[Scottish] The Future of the LUG

[ed]

On Fri, 12 Dec 2003 15:06:03 +0000, Willie
<willie at itscotland.demon.co.uk> wrote:

>On Thursday 11 December 2003 10:11, Colin.Speirs at scotland.gsi.gov.uk wrote:
>
>>
>> As an IT person working in IT for the Scottish Executive I'm saying
>> nothing. However I think your chances of getting anything done in the short
>> term considering there has just been a massive Microsoft based OS roll-out
>> are minimal to say the least.
>In the short-medium term, we aren't asking them to junk the MS desktops, we 
>want them to consider 
>(1)using the .RTF file formats 

Ha. Ha Ha. ha Ha Ha ha ha Ha ha.

You've never met our users, or dealt with our policy makers.

The only way this will happen if there is a POLITICAL decision to do
this, but I suspect most of you know this. From a technical point of
view you ain't gonna persuade the people in charge.

Thanks to a "Head's up" from a pal (his wife's company had had their US
operations hit) I gave our security people advance warning of ILOVEYOU.

11 days later the network was open and vulnerable when it hit. Most of
the guys making decisions started in MVS days, hell I did COBOL and JCL
in the early 1990s there, and they are still geared to a dumb terminal
mentality.
>
>Maybe we should start putting together a list of IT-savvy politicos. We have 
>Patrick Harvey and Nicola Sturgeon already. Anybody got any contacts in the 
>Labour Party or that other mob, you know who I mean, the ones with the 
>leaders that look like aliens? Much as I hate to say it, that McLetchie guy 
>can talk a good argument and if its a stick to beat the Labour party with 
>he'll grab it with both hands. After all they are always blathering about 
>"freedom"
>We can rely on the LibDems to do whatever is necessary to grab some sort of 
>power out of all proportion to their vote. They will tell whatever story they 
>think suits their purpose at any one time. Of them all, they are (in my 
>entirely biased opinion) to be of the least use to us and the most likely to 
>take any form of bribe from M$.

You might think that, I couldn't possibly comment.

Try Annabel Goldie as well, she is, or was, a Psion user and had to deal
with the Parliamentary mob not wanting to allow Psions or Palms
connecting to their networks.

ed
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