Legislation is not the answer. Most government is open as open source/standards. The answer is to form a open source advocacy group (without affiliation to Bruce Perens) and have "associations" in each state capitol city that acts as a lobby to work with the agencies that Florida is trying for the 5th time to create.
I have a long history with the State of FL and it's attempts to centralize IT. These bills show up at every governor change. All initiatives have failed with the last one getting the state in some hot water...being a government agency...of course there was no recourse. Had the dealings been done in the corporate world...there would be trials and people would be in jail right now - it was that bad.
If you read the bill...it is more of an appropriations bill and most of the language was changed to the 08/09 fiscal year. We need to act quickly, build an organization, get funding and start sitting in on their meetings regularly....meaning EVERY meeting held. I started to do that back in 1999 and 2000 and made progress, but my job got in the way.
We simply need a voice....it is in our best interest to create that voice. For what it's worth...the quote from "another lobbyist" was Novell's lobbyist who was present and is trying very hard to educate everyone on open source (generally speaking). We need MORE doing the same with all facets of government from the top down.
JP
>>> On Wed, Apr 18, 2007 at 8:06 PM, in message <4626B281.1040704@gmail.com>, tom
smith <atomsmitty@gmail.com> wrote:
> I agree. There should be some body which can establish political consensus
> among the FSF, the Open Source Initiative, the Apache foundation, the
> Mozilla
> foundation, and other groups. Then, hire lobbyists to effect legislation on
> the
> state and national levels.
> Smitty
>
> warren harris wrote:
>> It is about time that LUGs organize on a national level to form some
>> potical muscle.
>>
>> */Chad Perrin <perrin@apotheon.com>/* wrote:
>>
>> On Wed, Apr 18, 2007 at 11:49:10AM -0400, William Coulter wrote:
>> > Did anybody read this about what MS did in Florida. I guess when
>> you have
>> > BILLIONS you have Millions of loyaler to look over everything in
>> government.
>> >
>> > William
>> >
>> > http://enterprise.linux.com/article.pl?sid=07/04/16/2019244&from=rss
>>
>> Back when I attended SLUG meetings regularly, I met Roblimo -- nice guy.
>> I'm not at all surprised he pursued this matter and wrote it up the way
>> he did.
>>
>> I wish I could say I was surprised at this behavior from Microsoft
>> lobbyists. I guess the next question is this: What can we do about it?
>>
>> --
>> "The first rule of magic is simple. Don't waste your time waving your
>> hands and hopping when a rock or a club will do." - McCloctnick the
>> Lucid
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> Warren Harris
>> FSE Medical Imaging
>> SourceOne Healthcare Technologies, Inc
>> a Division of Merry XRay Corporation
>> 813-781-0194
>> war4val@yahoo.com
>>
>> Ahhh...imagining that irresistible "new car" smell?
>> Check out new cars at Yahoo! Autos.
>>
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>>
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