[school-discuss] FLOSS & Government

[Joel Kahn <jj2kk4@xxxxxxxxx>]

Thanks for the inputs so far on my "FLOSS to the
legislator" project. I won't attempt to explicitly
address all of the points that have been raised;
some of my responses may appear indirectly in my
current rough draft of the message, in which the
essential points go as follows:

1. The state of Missouri spends a significant sum
each year on information technology.

2. The overall annual expenditure in this area
could be substantially reduced--especially in the
long term--by shifting from Microsoft-related
systems to non-Microsoft-related systems.

3. The savings can be realized without any loss
of quality and efficiency in performance; in fact,
productivity may well see an overall improvement.

4. It would be a useful application of money and
resources for representative Parson to assign at
least one staff member to research this topic.

That concept of "research" in the last paragraph
is important: right now I think we are nowhere
near writing anything as specific as a petition
or a bill. The raw material is out there, but it
needs to be gathered together to form a coherent
picture; that will not happen overnight.

In my list of links, I want to give priority to
sources that have connections to the Missouri 
state government. Here are some examples from 
the educational arena:

http://www.ucmo.edu/cs/facilities/lab.cfm

http://experts.missouristate.edu/display/csvhelpdesk/linux
(Missouri State happens to be my alma mater)

http://mlug.missouri.edu/faq.php

http://classroomtco.cosn.org/2004_case_studies/missouri.pdf

One more thing I want to throw in here: like many
other states, Missouri has a law which requires the
state government to favor in-state sources whenever
possible when making acquisitions. Maybe I should
produce a distro distilled and bottled right here:
how does "Show-Me Linux" sound? :-)

I've got a lot more stuff, but I have to run now.
Keep the ideas coming.

Joel