[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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