Open Source/Free Software in Maricopa Government -another view.

[J]

Let us take a look at a much more basic issue. 
Should we attempt to make govt function better?
Let them go their merry way down the yellowbrick road of miscrosoft or 
anywhere else they choose. 

Increasing their efficiency or capability will not cut taxes, slow govt 
growth, increase freedom,  help the poor,  or help anyone who is trying to 
make a living outside of the govt pork barrel.

I think the wise course is to let them be, let them choke on the IT cancer of 
their own making. It will  make for quite a show.

Roger





On Tuesday 17 December 2002 03:04 pm, you wrote:
> On Tuesday 17 December 2002 02:51 pm, Michael Havens wrote:
> > On Monday 09 December 2002 12:34 pm, Gary Nichols wrote:
> > > Sorry to seem sarcastic, but I get irate knowing that they are wasting
> > > my tax dollars on stuff that could be done SOOO much cheaper.
> >
> > Someone who knows alot about this (not me) should write a letter to the
> > editor about how much money the government is wasting on Computer
> > applications when there is such a viable option!
>
> But then Maricopa County would have to hire competent IT people at market
> rates, instead of incompetent hacks at 2/3rds of market rate!
>
> Like Microsoft is fond of saying, TCO is more than just the up-front
> software costs. For Maricopa County to switch over would require that a)
> they find some pretense to fire the incompetent hacks who currently run
> their IT department, b) pay lots of money to settle the inevitable
> "wrongful dismissal" charges out of court, c) do a search for a competent
> IT director (and who is going to do this search? Who at Maricopa County has
> the knowledge to tell a competent IT director from a hack?), d) pay this
> guy market rates, e) have him hire competent IT staff at market rates. In
> other words, we're talking considerable expense to do the changeover, plus
> a higher recurring cost because of the need to pay competent IT staff at
> market rates. If the difference in licensing costs is $50,000 per year, but
> the difference in staffing costs to get competent IT people is $100,000 per
> year, you can see how it wouldn't be worth it to change over to Open Source
> -- even if we're not counting the wrongful dismissal settlements as part of
> the difference in staffing costs.
>
> Microsoft software is like crack cocaine -- once they get you addicted,
> breaking the addiction is hard to do :-(.
>
> Btw, the personnel costs are not insigificant. When I was doing school
> consulting, I was regularly asked "What server platform should we use?". My
> inevitable response was "Use whatever your staff is most familiar with and
> whatever has the most local talent that knows it" -- whether that was
> Novell, Microsoft, or (unlikely in that era) Linux. Our own servers (that
> we installed at these school districts) were Linux, but that's because we
> were being paid to maintain them and we were Unix database geeks. These
> mostly-rural school districts couldn't afford to hire people at market rate
> and pay them to move to BumFuck Mississippi... they had to stick with the
> local talent, which was (alas) mostly Microsoft-centric (with some Novell
> guys out there). When I was asked by these school districts, "should we use
> Linux?", my response was inevitably "ask your local computer experts",
> because if the local computer experts didn't know Linux, they hadn't a hope
> in hell of making a Linux installation work right. Given how (in)competent
> these "local experts" were with Microsoft software, I didn't see a hope in
> hell of them ever learning Linux... but what the hey, maybe the horse
> learns to speak, right? And in fact one or two districts DID dabble in
> Linux, mostly for mail servers (much cheaper than Exchange Server).
>
> But the deal is, I recognized that I, as an outsider merely passing
> through, was not in the best position to say whether Linux could
> successfully be deployed there. And you, as an outsider, are in no position
> to say whether Linux could successfully be deployed by Maricopa County.
> Given the general incompetence and ineptitude of how these "local experts"
> are handling their Microsoft install, the thought of them trying to do
> Linux is rather... terrifying.