County Meeting

[Bill Nash]

On Tue, 9 Jul 2002, foodog wrote:

> Robert Bushman wrote:
> ...
> > My humble opinion:
> >
> > Maricopa has no serious intent to do anything to
> > alter its dependant relationship with Microsoft,
> > and is not interested in trialing Linux. We are
> > barking up the wrong tree.
>
> Figgers.  Thanks much for your update, Robert, and everyone who helped
> make it happen.  It was a worthy project.
>

	It still is a worthy project. Remember that adage, 'the customer
is always right'? We are the county's customer, where access to online
docs is concerned. If we ask for access and compatibility to their
platforms, they HAVE to provide it. There are many different ways to
attack a critter this size. How do ants defeat a bear?

	The big problem with this: How important are county docs to us? I,
personally, never look at them. For me to complain that I can't access
them is a simple act of, for lack of a purely appropriate term,
shit-disturbing. And as I've said previously, replacing MS simply because
it's MS is a misguided efforts. The needs and efficiency of the county, as
they service the community, must come first.

	They mention that MS licensing and support costs only take 5% of
the budget, and people hem and haw over what that dollar figure is. The
budget is public record, and I do recall it sitting at something like 38
million, as discussed at the Saturday strategy session. If the county
isn't going to budge because they're set in their ways and/or their staff
simply can't handle the different technologies, then they're going to need
an example to work from. Start going after other offices. Start raising
the bar on deployed integration systems that use open source technologies
to support their chosen environments, and prove that it can be done at
lower costs, both in support and licensing outlay. A good place to start
is the wrinkle in the fabric between county, state, and city.

	Lastly, don't succumb to the base desire to mope and whine over
the setback. Big deal, they're firmly entrenched in the Microsoft camp.
There are ways to use that to an advantage. We've all grown up watching
movies with noble characters laid low by villains with no moral standing
going after things they hold near and dear. Kick the Noble MS Heroes in
the pants: Raise the community accepted bar on standards and practices.
Oversight and security requirements beyond what MS currently offers, or
*declines* to offer will bring the win32 warhost to it's knees.

	Any contest of wills has a history proven armament of dirty tricks
just waiting to be unleashed. Consider this to be a large scale conflict
that will take time and energy to overcome, but understand that you need
to keep a firm goal in sight. What's the goal? From my point of view, it's
getting trusted technologies in the hands of our government that can be
assessed by a public oversight consisting of citizens smart enough to know
what's what. That means open source tools, in my eyes. I'm sure many of
you agree (This includes the government of Peru.)

	Once you have a goal, you need a plan. Any plan requires
information, and that means reconnaisance and assessment. Keep in mind,
Microsoft isn't inherently the enemy here: It's closed source tools and
proprietary technology. Every battlefield has crucial points to be
controlled and held, and in our case, it's going to be information
repositories. A key point to consider is that the county has deployed
technology for one major factor: efficiency. Other factors, such as cost,
increased efficiency, seamless integration, and most importantly security
are the crucial points we want to target:

1: What information does the county keep that we, as citizens, consider to
be vital? Where does security become vital?
	- This is a sticky argument, since we are dealing with public
data. I think the key points are that data should be safeguarded from
tampering/corruption, and access to important data be logged and
monitored, or publicized.

2: What county offices are centered around collecting, storing, and using
that data? What offices do they interact with?

3: What requirements are those offices held to for securing that data?
Who can access it? What technologies are used to secure it?
	- What is the security rating/history of those technologies? You
and I both know MS is rife for various worm and distributed attacks.

4: Where can Open Source technology fit that MS cannot or will not
support? Where can Open Source handle the same work with greater
efficiency and security?

Assessment is the first step. We can speculate on how to do things ahead
of time, but execution can't be done efficiently without good tools.
Instead of weapons, we use policy and procedure. The trick is finding
policies that work for us, getting new policies in place that help, and
getting rid of policies that suck.

A good place to start assessing is simply reading departmental reports
that are available. Go over the budgets and see where technology spending
and staff training is going. Do some comparison shopping and start keeping
score. Support figures and license costs are good things to watch for.
Equipment outlay is another.

Keep an eye out for other states and counties on the Open Source track, as
well. There are examples in the wild to be learned from and held up for
scrutiny.

Purchasing plans account for depreciation of computer hardware
over a period of years, which is why the county keeps hardware for so
long. Same with lawyers, but mostly because they're cheap.  Most of us
know that Unix based OS's can extend the usability of some hardware even
further, without a degree of slowness noticeable to the average user.
I'm thinking about mail servers as I write this.

Also, we're not out for blood, here, so killing and maiming (or even
simply verbally abusing) county staff is right out. If you feel the need
to be hostile, you give me a call, and I'll be more than happy to provide
you with a hostile enviroment to vent your frustrations. =)

All this said, it's a big battlefield. Where to begin?

- billn