NH & OSS.

[Ken D'Ambrosio]

I was perusing the wiki entry on the HB1197 meeting
(http://wiki.gnhlug.org/twiki2/bin/view/Www/HouseBill1197), and noticed
something:

"Many of state's applications are mainframe based, most likely no similar
packages."

I'm not agreeing, I'm not disagreeing.  But here's an interesting data point:

About a year ago, I sent $100 to the dep't of state, asking for two
months' worth of newly incorparated company filings.  A couple of months
go by, I get nothing.  A couple more, I try calling.  I even visit. 
Nobody says anything.  Finally, I get my wife to call -- she actually
speaks with the person involved: apparently, they switched databases from
"mainframe" to "something else" (my guess: SQL Server on XP), and hadn't
been able to run reports since then.  "Would you like your money back?"

I *STILL* haven't received said lists.

Which makes me wonder if:
a) The vendors are even kinda-sorta competent, and
b) if there may not be mainframe-side stuff that OSS could offload onto
Linux boxen at huge savings... IF the OSS vendor could actually --
successfully -- replicate the mainframe application's functionality.

Stuff for you database/etc., gurus out there to consider.

-Ken