LinuxSA Mailing list archives

  From: Martin Sandiford <ms@mcdev.com.au>
  To  : LinuxSA (E-mail) <linuxsa@linuxsa.org.au>
  Date: Sat, 21 Nov 1998 01:36:54 +1030

Re: linuxSA business lunch?/Govt. Stuff etc

Hello folks.  Something has just occurred to me.

(My apologies to Stephen for quoting him out of context below.
Unfortunately this rant does not stand up quite as well if I quote fully in
context.  Sorry :} )

Lets assume for the moment that we were all politicians.  And we got
elected...

We might decide that spending a significant portion of taxpayer revenues
with foreign owned companies was a bad idea.  Instead of trying to get
foreign companies (say for example: Microsoft, Oracle, Sun - there's a
recipe for disaster) to invest in local IT (say via something like the
Playford Centre), we might decide instead that we were going to use freely
distributable/open source software wherever feasible within government.

The money that was not spent on expensive closed systems could then be used
to pay for support (in terms of configuration and enhancements of existing
open source software and also implementing new applications), thereby
providing jobs for folks living in Adelaide.

(The surplus from the savings we make by doing this could be used to develop
the ultimate moral paradox: The Open Source Death-Ray :} )

It may also have some chance of increasing international capabilities and
know-how in Adelaide (which I believe was one of the goals of the EDS
thing).


Just my $0.02 rounded down = $0.00

Martin

-----Original Message-----
From: Stephen Donaldson <Stephen.Donaldson@adelaide.on.net>
To: LinuxSA (E-mail) <linuxsa@linuxsa.org.au>
Date: Friday, 20 November 1998 23:18
Subject: Re: linuxSA business lunch?/Govt. Stuff etc


>Yes the cost is a major concern with government cutbacks etc.,


>It's the very cost savings and security not to forget stability of using
>linux ON the desktop that might be the saving grace, its amazing how much
red
>tape you can get through when you mention cost savings in the tens of
>thousands.  I'm not saying it can be done now, however, nothing, good was
>ever achieved without a fight, history proves that.



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