[PLUG] HB2892 Makes Worksession!

[Cooper Stevenson]

Friends, 

First, I cannot stress enough how proud I am of all of you who have
taken an active roll to see this legislation get first to committee and
now to a work session! I am not exaggerating when I say had it not been
for your active support, none of this would have been possible. Thank
you all again! 

Okay, so many of you are dying to know: we made it to work session! This
is historical. This means that the Representatives for the General
Government Committee feel that there is sufficient interest in the bill
to warrant further action! Again, I am very proud. 

Basically, Ken Barber started testimony with what I felt was a crisp
representation of the bill. His words were powerful and I could tell
that he felt very deeply about this issue. It showed. I'm telling you,
Ken was in rare form. 

Secondly, There was testimony from a representative of O'reilly
discussing how critical it is for government to use open standards. Good
stuff. Thanks are extend to the O'reilly team for their support. 

Third, I kind of "took one for the team" and testified on Open Source
Security. I covered the idea that Open Source developers write code in a
particular manner because their heart was in it, and that the code that
they do write is under intense scrutiny as it develops. I also covered
the idea that an application cannot be truly secure unless it's design
is known to all and yet is still difficult to exploit. 

Believe me, I would love to have testified that as a 10 year IT veteran,
that I have tracked IT trends and can testify that some proprietary
vendors (Microsoft in particular) are definitely not nice guys, "and
here's why..." 

I listened to the audio stream when I came home and I am confident that
I did a good job. The reality is that my testimony was easy to make: it
was the truth. 

After the first panel (we testified in groups of three), the "education
squad" came ready for bear. 

They made a fantastic presentation; Eric Harrision (Lane School
District), Paul Nelson (Riverdale High School), and Quentin Hartmen
(Multnomah Ed. Service Dist.) really were the engine that moved our
testimony forward.

Others supporters followed. There was no shortage of interest in this
bill.

After we had finished our testimony, the Initiative For Software Choice,
the Computing Technology Industry Association, and the Business Software
Alliance testified as a panel. 

The Initiative for Software Choice testified among other things that 
"No law rule or regulation stands in the way of Oregon Software
procurement professionals from obtaining the most appropriate software
for it's needs."

That may be true, but that doesn't mean that we're necessarily dealing
with a level playing field in the Software marketplace. Imagine Ford
Motor Company had a monopoly on the auto market. While there's no law
prohibiting Government agencies from buying another brand of car, the
reality in the market place is that everybody buys Ford and ships
taxpayer dollars to Dearborn Michigan in the process.

The Business Software Alliance testified that, "...And [Oregon's
thriving technological innovation] is in no small part due to the fact
that this body has wisely and successfully chosen to let market forces,
not legislative mandates, drive that innovation."

Is that why Intel laid off 4,000 workers last spring? Is that why we
have so much competition in the Operating System and office productivity
suite markets?

Finally, the Oregon Department of Administrative Services testified.
They basically said first that they support "the concept of using open
source software, and does so today, but is unable to support the bill
without changes to the measure's language."

I look forward to working with the Department of Administrative Services
to address any concerns they may have.

Over the weekend I will post the opponent's written testimony on our web
site.

I will keep you posted.


Very Truly Yours,


Cooper Stevenson
MWVLUG Coordinator
Em:  cooper at cooper.stevenson.name
Www: http://www.mwvlug.org








Cooper