[PLUG] HB2892 - conversation with Jerry

Kris krisa at subtend.net
Fri Apr 18 17:26:16 UTC 2003


Behold!  Representative Jerry Drummel, at 16:52PDT, calls me back.

I spoke with him for about 10 minutes.  To summarize:

* He scratched out the discussion of the bill in the general committee
  because he wasn't happy with the amendments.  Two issues:
   - Issue with the "where as" clauses.  I didn't know what this meant.
   - Issue with parts of section 2, did not go into details

* He has been working with Barnhart and and Ken Barber since the bills
  creation.

* He is the one who invited Riverdale and the MESD down to testify.

* Once the bill is finalized and approved through the General committee,
  he would be a yes vote.


He also made a interesting comment about school districts in general (I
mentioned I worked for Tigard/Tualatin SD).  He said that if the bill
wasn't watered down, and specifically said "you must purchase open
source software over proprietary software", school district
administrators would be pissed off because the state would be telling
them what, and what not, to purchase.  

Even if this bill passes, it will be a long journey towards the path to
enlightenment. :)  Education of the procurement people will need to be
done.  School educators will need to be educated on the benefits of
considering open source to proprietary software.

This is also a good opportunity for the unemployed to get out there and
implement open source solutions at half the cost of proprietary software,
with a reasonable amount of profit.

So, I don't think the bill is dead, just standard government
bureaucracy.  I've never had a representative call me back though, which
was impressive.  Then again, maybe I'm easily impressed when it comes to
legislature.  I did mention multiple times throughout the conversation
that this bill was important to myself, and many people known and
unknown to me.

Next I'm going to try and get some response on SB655.  The evil Oregon
"Super" DMCA.




More information about the PLUG mailing list