What Happened To Obama's Open Source Adviser? 296
gov_coder writes "Back in January of 2009, various news articles announced that former Sun CEO Scott McNealy was to become the Obama administration's Open Source Technology adviser. Currently, however, a search for Scott on the whitehouse.gov website yields zero results. Searching a bit more, I found that Scott is currently working on CurriWiki, a kind of Wikipedia for school curriculum. So my question is, what happened? Did some lobbyist block the appointment? Did Scott decide his other activities were more important? Scott, if you are out there — please tell us what happened. There are many people working in government IT, such as myself, who were really excited about the possibilities of an expanded role for open source software in government, and are now wondering what went wrong."
Re:Let's check the timeline (Score:5, Informative)
Gates applauds Indian rich guy for sharing wealth: 4.2010 - saying that the norm in the US is 20% and that US benefactors need to give more along the lines of 40% ~ 50% while not mentioning that he & Melinda give along the lines of 1% ~ 2%.
Please provide a reference for your claim.
According to Businessweek [businessweek.com], Bill Gates has given $28 billion out of a net worth of $59 billion, placing him second on the list after Warren Buffett. That appears to be considerably higher than 1-2%.
Advisor? (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Confirmation hell? (Score:3, Informative)
A little tip, if you have to put a line at the bottom of a rant to state what it isn't, then it probably is. It is an anti repub/pro dem rant, which appears to be rooted in confirmation bias. Both sides have been doing the same thing for decades, but based on which news you expose yourself to, you only see one side of the story. Its the reason I check CNN, Fox, and NBC for mainstream news rather than just one of them.
When people stop listening and start ranting, they stop absorbing information. This is why flamewars rarely end in any side giving ground, because they start with people who have already decided what they want to beleive.
MicroSoft sponsors Denver Open Source User Group (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Confirmation hell? (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Confirmation hell? (Score:4, Informative)
Are you suggesting that Democrats didn't go nuts with Bush hate, or that Republicans didn't go nuts with Clinton hate?
It isn't new.
I'm generally of the opinion that if you truly believe the other party is completely evil, and your party is perfect, you're delusional. Both parties are largely filled with corrupt politicians who want to line their pockets, and cater to special interest groups. Both parties overspend and pass mammoth bills filled with crazy riders. Both parties have compromised personal liberty to appease knee-jerk reactions. Both parties have helped build a larger federal government.
They flip-flop on policy so much, it is hard to keep track. For instance, when McCain proposed a cap-and-trade system, every Republican loved it, and every Democrat hated it. When Pelosi proposed a cap-and-trade system, ever Republican hated it, and every Democrat loved it. Which is it?
When McCain was pushing for oil drilling, Pelosi threatened to drill in people's heads because it was such a stupid idea. When Obama suggested oil drilling, Pelosi said it was a great idea.
Look at major players in the Liberal/Democrat party like Biden and Reid. Both pushed for warrantless wiretapping very early, even though it is supposedly against the common Democrat platform. Biden was pushing for it after Oklahoma City, and bragged about it during the debates.
Look at Reid's Wikipedia page. It sure reads like a Conservative platform on many levels. And yet he is one of the highest ranking Liberals. The truth is both parties are far more similar than anyone wants to admit.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harry_Reid [wikipedia.org]
Reid is a great example -- I am constantly defending him in the firearms community, as he has always been a friend to gun owners. He's a liberal in many regards, and there are lots of valid issues that I take with his voting record - but that isn't one of them.
Hi, Summary: RTFA -- one paper was asked for (Score:5, Informative)
Actually, the one news article linked from the text "various news articles" in the summary, as well as every other web source I can find, indicates McNealy was asked to write one position paper on the use of open source software by the administration, and that was apparently presented to the Administration shortly after the request was made (this article [infoworld.com] from late February discusses some actions that occurred after the paper was presented.)
The issue was never about McNealy being hired as for the position of "Open Source Adviser", it was about McNealy providing one-time advice on the use of open source software.
Re:Confirmation hell? (Score:5, Informative)
No, but not being new doesn't make it the same, and because Democrats opposed Republican administrations in the past doesn't mean that their tactics were on the same level.
Republicans have set filibustering records and then shattered those records in term after term. [cwa-legislative.org]
Just halfway through the session, they broke the old filibustering record that was set by them.
Similarly, we have Republicans placing holds on every single one of Obama's nominees -- something that has never happened. Why? In this particular case, it was so Senator Shelby [huffingtonpost.com] could get some pork for his state. But there has been a great deal of other unprecedented obstructionism on the part of Republicans toward Democrats. For example, accidentally "losing" their voting cards to delay everything, preventing the usual unanimous consent motions to go about business, shutting down the Senate at 2PM. A classic example of this would be Republicans filibustering a defense spending bill just so it would take longer to get to the filibuster vote on health care reform. (Imagine what the media reaction to that would be if Democrats had done it -- instead we get deafening silence.)
Yeah, Democrats have obstructed Republicans in the past. But to compare that with what's going on now -- or in previous Republican-minority Congresses -- is completely insane. We're talking about an entirely new extreme (which the Democrats have been ineffectually responding to with "well, maybe if we play nice they'll play nice again!") that has never before been seen.
Re:Isn't It Obvious? (Score:5, Informative)
Do Some Research!!! (Score:5, Informative)
Scott McNealy "revealed he has been asked to prepare a paper on the subject (open source technologies and products) for the new administration."
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/7841486.stm [bbc.co.uk]
"According to BBC News, the Obama administration has asked Sun chairman McNealy for a position statement justifying the administration's use of open source software. The BBC wasn't clear on who specifically asked him, but McNealy's spokesperson, on a query by the Linux community, acknowledged that McNealy had been meeting over the last year with members of the administration's new technology initiative, which apparently led to this request."
http://www.linux-magazine.com/Online/News/Sun-s-McNealy-Advises-Obama-Administration-on-Open-Source [linux-magazine.com]
I don't know if Scott ever got around to writing that paper. Searching the White House website for papers on Open Source, the only one I found was here:
Open Source Software and Cyber Defense
A White Paper provided to the National Security Council and Homeland Security Council as input to the White House Review of Communications and Information Infrastructure.
Bob Gourley, Chief Technology Officer, Crucial Point LLC
http://www.whitehouse.gov/files/documents/cyber/Gourley_Bob_Open_Source_Software_and_Cyber_Defense_01_April_2009.pdf [whitehouse.gov]
Read it and weep (Score:3, Informative)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Filibuster_(United_States_Senate) [wikipedia.org]
Just glance at the graph on that page. You are delusional if you think Democrats have EVER done anything like this to Republicans. Democrats have NEVER used filibuster the way Republicans are using it now. Hell, Republicans have never used it like this. No one has, ever. Republicans have been beating their own records for obstructionism since Obama was elected. No one has ever used rhetoric so violent and divisive. When Republicans use such rhetoric as 'treasonous' and 'communist', they are then beholden to fight such evil with no mercy and no compromise, or admit that their rhetoric was false and misleading. At this point, any compromise would undermine the message they have been drilling into their base: Obama is an evil communist Muslim fascist dictator who is worse than Hitler multiplied by Pol Pot and raised to the power of Stalin. You can't compromise with that. You can't practice bipartisanship with that. You can only fight it with every weapon in your arsenal.
Re:Confirmation hell? (Score:3, Informative)
Since McNealy was never nominated or appointed to any official position by Obama, much less one which requires Senate confirmation, that would be difficult.
He was asked to provide a paper on an issue. He did, and even engaged in follow-up discussions with the administration on the issue after presenting the paper. That was the sum total of the advice he was asked for.
Re:Confirmation hell? (Score:1, Informative)
You're kidding me, right?
I agree that the current Republicans strategy is to obstruct all legislation. But the Democrats certainly do have a platform: health care reform, improved financial regulation, some sort of regulation to slow global warming (whether cap and trade and/or pushing renewable energy), immigration reform, nuclear arms reduction, defense, withdrawing from Iraq.
I think that's a pretty impressive platform.
Re:Isn't It Obvious? (Score:5, Informative)