[vox] [Fwd] Warning CPR provisions for OpenSource under attack

[Bill Kendrick]

The following is a note from Owen DeLong that was forwarded to me via
SVLUG on Fri, Aug 27, 2004:

  Today I attended a meeting at SJSU regarding the California
  Performance Review.  I showed up in response to a plea for help from
  the SJSU Aviation students, and, had actually no idea what the CPR was
  prior to my attendance.

  Apparently, it is an initiative started by Governor Arnie to
  investigate and reform state government on a number of levels.

  To my surprise, there were members of the proprietary software
  community there to testify today.  They were testifying against
  section GG10 from the CPR Reccommendations, which, apparently
  recommends that state IT procurements look to Open Source Software and
  prefer Open Source alternatives wherever feasible.  I still need to
  research this, but, what hit me was that the proprietary software
  industry managed to field a number of players to testify against this
  recommendation.  Their logic and reasoning was shaky at best, but,
  unfortunately, there was nobody there from the Open Source community
  that was prepared to speak.  I would have spoken, but, I hadn't filed
  a comment card because I didn't even know this was in play.

  Anyway, I'm writing to you because you have some fairly strong
  contacts with the organizers and movers and shakers in the Open Source
  community and might be able to either activate or point me at who to
  contact to try and activate the community to try and preserve the GG10
  recommendations (assuming they are as stated by the opposition).  I
  will try to research this further, but, I wanted to let you know about
  it as soon as possible.

  Owen


I've got a few follow-ups to pass along, as well.


-bill!