[PLUG] Requium for HB 2802

Russell Evans russell-evans at uswest.net
Mon May 26 22:00:02 UTC 2003


Just for the record, I wrote the question " OK, since you seem to know about
ODOT, how many computers do those 250 people support?" not the later reply "It
really doesn't seem realistic. .... "

Thank you
Russell


On Mon, 26 May 2003 20:28:14 -0700, Ken Barber said:

> On Monday 26 May 2003 14:13, Steven A. Adams wrote:
>  > On Thu, 2003-04-24 at 05:40, Russell Evans wrote:
>  > > OK, since you seem to know about ODOT, how many computers do
>  > > those 250 people support?
>  
>  I don't think I have my notes anymore; I think I left them behind 
>  when I left ODOT, but to my best memory it's somewhere around 
>  three or four thousand computers.  Yes, a few of them -- very few 
>  -- are SCO unix (and guess what?  We never had to touch them, at 
>  least not until they clogged up with dirt so bad -- 'coz nobody 
>  ever had to open the box -- that they just died) but everything 
>  else, except for a few servers, is running 'doze.
>  
>  > It really doesn't seem realistic. You and I both know that the
>  > work load that these positions currently take on will not
>  > disappear magically because we have moved to another OS
>  > platform 
>  
>  Well, *I* know differently.  Linux, MacOS and the *BSDs all take 
>  far less employee time to maintain than 'doze.  Have you ever had 
>  to keep a 'doze enterprise going?  I have, and I could never keep 
>  up with the work.  Ever had to keep a *nix environment going?  I 
>  have, and they took FAR less time to maintain.  And this is the 
>  same story I've heard from EVERY tech who has worked in both 
>  worlds.
>  
>  > None of this changes the fact that ODOT is already running
>  > leaner than any IT shop that I've worked with in my 20 year
>  > career. 
>  
>  Well, I don't know where the hell you've been working because I've 
>  never seen as much waste in MY 20-year career as I saw at ODOT.  
>  Nobody there ever has to work very hard.  My co-workers spent at 
>  least two hours of their workdays, every day, socializing with 
>  friends and taking care of personal business.  One even had his 
>  wife bring the dog into work every day, where he spent 
>  (typically) an hour or so playing with it and walking it!  I'd 
>  say that in a typcal day most of us only did maybe three or four 
>  hours of real work.
>  
>  We had to drive to Coquille, or Medford, or any number of other 
>  far-away places 2-3 times per week to fix some stupid Windoze 
>  problem that could have been handled remotely if ODOT had been a 
>  'nix shop.  And in many cases, we were fixing the same problem 
>  we'd already fixed a week or two earlier.
>  
>  And THAT, sir, is why I approached Rep. Barnhart with the proposal 
>  to write HB 2892.  I've worked at ODOT, I've seen the waste, and 
>  I figured that what I saw was only the tip of the State 
>  government iceberg.
>  
>  Ken Barber
>  Author, HB 2892





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