[PLUG] The bill for open source...

[Michael Robinson]

Could I suggest that the whole proprosed bill be put up on the plug web site.

It may be better to take this to an initiative since that is the best way to 
show broad voter support and it avoids having either party in the legislature
taking credit.  Right now, especially with Kulongoski's slam of Mannix at the 
end of the governors race where the margin of error was easily within
the margin of victory, I'd say there is going to be trouble with the 
political climate in Salem.  As far as lobbyists coming out against the bill, 
the only way to compete is to build not only a base of support but a base 
of support educated about the bill.  The best way to educate people about
the bill is to put the text of it up where all can see it.  My other 
suggestion is to look for industry proponents of this bill since it is going 
up against an industry opponent.  Noone right now wants to be seen as
hard on industry at a time when many who could invest in Oregon are
reluctant to do so and our economy is the weakest in the nation.  

Explain how support of open source by companies is good for those
companies in the long run.  It's interesting that government supported
the developement of Unix to ahieve a standard system for heterogeneous
environments in order to reduce training costs and increase productivity,
yet today there is a real question as to whether or not the option to maintain
an open standard for those latter mentioned reasons is indeed a viable one
anymore.  Why companies develop products that interoperate and how 
open source helps with this is what the legislature needs to
understand.  There also needs to be an argument that collaboration through
open source doesn't hurt companies the state depends on.  This can't win if 
it is simply a proprosal to save money when corporations come out and say 
that those savings are coming out of them.  At this time, the state 
desperately needs many corporations to remain here even if it means not 
giving open source a fair shake in the minds of many legislators.

Is open source a political issue?  If it is presented that way I doubt any 
bill will get through.  

    --  Michael