On 17 Aug 2002, Gary Lawrence Murphy wrote:
> And it reaches far and wide. Ours was not the only Linux-based > Industry Canada CAP proposal (Community Access Program) blown out of > the water by the combination of IC requiring parity grants from the > private sector coupled with the Microsoft Libraries grants program. Timing is everything. People need to realize that a lot has changed in the last year. Some of us have been hand-waving about Free Software for more than 10 years now, but it has only been the last year (in my personal experience) that anyone in Government has been listening. And the connections are pretty tight. I have at least one meeting weekly, either formal or informal, with someone in the GoC surrounding the Open Source question. Last week I was brought with the GTIS,PWGSC team that will be setting up the GOSLINGS portal to a demonstration of some technologies (In this case, postNuke,SuperBB and some custom scripts to gate to mailing lists). Once the software is chosen, I will be upgrading the portal software I use on weblog.flora.ca to use the same technology as GOSLINGS so that any enhancements I write will be compatible with both environments. Patience and persistence - and ensure that we all keep 'in the loop' to know about these things. Don't attribute to malice on the part of government and school board bureaucrats what is easily at this point a case of a lack of knowledge. Please do what you can to educate them by offering to do presentations. I have notes from some presentations I can pass onward if helpful (All are on my Weblog). If possible, it will be useful to document any cases where Microsoft was favored by a government program. These projects are re-evaluated at various points, and we will want to ensure that a more informed choice is made in any future round. I am aware of entire school boards making very deliberate moves to Open Source, and will announce anything I am able to make public once things are solidified (IE: I don't have useful details at this moment, other than to say that the school board I'm thinking of is in Quebec). --- Russell McOrmond, Internet Consultant: <http://www.flora.ca/> See http://weblog.flora.ca/ for announcements, activities, and opinions Submission to Innovation Strategy | No2Violence in Politics http://www.flora.ca/innovation-2002.shtml | http://www.no-dot.ca/ --------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
