[PLUG] AeA Awards Rep. Minnis

[gepr at tempusdictum.com]

Paul Johnson writes:
 > We read top down, not random order. http://learn.to/quote/

Well, I've learned a hybrid approach that is context dependent and
works quite well.  If I'm making a single comment in response to an
entire email, then I put my comments on the top.  If that's against
the rules of plug, I'll be happy to unsubscribe.

 > On Sat, Jan 10, 2004 at 03:10:12PM -0800, gepr at tempusdictum.com wrote:
 > > Woohoo!!  Cheers to Minnis for killing it!  And congrats to Minnis
 > > and Decket.
 > 
 > Just whose side are you on, anyway?  Minnis really blocked an obvious
 > cost-cutting measure and killed it outright, and you think that's good?

I'm on the side of limited government and the delegation of
responsibility to individuals who are accountable for those decisions.

Packing the law books with more laws will not help open source (or
proprietary software).... It will just make me (a small business
owner) spend more and more money on attorneys in order to figure out
what the hell I'm supposed to do with the software I create and use.

In the case of these bills, requiring certain special interest groups
get attention by the bureaucrats, will just force us to hire more (and
smarter) bureaucrats, thereby spending more of our money employing
people who could be doing something productive with their lives.

If the open source community wants to help the propogation of open 
source, then do 2 things:  1) write more CODE or work on code that
is being used and 2) work to REMOVE legislation that forces decision
makers to give unbalanced attention to special interest groups.

If open source is the highest quality and the playing field is level,
then it will win.  (In fact, I think it'll win even if the playing
field isn't level -- I'm about 90% free of proprietary software
myself.)

[grin]  Sorry for the diatribe.  But, YES, I think it's good that
the bill was killed, even if it was killed for other reasons.

-- 
glen e. p. ropella              =><=                           Hail Eris!
H: 503.630.4505                              http://www.ropella.net/~gepr
M: 971.219.3846                               http://www.tempusdictum.com