Doing the Right Thing (revisited)

[George Toft]

Technologically superior products have nothing to do with success.  To
wit: Windows vs Unix, Beta vs VHS, Minidisc vs anything, PowerPC vs.
i386.

"To be provided a weapon to use in a fight and not use it is foolish."
(some US Army hand-to-hand combat manual)

To Hans' point - we know the governments have a debarment process, now
we must act to get them to consider debarment.  Even if the end result
is that they choose to keep everything as it is, our voices will have
been heard.  The seeds of doubt will have been planted.  Many
organizations are deeply entrenched in Microsoft technology, and most
people fear change, so they will not want to change.  Guess what?  Some
of these people we need to write to are elected officials, and we can
influence their future employment.  That is a powerful motivator.

George


Jiva DeVoe wrote:
> 
> Sacred cows about to be slaughtered!  Beware!
> 
> Perhaps instead of spending all this energy on trying to come up with ways
> to fight MS legally (which MS will win anyway) why not spend this energy
> making Linux the better platform to choose for the applications instead of
> MS?  Then you win for the *right reason*.
> 
> Frankly, I for one cannot in good conscience recommend that Linux is the
> right platform for my children to use in school until Linux has better
> educational games and is easier to use.  And forcing a choice on someone
> because of political motivations is no better than what MS does.
> 
> On 6/26/02 1:55 PM, "der.hans" <PLUGd@LuftHans.com> wrote:
> 
> > Am 25. Jun, 2002 schwätzte George Toft so:
> >
> >> While searching for more debarment guidelines, I came across these
> >> tidbits:
> >> ===================================================================
> >> Title 7, Ch. 2 Arizona Administrative Code
> >> State Board of Education
> >>
> >> R7-2-1161. Authority to debar or suspend
> >> A. The governing board has the authority to debar or suspend a
> >> person from participating in school district procurements.
> >
> > OK, this says they can debar a company, but doesn't require them to do so.
> >
> > Just looked at your earlier post about Maricopa County rules as well. Those
> > also don't require debarment :(.
> >
> > I would presume this means that m$ isn't automagically debarred, rather only
> > that the gov't now has cause to debar m$ if the gov't so chose. Now we have
> > to convince them to debar m$ for their illegal activities. That's something
> > that should've happened more than 10 years ago the first time m$ was on
> > trial for anti-trust violations. Were they actually convicted that time or
> > did they plea bargain out of it?
> >
> > ciao,
> >
> > der.hans
> >
> >> B. The causes for debarment or suspension include the following:
> >> 3. Conviction or civil judgment finding a violation by any
> >> person or any subsidiary or affiliate of any person under
> >> state or federal antitrust statutes.
> >>
> >> www.mpsaz.org/purchasing/protest.pdf
> >>
> >> Same as before - Schools may debar anti-trust violators.
> >>
> >> ===================================================================
> >> Same thing for ASU:
> >> www.abor.asu.edu/1_the_regents/policymanual/chap3/3-809.pdf (page 11)
> >>
> >> ===================================================================
> >> Same thing for the State:
> >> http://sporas.ad.state.az.us/AZPolicy_art9.htm#Debarment
> >>
> >> ===================================================================
> >>
> >>
> >> Tom Emerson is right - there is not much originality from one government
> >> agency to the next in Arizona - they all pretty much copy the same text
> >> and format.
> >>
> >> Let the letter writing begin!!!
> >>
> >> George
> >> ________________________________________________
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> >> to the list quickly and you use Netscape to write mail.
> >>
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> >>
> 
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> 
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