[clug] AGIMO seeks comments (again) on productivity software file formats
Stephen Walsh
steve at nerdvana.org.au
Fri Feb 17 05:00:45 MST 2012
On 02/17/2012 10:11 PM, Paul Wayper wrote:
> Ah, Steve, once again you call me to account on that crucial piece of
> detail
> whose failure collapses my whole argument. Your dedication to this cause is
> wonderful to behold :-)
>
> I don't know why, Steve, you seem to have taken this as some kind of personal
> attack on you, the government, AGIMO, or whoever. I'm not sure how you get
> from my fairly simple observations about vendor lock-in to some kind of
> suggestion that user groups will need to answer all their questions,
> especially from top secret agencies.
Similar to the old axiom "no one ever got fired for buying IBM", no one
ever got fired for buying a Microsoft product (unless they work for
Canonical, in which case Mark can easily take them on safari next time
he nips home for the weekend and solve that little HR problem).
Microsoft comes with support in the form of Microsoft Valued Partners,
integrators and a veritable army of (questionably) certifiable
engineers. You can pick up a phone and ring the company that has been
contracted to assist your department do what they do, and not have to
worry about how much you can or can't show them, generally as their
access to the system is governed by their clearance. Kids come of year
10 with MCSE's, and can get a job as a junior admin or helpdesk drone
with minimal experience (this has the side effort of devaluing the MCSE
to being an entry level qualification. As a RHCE, I'm not sure I want
the same to happen to something that broke my brain for a week to get.).
Yes, companies like Unisys, etc, provide similar services, but is unisys
geared towards engineering systems support, not desktop floor walkers to
show people how to do a mail merge in Libreoffice. You can't just take a
dozen year 12 graduates and have them floor walk to help people with
FOSS software, they need to be taught and trained, which is 3-6 months
they aren't earning a full wage.
You're trying to make the point that AGIMO Isn't interested in listening
to someone about why open formats and information freedom is better in
the long term.
I'm trying to make the point that open formats and information freedom
are not "free as in beer", but have a cost that a lot of people don't
seem to think about.
You need to acknowledge the second part and find a way to present it as
a positive before you can do the first. The 800lb gorilla isn't going to
go away, but I really don't think it's the community's role to say
"Shoo! Shoo!" in an effort to make the government see the error of their
way. Yes, the community can facilitate meetings and workshops and "open
source in government" miniconfs at LCA2013, but it doesn't have the
ability to take the head of agimo out for lunch to explain why open
source is inherently better. That needs to be the Red Hat and Canonicals
of the world
> I'm really confounded as to how you got
> "Open source is totally free! you don't have to pay a cent!" out of my post
> which didn't mention cost at all.
see above.
>
> P.S. my offer to meet up in person so you can explain exactly how I have
> offended you and to offer in some way to apologise and explain my actions
> still stands and I place myself at your convenience.
Nothing has changed since you last made this offer, when I have the time
to meet with you, I will let you know, but dragging it onto the clug
list does no one any favours.
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