New Hampshire Passes 'Open Source Bill' 260
Plugh writes "In a victory for transparency and openness in government, and saving tax dollars, New Hampshire has passed HB418. State agencies are now required by law to consider open source software when acquiring software, and to promote the use of open data formats."
To what degree? (Score:2, Insightful)
And just how much consideration is required? "Yeah, we looked at it but didn't trust it, so it was immediately discarded" is technically a consideration.
Meaningless (Score:3, Insightful)
"Didn't meet our requirements."
With that statement, any choice can be made. It is impossible to legislate what people "should" do, particularly when dealing with large bureaucracies.
Their definition of "open source" (Score:5, Insightful)
It's interesting to see how a government defines what "open source" means. Some of the wording might actually restrict certain packages, for example:
As a professional open source developer myself, I have to admit that documentation isn't often a strong point of open source, and internal file formats are no exception.
"consideration" (Score:2, Insightful)
ctrl-c, ctrl-v
ctrl-c, ctrl-v
ctrl-c, ctrl-v ...
Re:Goverment doesn't know what to do with open sou (Score:5, Insightful)
How about we just get rid of government and let everyone decide what to do with their own goddamn money.
Because most of us like having things like sewage systems, streets, and someone to get the drunk drivers off the roads. Of course, with no roads, I guess the drunk drivers wouldn't be a problem.
And if you think people would band together to pay for basic infrastructure without any government-style coordination, you're out of your mind.
Open source is great. I use it for all kinds of things, but I don't have much faith that government can make it work to anyone's benefit.
Why not? They make proprietary software work for people's benefit. What's so different about open source software?
Let people keep their earnings and decide what solutions are best for themselves.
Most people would be more concerned about basic security than software solutions if you were to remove the government.
Otherwise, you might as well just have them at least support real business that actually employs someone.
Government is real business. Seriously. They provide services for their customers in exchange for money. Sure, the people who receive services and the people who pay aren't necessarily the same people (i.e. I pay road tax, but my street hasn't been repaved since it was built in the 1930s, since apparently no one knows how to rebrick a #*$%ing street anymore), but the concept is the same. You even get to vote for the officers, which is more than an shareholder does.
The government employs people, just like a business. It pays those people in real, actual money - which is more than many business do, what with stock options and whatnot. Government can't run without government employees. Those employees are regular people, just like you and me. I've met quite a few very competent sysadmins who were GS rated government employees.
Get rid of the government, and you'll find yourself needing to solve a lot of problems. Every solution to those problems will evolve into government. It's the way of the world. Don't like it? Build a shack in the middle of Idaho and live off the land.
Re:To what degree? (Score:3, Insightful)
Wan to to see probems with LibreOffice's MS Office conversions? Head here [libreoffice.org] for a more recent 'complaint' by one user.
Want to see to what extent close source shills will work to defeat open source implementations?
I have an example [boston.com] from more than half a decade ago; still relevant today as those folks are still living with the repercussions of that decision.
Re:Meaningless (Score:5, Insightful)
"Didn't meet our requirements."
With that statement, any choice can be made. It is impossible to legislate what people "should" do, particularly when dealing with large bureaucracies.
While true, this requires the minions to say so in writing, with their names attached. Which provides the demi-minions above them with grounds for low performance ratings, and so on up to the top of the heap. Where a challenger for some elected position could accuse the incumbent of failing to control costs, etc, using all these brief reports as concrete ammunition.
I have been employed by an agency of the Federal government, never for any State governments, but I believe when it comes to the hired staff they all work the same way. If you make the civil servants have to state their reasons for decisions in any kind of written report, suddenly those decisions become a lot more rational. They don't know who their boss will be after the next election, and if they want to advance, they've got to be good at covering their asses.
Looks to me like NH has found a way to make the CYA attitudes of its Sybil serpents work for the benefit of the populace. Way to go, Granite State!
Re:To what degree? (Score:3, Insightful)
Hard as I have tried, I just can't come up with a snarky comment about why this law is a bad idea. I'm sure there will be efforts made to do so below. However, the rest of us might take this opportunity to identify the trolls and shills by the quality, or lack, of their efforts.
I'll tell you one thing, there are some state legislators in New Hampshire who won't be finding fat checks from industry lobbyists in their xmas stockings this year. (Or maybe they will and the law will be overturned next year).
Re:Goverment doesn't know what to do with open sou (Score:5, Insightful)
You seem to be under the impression that if the government stops providing some services then those services won't be provided by other institutions. This is certainly _not_ true for all government activity.
Some services, yes. Not all. I'm well aware there are portions of the government that could be privatized successfully.
You seem to be under the impression that other institutions would provide all useful services provided by the government. That's certainly not true as well.
The idea that streets would not be built if it were not by the government is ridiculous.
Your street maybe. I'm probably the second wealthiest person on my street, only after a guy who inherited his mother's slumlord properties. I bring in around $2k/month. My street would be a loss.
Street maintenance could certainly be privatized, but someone has to hire and pay the company to do it, and someone has to make sure the poorer areas are maintained. Only a government is capable of this.
I'm not a hardcore socialist. I don't believe the government should own and control industry, outside of necessary regulatory duties (i.e. keep lead paint out of our food, make sure 1lb is really 1lb, etc.). I do believe the government is required to act in places where capitalism fails. Basic public infrastructure is one of those places.
The key difference between a government and a regular business is that a government extracts payment under the threat of violence, or in some cases, by using actual violence.
Companies would do the same if they were not prevented from doing so (by - you guessed it - the government). The government is a company who has a monopoly on violence against the populace.
I once lived somewhere where the electric and gas services were provided by a private company. If I didn't pay, I was under the threat of freezing to death in the winter. I don't see much difference.
Also, a share holder in a public company can trade his shares if he does not like how the company is run.
And you can squat in a shack in Idaho. Or you can move to somewhere where there is no government, like Somalia. Have fun with that.
Re:I'm the legislator and prime sponsor, and autho (Score:4, Insightful)
The CIO of NH (ie the Commission of NH DOIT) supported this legislation, because it will enable them to track and review purchases for EXACTLY that sort of reason. And in State Government, nothing is ever 'credit card purchase' of software, or shouldn't be.
So I'll reverse the question to you: Have you ever worked at State Government?
Re:Ugh. PC Comes to the PC (Score:2, Insightful)
I think a state government is well within its rights to dictate how best to save and spend its money. If a person works for a state government he or she is agreeing to work within the confines dictated by government policy. Similarly, a corporate IT department dictates what can and cannot be run on its network. Are you suggesting that an employee should be free to make those decisions without regard to what corporate or government policy dictates?
Besides that, the NH legislature isn't telling government offices that they are required to use OSS. It is telling them to consider it as part of the decision-making process in order to best evaluate the options in order to find the most cost-effective choice. Your argument is off-target.
Comment removed (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:I'm the legislator and prime sponsor, and autho (Score:4, Insightful)
Good eye.
In order to get the bill passed.
They are in the midst of rolling out an E-Court system, and they felt this would get in the way... and besides which it was a turf war (Legislative versus Judicial)
I wanted the bill to pass, so I said 'Ok, you guys are exempt'. Such is politics.
Re:To what degree? (Score:4, Insightful)
I think that open source won long ago. The primary driving force behind closed source is Microsoft. And, Microsoft no longer has the world's population trying to force feed cash to Microsoft. Things are changing, Microsoft has less money to spend on bribes, and those stocking stuffers are more targeted now.
Eventually, the world will realize that it makes no sense to pay licensing fees for something that has a free equivalent.
The biggest obstacle to adoption of open source now, are all those kids of the '90's and '00's who grew up using Microsoft, believing that manipulating Microsoft's GUI made them "computer scientists". It's a slow process, but stupidity and ignorance can be healed.
Re:Goverment doesn't know what to do with open sou (Score:4, Insightful)
Sorry to hear that. But what you are saying is that, given your limited resources, you'd prefer to spend money in things other than improving the quality of your street. That is totally reasonable.
My street doesn't get improved (it was a WPA project from the 1930s - the city won't rebrick it for some reason, and they can't pave over the bricks because the historical society won't let them), but that's besides the point. If I were to go out and rebrick the part of the street I own, it wouldn't do any good for the part of street in front of the vacant lot two houses down, or the part in front of the old woman down the street who gets $300/month on social security.
The city, on the streets that it actually does improve, improves streets all at once, to the same quality, with the same materials. And no, there's no way the people on my street would come together on this. The old woman can't pay, the drug dealer across the street wouldn't be interested, the drunk dude on the corner would just want to start a fight, etc.
Poorer areas don't have to be maintained. It would be nice if they were, but people might want to user their money for other things.
Thus increasing the class disparity in this country. Think about the consequences of that kind of thinking for a while. Look at countries where it prevails.
Places like India, where some people make good money and live in nice houses, while other people literally live in dumps, recycling garbage to buy enough rice to stay alive. Places like Nigeria, where the population lives in squalor, except for the people making money hand over fist in the oil trade.
A large class disparity makes for a dissatisfied, bitter populace. That breeds security problems. I don't know about you, but I like not living behind a barbed wire fence.
If you regard the company as violent for cutting your services, you'd have to regard your neighbors/friends/family/coworkers in the same way for not helping you pay the bill. Why are the gas company owners any more responsible for your wellbeing than your neighbor or your friend?
I never said I regarded the company as violent, or that the company was somehow responsible for my well-being. I was pointing out that I would suffer potentially fatal consequences if I failed to pay my bill. Not paying taxes is actually safer - the most they'll do is garnish my wages or put me in jail.
I don't think I'd like Somalia at all...
Somalia is what happens when you have an ineffectual government. People are people - regardless of religion, culture, whatever - we as a group are greedy bastards who look after ourselves and those we care about first. We don't organize well, and when we do, it's usually as a special interest group or a mob.
To keep a people calm and peaceful, they have to be satisfied with their situation (or at least satisfied enough that they won't risk losing what they have). First, you need security - you have to feel safe in your home and about on your business. The government provides that. Next you need a standard of living that isn't disgraceful. Most people here have that - including most poor people. That's provided either by the government or by the economic system it supports. Next you need the people to feel they have some control over their lives. We have democracy and the government prevents most monopolies from forcing themselves on the populace.
When you don't have these things, the people don't stay peaceful. Where do gangs form in this country? Places where the standard of living is the lowest and security is lax.
This is out of order, but it shouldn't hurt the context:
Agreed. I believe this is the primary function of government, although I'd call it an enterprise instead of a company.
I believe the primary function of government is to fill in the spaces where capit
Comment removed (Score:4, Insightful)