I don't know how to respond to this other than to be truthful...
On Sat, 2004-06-19 at 15:23, Michael Havens wrote:
> How does this one look?
> +++++++++++
> -> Editor
> <- Concerned citizens
>
> It has come to our attention that state and city governments of this state are
> not acting in the best interest  of it's citizens.
How are they not acting in the best interest of their citizens? This is
a severe accusation and yet you make a general comment with concrete
fact to support it. Many governments buy into the philosophy that
Microsoft feeds them that states standardization (read all Microsoft) is
actually MORE cost effective. So they actually think they ARE acting in
the best interest of their constituency. You need to explain WHAT they
are doing that is wrong.
> These  organizations claim
> that they have no money yet they continue to  give  hundreds of thousands of
> dollars (if not then millions) to software manufactures.
Wow, I hope this is not how you expect to win friends and influence
people. Basically you are calling them liars. As you state the
"claim" to have no money yet they "continue to spend". The truth is
most of them do NOT have excess money. Most of them are spending
because they don't understand they have a CHOICE. However, calling them
liars doesn't help your cause.
> They continue to
> do  this by leasing licenses for the operating systems (OS) and software
> produced by these companies
Technically I believe they own the licenses. They just do a leased
service contract for upgrades... Enterprise Agreement reads very
strange. It is part lease part ownership.
> even though there are viable alternatives to
> their software and operating systems which are part of a movement known as
> being 'open source'.
There are not viable EQUIVALENTS in all cases. Making statements like
this makes your argument significantly weaker.
> This movement is one in which the source code (inner
> workings of the program) is available for everyone to inspect and to improve
> upon. While some say this leads to less secure programs, that is not
> true.
It is not universal that it leads to more secure programs either. Going
down this route is generally fruitless as a primary argument.
> Â The individuals who write computer virii are are usually young and
> inexperienced individuals who think they are smarter than they really are
> (this is why they ALWAYS get caught).
They do not always get caught and using character attacks (even on the
"bad" guys) doesn't help your argument.
> And while they are looking at the code
> with malicious overtones the wiser, more experienced generations are
> inspecting the same code fixing any security flaws they might find.
I hope you are not inferring that young people are not capable of coding
effectively.
> Because the code is open for all to see it is also open for all to compile
> (make operational) in whatever computing environment they wish. This means
> that it is free to use as your software. This all boils down to that for
> practically nothing you can have an operating system that that runs many
> top-notch programs that many believe are superior to operating systems you
> must pay for with the same funtionality.
Do not make the primary argument "no cost" it WILL bite you in the end.
> I now would finish with a listing of government agencies that have chosen to   Â
> go with open source software to reduce costs, increase security, and to
> improve performance:
This is the first part that actually contains facts with support. I
think you should drop all the emotional argument piece and just write
the person you want to influence with this list of governments
(including supporting documentation). At the top of the message simply
put....
"I have noticed recently that a lot of government agencies are
investigating the use of free software in order to reduce costs,
increase stablity/security and reduce vendor lockin. I was wondering if
<insert government agency you are writing to here> has investigated such
software? It looks like it might be something that is a good use of our
tax dollars in the long run. I am including a list of similar
government agencies that have started using such software. Perhaps you
could contact them and see if you could get similar results/benefits."
<insert your list here>
-Derek
(text/plain)