No subject

their position within the bureaucracy by gaining control of the largest
budget and the largest number of people as possible.  So instead of an
efficient solution the bureaucrat strives for solutions which require
more resources rather than fewer. This enables them to more easily
justify larger budgets and larger personnel requirements.

Some will think that what I just said is far too cynical to be possible
and that any bureaucrat behaving in this fashion would be so inefficient
that they would quickly be replaced.  That is true, but the bureaucrats
realize that they have to balance their efforts to gain resources with
the need of the politicians to appear to be striving for efficiency, and
against the ambitions of other bureaucrats within the organization.  If
one bureaucrat becomes too inefficient, another will use that excess
to destroy their credibility and acquire their resources or at least
get their resources reassigned to someone who is an ally within the
organization.

If the bureaucrat in charge of IT cannot be converted to an open source
mentality then the next way forward is to convince the politicians that
the IT people are biased or incompetent.  That is a very difficult thing
to do and dangerous to attempt.  At all times convincing the IT people
to become open source supporters is a far better path and worth whatever
amount of effort it takes to accomplish it.
> 
> Based on this bogus report, we're going to work to have similar
> legislation introduced again next year, and deal with both of these
> misperceptions (I suspect someone at OIT wanted this dead on arrival,
> since they never testified on it in a hearing, but worked behind the
> scenes against it.)  It didn't help that the Science/Tech committee
> didn't get this bill to consider, either... ExecDepts didn't
> understand this issue.

I wonder if it might be possible to find out who was in charge of the
office of information technology and start taking them out to lunch?

If we cannot convince the internal technology people that open source is
a better choice, then a much larger and more difficult campaign will be
needed to convince the politicians that, even though their internal IT
people say it's no good, open source software is better for the state.

This might mean having to publicize and educate the entire voting
population of New Hampshire about open source software and the fact that
it is a better choice for government infrastructure.  To do this will
require substantial expenditure of resources.

Does anyone have contacts in the state government?

> 
> Next year, I'd love for a few dozen people to show up, and help
> explain how Open Source works, the benefits (on lots of levels), and
> how it would increase NH economy, etc.
> Hopefully, people like Mr. Hall and others can appear and help this happen.
> 
> Anyone interested in helping this effort, please contact me, as we can
> start laying the ground work for next year...
> 
> Seth
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> 

-- 
Jeff Kinz, Emergent Research, Hudson, MA.
speech recognition software may have been used to create this e-mail

"The greatest dangers to liberty lurk in insidious encroachment by men
of zeal, well-meaning but without understanding." - Brandeis

To think contrary to one's era is heroism. But to speak against it is
madness. -- Eugene Ionesco