popular. This is a bad thing for the consumer and the government is a consumer in this case.

Maybe there are better alternatives, maybe using some of these alternatives would reduce the monopoly that MS has and therefore force them to improve their standards for interoperability and price.

Capitalism requires competition and maybe it IS the job of government to encourage this where the risks can't be justified in the private sector. That said we also don't want governments wasting money so it's something that needs to considered very carefully but to not consider it is wrong.

@ Tharpe & others

"You post, you post an anti-Linux/open-source rant. It seems to be all you do."

As opposed to most commentors' anti-anything-not-open-source rants?

"Why not try something else?"

Good idea. Think you guys can do the same? I'm betting not based on precedent.

"Even if it is an article examining Linux that is not pro, just doing something intelligent and dispassionate would be a change."

Well, in fairness there are usually intelligent points made in both articles and comments for each side. As for dispassonate, open source fans zealots have a tendency to quikly fall into name-calling or other insults after trying to sound reasonable and then being patronising don't work.

@ myxiplx

"I don't know whether to call this article Trolling, FUD, or just the sad result of Microsoft brain washing, but either way reading it was very much a waste of my time."

Do the usual and call it all of them. Or the classic "MS shill" argument. After all, people are only likely to disagree with you if they're paid, aren't they?

It is interesting to watch the patterns of how people post. It seems that whenever there's anyhing that isn't a foaming endorsement of open source, there's a deluge of people ranting. Ironically, when someone actually rants against open source, they get all pouty and whinge how 'Your negative comments don't help anything." People have told you before - your rabid preaching probably puts people off more than anything. Maroons. Still, at least there've been a few reasonable open source fans here.