Bandersnatch Results

[Robert Bushman]

Following is what we talked about regarding Monday's
meeting. Of course, what follows is opinion and
conjecture. Please correct and/or comment as necessary.


While we do not know the purpose of this meeting
from the County's perspective, we can make some
assumptions:
  1. If County believes that they are bound by
     the debarment clause, our work is essentially
     done. We just offer to lend a hand.
  2. If County believes that they are not bound
     by the debarment clause, we will not be able
     to convince them on Monday.
  3. Given (1) and (2), arguing about the debarment
     clause on Monday is either unnecessary or futile,
     and will eat into time we could spend on other
     things.

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Please dress appropriately. While we respect your
T-shirt depicting Hillary Rosen being burned at
the stake by a dozen indie guitarists, County will
probably be more impressed with business attire.

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Capturing the main selling points in an organized
format will help us to present our case in a logical
fashion. To wit, I present the first pass:

NOTE: Most of these points can logically lead back
to, "doing a few alternative OS machines today will
dramatically mitigate your risk tomorrow," which could
reasonably be the central theme of our conjecture.

- Capture each of the key points from the Peruvian
Congressman's letter.

- Open data formats ensure future access to data.
MS .doc will continue to evolve and may become
unreadable (EG: Palladium/DRM).

- Multisourcing of any component should be possible.
Dependancy on a single source is dangerous, even if
the single source is currently an ally.

- Talent Pool / Community Support. Because Linux has
an avid user community in Maricopa, migration can be
done on a small scale for a reasonable price.

- Much as single-sourcing is bad policy even with
an ally, dealing with a convicted anti-trust violator
is bad policy, even if they serve your purpose at the
moment. They are known to violate anti-trust laws,
that is a risk.

- Migrating a few dozen machines to alternative
operating systems over the coming year will make you
more prepared if the worst does happen. Migrating
tens of thousands of machines to an untried alternative
at panic speed could be disastrous. Prepare now, while
the cost is low.

- Microsoft dependance is not a problem - yet. But
Microsoft has shown through their actions that they
cannot be trusted to act in ways that align with
Maricopa's best interests. Exiting immediately is
not necessary - being exit capable is wise.

- Can't hurt to have a few Linux machines the next
time the MS rep comes around. Competition does great
things to prices.

- Continued dependance increases dependance. No
matter how hard it seems today, it will be harder
tomorrow.

- Every little bit helps. We would be ecstatic to
see a 50% conversion in 6 months - but that's probably
not realistic. Set acheivable goals - find a dozen
people, or two small departments, that are willing
to give it a try first - see what happens.