Bruce, I think you gave some good advice there. A couple of other thoughts....
First, my perspective. A few years ago I attended several meetings of Rep. Alger's Technology Committee, in my role as a member of the executive board of NH Login (New Hampshire Local Government Information Network, the IT special interest group within the NH Municipal Association). I see that Mr. Alger is no longer in the House, so my history there is not relevent now. I also note that this was assigned to a more significant committee, so I infer it's getting a serious look. I don't think it would be out of line to make contact with various committee members before the hearing, to at least ask what their concerns and interests might be. At the very least that could work as an antidote to any FUD, at the best it could allow us to help shape the discussion more favorably. It might be worthwhile to inquire of the committee chair about whether there might be any opportunity to speak or participate in any fashion. Let's consider what we want for an outcome, and what's most likely. I would say that overall our desired long term outcome would be to have support or endorsement of FOSS for state use. Practically I doubt we can expect to accomplish that at this time. Not only will the vendors be spreading FUD, they will be sending their minions, the state employees who use proprietary products to build IT systems will feel their jobs are made more valuable through specialized knowledge and will probably act to protect their turf. The best outcome I think we could expect would be a continued investigation and study committee, justified by potential savings (a powerful argument to our legislators!) and focusing on the practical issues of what implementation would involve and what costs and savings would be expected. Incidentally, if we have any way to find out if Red Hat, IBM, et al are interested and perhaps to work with them on this it would be very good. I would certainly be glad to do whatever I can to help, in my copious free time :-) -Bruce McCulley ---- Original message ---- >Date: Wed, 18 Jan 2006 10:31:36 -0500 >From: Bruce Dawson <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> >Subject: Re: HB1197 Public Meeting >To: Bill McGonigle <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> >Cc: Christopher Schmidt <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, GNHLUG <gnhlug-discuss@mail.gnhlug.org> > >-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- >Hash: SHA1 > >Bill McGonigle wrote: > >| On Jan 17, 2006, at 23:28, Christopher Schmidt wrote: >| >|> Not sure if I'll be going, but I'm thinking about it. (I'm also not >|> 100% >|> sure if it's open to the public, but am 95% sure on it.) If others are >|> interested, I can confirm details. >| >| Would this be purely as a spectator sport? In other words, do we >| need one person to take notes or would a mass of warm bodies be >| somehow useful? > >This is a work session; I believe the representatives would appreciate >more warm bodies when the bill goes to the Senate. > >However, I recommend that one or two of us show up just to make sure >that closed-source providers haven't stacked the deck against >open-source by feeding FUD to the committee. And if they have, I'm not >sure what can be done about it during a working session - probably >call the reps afterwards and let your thoughts be known about their >"evaluation process". > >If you want to go, do your homework first by reading: > >~ http://www.gencourt.state.nh.us/legislation/2006/HB1197.html > >They are evaluating open source to see if its cost- and operation- >competitive with non-open source alternatives. > >|> Tuesday, Jan 24th: >|> 2:00 p.m. Subcommittee work session on HB 1197, >|> establishing a >|> committee to study requiring state government to consider using open >|> source software when acquiring new software. >| >| So if this does call for a mob we could conceivably do this, have >| dinner, and still make the Quarterly Meeting. > >I don't believe a mob would be welcome at this session - just one or >two knowledgeable people. I would think Redhat/SuSE/IBM/... would have >someone monitoring this bill. > >- --Bruce > >-----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- >Version: GnuPG v1.4.1 (GNU/Linux) >Comment: Using GnuPG with Thunderbird - http://enigmail.mozdev.org > >iD8DBQFDzl9Y/TBScWXa5IgRAlFRAJ9jBO2zdFzqg6EDyQpm1IuZzjn7kwCggEY5 >nvdM3L5Cd8lfloJuPfTnnnQ= >=crAX >-----END PGP SIGNATURE----- > >_______________________________________________ >gnhlug-discuss mailing list >gnhlug-discuss@mail.gnhlug.org >http://mail.gnhlug.org/mailman/listinfo/gnhlug-discuss _______________________________________________ gnhlug-discuss mailing list gnhlug-discuss@mail.gnhlug.org http://mail.gnhlug.org/mailman/listinfo/gnhlug-discuss
