[Gllug] Open Source lobbying meeting - UKUUG London Thurs 19th

[John G Walker]

On Sat, 14 Oct 2006 14:54:23 +0100 (BST) Chris Bell
<chrisbell at overview.demon.co.uk> wrote:

> On Sat 14 Oct, Christopher Hunter wrote:
> > 
> 
> > 
> > One of the big FOSS companies (maybe Red Hat or Novell) could be
> > considered for big government IT infrastructure projects, but
> > because they would just tender in the proper manner and not offer
> > any "inducements", they wouldn't stand a chance.  That's the
> > problem with "ethical business practice"....
> > 
> > Chris
> > 
>    Too true, and the only way I can see to improve things would be a
> hung parliament, followed by accusations about "the other lot", which
> might drag out some of the dirty laundry.
> 

This would be a cosy-cutters paradise. And the costs that were cut
would not necessarily be the ones that needed to be cut.

I can see it now. An MP getting up in the House, announcing the
enormous figure for the cost of computer backups. And pointing out that
most backups were never used. And demanding that this useless waste f
public money be scrapped.

Over the top? Not IMHO. Back in 1981 I had a manager make just such a
decision, without consulting the IT staff. This caused something of a
problem, as you might imagine, the first time a support programmer (who
happened to be me) got phoned up after a disk read error.

Of course, the real solution is for managers not to be in charge. They
should be admin support, leaving the running of things to those who
know about them, whether nurses and doctors in hospitals, or IT
professionals in computer projects. Remember, if engineers had been in
charge rather than managers, the total number of astronauts who've died
in shuttle accidents would be zero,

-- 
 All the best,
 John
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