[PLUG-TALK] Re: [PLUG] AeA Awards Rep. Minnis

[gepr at tempusdictum.com]

Geoff Burling writes:
 > On Sat, 10 Jan 2004 gepr at tempusdictum.com wrote:
 > 
 > >  > On Sat, Jan 10, 2004 at 03:10:12PM -0800, gepr at tempusdictum.com wrote:
 > >  > > Woohoo!!  Cheers to Minnis for killing it!  And congrats to Minnis
 > >  > > and Decket.
 > >  >
 > >  > Just whose side are you on, anyway?  Minnis really blocked an obvious
 > >  > cost-cutting measure and killed it outright, and you think that's good?
 > >
 > > I'm on the side of limited government and the delegation of
 > > responsibility to individuals who are accountable for those decisions.
 > >
[... snipped my own rant ...]

 > I think I have just read an argument from an old-fashioned Republican.
 > The kind of person who screams that government should not spend a dime
 > more than it absolutely has to -- unless it concerns a contract that
 > person has submitted, in which case the government MUST pay top dollar.

Dude!  How dare you all me a Republicrat!  (Or, in case anyone doesn't
get that joke... How dare you call me a Demopublican!) [grin]

No, the argument I was trying (and probably failing) to put forth
was that there is an inverse relationship between a) more legislation
and b) efficiency.  (a) leads to more documents, more documents about
documents, more machinery to create and handle documents, more 
people to handle the machinery to create and handle documents, and 
more people to handle the people who handle the machinery to handle
the documents about the documents.  (The name for that last category
is "lawyers" or, more generally, the courts -- I include the arbitration
industry in "the courts" for what its worth.)

Now, I'm not an anarchist.  I believe in some form of a Hobbesian state.
So, some overhead is necessary in order to make "progress".  But, sheesh,
even I know that it's a waste of time to build a SQL database to handle
one record.  So, there's an existence proof that sometimes there is 
such a thing as too much overhead.

I am positing that a _law_ making state employees _consider_ open
source is a waste.  It's too much overhead.  People will consider what
their history, experience, and network of friends and peers make
available to them (or, more accurately, they'll consider the things
that impinge upon them deeply enough to make an impact on their lizard
brain -- like free coffee mugs).

 > I, for one, see nothing wrong with asking for justification for paying
 > money for software when alternatives can be downloaded & installed from
 > the Internet at little to no cost. Unfortunately, Minnis & the AeA
 > don't want to justify this procedure; they would rather have a special
 > spending account with no limits & no accountability when it comes to
 > software.

I do see something wrong with it.  And all I can do is yammer on about
it, vote, code, and mow my lawn.

-- 
glen e. p. ropella              =><=                           Hail Eris!
H: 503.630.4505                              http://www.ropella.net/~gepr
M: 971.219.3846                               http://www.tempusdictum.com