Dear Bradly,
On Mon, 20 Oct 2008, Bradley Holt wrote:
This is a tricky one. If I wanted our company to join vtSDA we'd have to pay
$250 (based on our company size). Should membership be free because they
receive state funding? I can see the argument either way (assuming they're
not 100% state funded - and I'd include volunteer time as a form of
"funding"). However, it would be very wise of vtSDA to focus on outreach to
organizations such as VAGUE so that these conversations can happen and they
can have a chance to explain their point-of-view.
Maybe the trick here is not membership but affiliation. How many members
of the vtSDA are on the VAGUE list?
That was not what I was asking. I think the discontent you are expressing is
much more nuanced and I was *not* suggesting that you were unhappy about not
getting a hand-out. In fact, I'd be very surprised if VAGUE ever accepted
any sort of government funding unless there were very clear guidelines on
how this benefited the community at large.
I agree, in my thinking VAGUE is less an organization and more of a
constituency. (Persons with A.D.D.? :^)
Nope, I was not suggesting that VAGUE members are not business focused.
However, I think that VAGUE focuses on technology (and values such as
freedom) first and business second. vtSDA seems to be focused on business
first and technology second. There is no value judgment intended here and
this is a broad oversimplification but I hope you see my point.
I can see we are both grasping for why we like VAGUE more than vtSDA,
because we both do like it more....
I haven't seen anything that indicates that vtSDA is MS-based (but then I
didn't know they were state funded either). In fact, I know at least one of
their founding members uses quite a bit of free/open source software. I
don't think this is really the issue. Again, I think the issue is much more
vague (pun intended). If vtSDA doesn't reach out to VAGUE, it might be
worthwhile to reach out to them to see if they have answers to the concerns
you've raised. Otherwise I fear that the criticism is rather one-sided.
Patrick Martell just agreed to send emails in ASCII rather than HTML only.
I consider that a win! Could it merely be about email format?
I vote and I'm sure many members do as (I think) we're a freedom-loving
bunch. Government money goes to all sorts of things (for better or for
worse) that you normally don't even hear about.
Take the foreign national embezzler who is a state employee at VT DPS...
To criticize this one organization without asking them for their
perspective is somewhat unfair.
I agree and would like to see if we can build a communications bridge to
vtSDA.
Kindest Regards,
Paul Flint
(802) 479-2360
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Paul Flint
Barre Open Systems Institute
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skype: flintinfotech
Work: (202) 537-0480
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Consilium
gratuitum .~.
valet /V\
quanti /( )\
numerantur ^^-^^
