[PLUG] Oregon Open Source bill 941 hearing summary

[david pool]

John Todd wrote:
>> John Todd wrote:
> The only person to substantively bring the
> concept of "why is this being made a law" up was the opposition

Everyone brought up this point. From the position of the Senator, the 
reason "why is this being made a law" was in order to save tax payer 
dollars. These Senators just killed eachother over the budget and passed 
"the largest tax increase in Oregon history" according to a distraught 
Republican Representative whom shall remain nameless.

We hit them with dollar arguments. Senator Corcoran hit Craven with it. 
Money. Pay attention to the dollar:

Software - You don't pay anything
Hardware - Use older equipment = save money
Human Resources - Keep the same budget but use your training budget to 
transition over to Open Source. Result: same money

This bill may yet pass, there are some pissed of Republicans down there. 
When asked point blank (by me) "So I assume that if you got SB941 over 
in the house you'd be inclined to support a bill that forced government 
to consider using software that doesn't cost anything in addition to 
considering expensive proprietary software, you'd support it" He just 
scowled at me and left Ken Barber, the bill's author, to say that the 
guy had supported it the first time through.

The Fat Lady has yet to sing...

david