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."
Isn't It Obvious? (Score:4, Funny)
What Happened To Obama's Open Source Adviser?
He was invited to One Microsoft Way in Redmond, WA and while there discussing standards had a very unfortunate ... shall we say ... "accident?" Which left his voice sounding very metallic and his movements very jerky and unnatural. It was shortly after this that he stood up at the next White House IT meeting and declared, "Whitehouse.gov should be running on Silverlight and Silverlight only let's set so double the killer delete select all blue blue blue blue blue blue ... " At which point the administration decided that it just wasn't working out and removed the position quietly altogether and unexisted Mr. McNealy (or what was left of him anyway).
Re:Isn't It Obvious? (Score:5, Funny)
in other words.....
Eaten by a Grue?
Re: (Score:2)
Re:Isn't It Obvious? (Score:5, Funny)
In other words, it all started like this:
West of House
You are standing in an open field west of the White House, with a boarded front door.
There is a small mailbox here.
> open mailbox
Opening the mailbox reveals a leaflet.
> read leaflet
(taken)
"WELCOME TO POLITICS!
POLITICS is a game of adventure, danger, and low cunning. In it you will explore some of the most amazing territory ever seen by mortals. No country should be without one!"
Re: (Score:2)
What's better? (Score:3, Insightful)
the guy who tries to do good and sometimes fails... or the guy who tries to do bad and often succeeds?
Re: (Score:2)
Road to Perdition is filled with good intentions. Trying is a noisy way of doing nothing (or worse).
Here's an example of what I mean. Killing people should be avoided at all costs. However killing someone doesn't necessarily equate to a failure.
Good Intentions (not killing people) is often not enough. Sometimes one has to kill for the greater good. Just because one kills someone doesn't mean they wanted to.
Of course there are those that are too simple minded to understand this, so please excuse them. They w
Re:What's better? (Score:4, Insightful)
so are you saying the guy who tries to do good without killing but fails (either at avoiding deaths or the sucess of X) is worse then the guy who tries to do bad with killing and gets it done?
a car analogy would have been so much better...
Re:Isn't It Obvious? (Score:4, Funny)
He was outsourced.
yes, that's right, the OpenSource Advisor was Outsourced to India. He now goes by the title Indian Outsourced OpenSource Advisor. (But his friends call him Bob)
MicroSoft sponsors Denver Open Source User Group (Score:3, Informative)
Re: (Score:2)
bah. now it surely will stop. let's hope that doesn't involve flying***BAM***
Re:Isn't It Obvious? (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Isn't It Obvious? (Score:4, Insightful)
He was only ever an Open Source evangelist when it was opportunistic to be one. I spent enough time fighting him when he was in anti-open-source mode.
Bruce Perens for National Open Source Adviser!
I move we start a letter-writing campaign to president Obama.
Re:Isn't It Obvious? (Score:5, Informative)
Re: (Score:2, Funny)
"Me, the guy who has provided 14 people good paying jobs"
Wow, you're so generous allowing those lucky 14 people the opportunity to kiss your behind.
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
well, how good is the pay at that behind kissing job? I spent 2yrs unemployed. If your butt pays more to kiss, then let me send you my CV.
Re:Isn't It Obvious? (Score:4, Insightful)
You may already know this but the post you replied to was an uber-troll that has been showing up several times in just about every article. Please, don't feed the trolls.
He was replaced... (Score:5, Funny)
...with a small shell script.
First time I read that... (Score:3, Funny)
... I read "shill script".
Time for coffee.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
Who wants to know? (Score:5, Funny)
Who wants to know?
I've never met the man. (Score:3, Insightful)
The same goes for: Gates, Jobs, Ellison, and every other Silicon Valley entrepreneur.
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
Forget that they all give massive amounts to charity and provide jobs to massive amounts of people.
The only difference between them, and the people in Washington.
Maybe it was all for show? (Score:2, Interesting)
He's abandonware (Score:5, Funny)
Confirmation hell? (Score:5, Interesting)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
except now the Republicans have gone crazy with here Obama hate.
It could just be their turn at the cycle, but have you watched? jeez, they literally say one thing, then say the exact opposite an hour later.
I have never seen any party be this bad at it. Sure, a party will try to block, but usually it has a specific reason.
It's one thing to have issue with a specific policy, and the facts there in, but lately it's just been about making stuff up.
And the worst part is when you specifically point out when they
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
I'm a Republican and I agree, it has gotten stupid.
It was stupid when the liberals were going after Bush following his reelection, but this is extra stupid.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Obama proposed that they launch a task force to study a proposal to drill. You would think that is an actual prelude to drilling.
In reality here is what happens. In the short term, many individuals in East Coast States are friendly to Obama because there could be drilling coming their way. Obama does not risk actual drilling right now, because anyplace where they are ready to drill and even a little action would allow drilling to happen, is not on his proposed study list. And by the time the task force whic
Re:Confirmation hell? (Score:5, Insightful)
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]
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.
Re: (Score:2)
that appears to be the problem with US politics as seen from the outside. Each party has "sub-parties" resulting in so much infighting its impressive that anything gets done at all. Or maybe its the case that each senator just flies under some party of convenience, while in reality being attached to some collection of special interests.
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:Confirmation hell? (Score:5, Insightful)
This is an analysis with one eye closed. Tip O'Neill and Reagan were as far apart as you can get on the political spectrum, but they actively worked together on many different pieces of legislation. Clinton owes a large percentage of his legacy to legislation that was pushed by Newt Gingrich. Late in the Clinton administration this cooperative/adversarial relationship began to seriously break down. During Bush II it pretty much died. Obama took the reigns with completely unassailable majorities in both houses and the White House and Congressional leadership governed that way, aggressively leaving the opposition out of even the most trivial policy discussions. During this period the Republicans couldn't obstruct a damn thing. They were able to get a handful of democrats to vote with them in opposition on a few select issues - but calling those "Republican obstructionism" is quite the stretch. This all changed with the Mass. election. Now the Republican opposition actually has a chit in the game, albeit a very small one. The White House and Congressional leadership have not come around on this yet, and are still governing as if they have an unassailable majority. After the mid-term election shaves a few more seats off of his majority I think we'll see the President begin to make good on those campaign promises to work across party lines on a few select issues. And magically the filibusters will fade into memory.
Re:Confirmation hell? (Score:5, Interesting)
Are you suggesting that Democrats didn't go nuts with Bush hate, or that Republicans didn't go nuts with Clinton hate?
To this level? No. Have a look at the Senate voting history [senate.gov]. Go to 2010 and click on a few, scroll down to the senators list. Republicans are always, without fail, either the exact opposite of the majority of Democrats (usually Nay) or Not Voting. Now go back and click on 2005. Pick any issue you want, and either some Democrats voted with Republicans or vice versa. It's not just people's imagination, the country really is more polarized than ever.
And the worst part about it is that the rest of your post is correct.
Re:Confirmation hell? (Score:4, Interesting)
Go to 2010 and click on a few, scroll down to the senators list. Republicans are always, without fail, either the exact opposite of the majority of Democrats (usually Nay) or Not Voting.
I hate to bring it up, but correlation != causation ;) No, what I mean is this: it could be that the agenda for 2010 by Democrats happen to be things Republicans particularly oppose, thus they will be the "exact opposite." Back in 2005, perhaps the agenda on the floor was not quite so divisive.
In other words, you can't just expect two parties to ALWAYS be bipartisan on EVERY issue or set of issues. I would not call Democrats "partisan" because a Republican-controlled senate and house happened to start bringing up bills that Democrats really, really, really dislike. I don't expect them to ignore their conscience (do politicians have those? ;) ) simply in the name of "bipartisanship."
And frankly, it would appear that the ignore-what-you-really-think-and-just-vote-with-us kind of bipartisanship is the only kind of bipartisanship that is acceptable to Democrats at the moment. Could be the only kind Republicans like, too, but Republicans aren't the one that are in the majority and thus are able to force the issue, bipartisan or not... thus I am more critical of Democrats right now, because they are the ones in the majority :)
Re:Confirmation hell? (Score:5, Insightful)
But if you look at the issues Republicans oppose, you will find that they supported many of those same issues when proposed by Republicans. Like the bailout. No, this is obstructionism, pure and simple. Republicans feel they can not let Obama rack up too many wins. They know their only real chance to regain power is if Obama fails. The Republicans want Obama, and our country, to fail, and so they oppose everything he does, regardless of their own personal beliefs.
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 rheto
Re: (Score:2)
I think he was suggesting a difference of degree. As in it's gotten *more* stupid than it used to be. As in, you can catch the same news network state both "X" and "Not X" as facts in the same day depending on which one demonstrates their point against the current president more effectively. It wasn't nearly as blatant during Bush's terms or Clinton's, they'd at least pretend to be sly about it if nothing else.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
As any college aged revolutionary will tell you- the Democrats are NOT liberal.
And any libertarian will say the Republicans are not conservative.
however, the amount of demonization between the two reads like an absurdist play.
Re: (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
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
If you look at the statistics for voting and filibusters, you will see that you are completely wrong.
http://www.usnews.com/articles/opinion/2010/01/25/how-the-filibuster-changed-and-brought-tyranny-of-the-minority.html [usnews.com]
http://www.pennlive.com/editorials/index.ssf/2010/02/filibuster_abuse_founding_fath.html [pennlive.com]
and a good graph showing just how wrong you are, here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Filibuster_(United_States_Senate) [wikipedia.org]
You are drawing a false equivalency when you claim that both parties do it, perhaps in a m
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
And the running joke among Democrats was the Bush was a Nazi as well as the rest of the Republicans, that wasn't over the top was it? Just a bit of Democrat hyperbole? Or was it more a sinister campaign to derail anything Bush was for?
Both parties do it, it simply has now gotten obnoxious enough for all to see. If you go back to Lincoln's era, the politics was just as nasty. Politicians do it when they have nothing to contribute but are afraid their opposition does.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
And the running joke among Democrats was the Bush was a Nazi as well as the rest of the Republicans, that wasn't over the top was it?
Nah; it was just wrong. Anyone who knows anything about political theories knows that Bush isn't a Nazi; he's a Fascist, as are most of the policies of the Republicans.
If you can't get such well-known epithets right, do you expect us to trust you with anything else?
Jeez; American political rhetoric has become so ignorant these days ...
I suppose it was inevitable, though. Peo
Re:Confirmation hell? (Score:4, Informative)
Re: (Score:2)
This implies, falsely, that there was a time when either major party had a coherent, uniform, national platform to which candidates and members of the party in government generally adhered. There have been occasional points in time when one party or the other was momentarily unified on one issue, but that's been pretty rare, and even more rare if you onky count the times when the issue on which one party was unified was
Re:Confirmation hell? (Score:5, Insightful)
I have never seen any party be this bad at it.
I have never seen any party be this good at it. It's working out well for them. The constant repetition of bald face lies is shaping public opinion.
Re: (Score:2, Interesting)
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
I have never seen any party be this good at it. It's working out well for them. The constant repetition of bald face lies is shaping public opinion.
Which party are you referring to?
except now the Republicans have gone crazy with (Score:2)
here Obama hate.
It could just be their turn at the cycle, but have you watched? jeez, they literally say one thing, then say the exact opposite an hour later.
That sounds just like Democrats, as does the rest.
Falcon
Re: (Score:2)
That is not possible.
If it was an official cabinet position, the appointment would be announced, debated publicly on the floor, aired on c-span, covered in newspapers, and eventually voted upon.
Re: (Score:2)
Well, yeah, but I don't see anything in the article that suggested this was, for example, a cabinet level appointment, All I see is McNealy submitted a position paper and is described generically as an "advisor".
If Scott McNealey is working in an informal capacity, then he would be where Warren Buffet and Rev. Billy Graham (other "advisors") are: going about their own business.
Re: (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.
Curriki (Score:3)
Sun's "open" play was never convincing for me (Score:5, Insightful)
Am I the only one here who never really bought-in to Sun's latter-day 'open' evangelism?
To me Sun's 'open' efforts always seemed to me to fall into one of the following categories:
1. "Fsuk M$!" - e.g. Open Office
2. Forced to do it by their own guys - e.g. Java
3. Desperate attempt to stay alive/relevant (too late) - e.g. 'open' Solaris, (a bit of a FOSS joke, since most of the work was done by Sun employees)
I'll admit that I'm not fan of Scott McNealy, who - in my opinion - failed to navigate the dotcom bust, and subsequent massive fall in hardware revenues, and then presided over the gradual, sad demise of a formerly pretty good company.
Putting aside my bias, I'll still advance that there are plenty of other people better qualified to be a FOSS tzar.
Your nominations?
Re:Sun's "open" play was never convincing for me (Score:5, Interesting)
Re: (Score:2)
Yeah, I remember having few drinks one evening with Bill Joy...he'd just left Sun.
If I remember correctly, we rapidly agreed that Scott was better at self-aggrandisement than tech.
Open sourced it. (Score:5, Funny)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
You mean they replaced him with a wiki? wow, what are we coming to?
Re: (Score:2)
It's even more obvious than you think. He's open-sourced the advisory position so anyone can fill the position and make changes.
Excellent. It's about time we borrowed some ideas from the Cameroi people.
Before SUN was sold? (Score:2)
Let's check the timeline (Score:2)
William Gates visits WH: 10.2009
Scott MIA: 1.2010
Gates goes on college tour: 4.2010
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%.
Re: (Score:2)
But that's not fair. His money pile is self replicating at a rate that he an melinda cant spend it fast enough to keep it from getting bigger. Even the Stock market crash made his pile bigger (I think it's now self away and eating people... several accountants went to his vault and have not came back.)
Although I do agree with him that the worlds wealthy need to be in line with 40% some of them here in the states are. One of the wealthiest in Michigan has his entire family funding one of the top medical
Re: (Score:2)
Most homeless shelters are horribly underfunded and are full of mentally ill that really need to be in hospitals or group homes and not on the streets.
Sorry, we tried that. In the 1970's it was decided that the hospitals were too cruel to their patients and the hospitals were closed and the patients dumped on the streets. Some found their way to "halfway houses" for a while. Those are mostly gone as well. So now it is just the streets.
There are no more hospitals left for these people.
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%.
Re: (Score:2, Interesting)
Bill and Melinda Gates
(2003-07 GIVEN OR PLEDGED (MILLIONS)) - 3,519
(ESTIMATED LIFETIME GIVING* (MILLIONS)) - 28,144
Net Worth 59 Billion
Percentage 48%
What is the "Estimated Lifetime giving" ? All the other Philanthropists have a much smaller difference between estimated and given. The article says that the estimated is "*Based on public records and interviews with donors"
So what I get from this is that there is a record of 3.5 billion gi
I'm sure this (Score:5, Insightful)
"You have zero privacy anyway. Get over it."
didn't help.
Advisor? (Score:5, Informative)
If only Obama knew.... (Score:3, Insightful)
Maybe there is a option not listed - Obama lied in order to help him get votes.
I know it's shocking that a career politician that rapidly rose through the ranks of Chicago in one of the the most corrupt districts there would somehow not be totally truthful. After all he talks nice and chanted "Yes we can" over and over and over. I'm certain, absolutely certain, that if you could just get a message through to him he would realize the enormous accident that occurred and go have a nice long talk with his advisers and other appointees (whom he had *no* idea were doing all these bad things) and fix everything right up.
Really, even if you think everything he has done so far is peachy keen and figure the guy is mostly honest - he is still a politician. At best I would say an open source advisory is so down the priority list that it will likely never happen. Lets face it - he promised to nix the "do not ask do not tell" policy regarding gays in the military, that one simply takes him to write out an official statement and it has been over a year (and promised more than once, basically every time that segments polling numbers really start dropping) and still not done.
In his own auto-biography he points out that people will necessarily be disappointed in him as he presents himself as a blank slate and allows people to write whatever they want on it. He isn't a blank slate - the Obama you are looking for only existed in your mind, not in reality. He never went anyway as he didn't exist. Man many many others are slowly coming to realize this, sadly Obama the idealist (whichever one you wanted to see) doesn't really exist, Obama the politician is the only one that does. He will continue to milk the blank slate and hope that the person you once saw will "return" for as long as he can too - that is the nature of a politician. Some groups have learned how to manipulate a politician and treat him as such (assuming they have enough money and or votes), others sit around confused.
But if it makes you feel better - I'll leave this one generic as it is currently the answer given for all of them: Obama has WAY too much to worry with on his plate. What with all these global crises, economic downtime, and the seditious Tea Partiers blocking real reform it is no wonder he hasn't got to yet. Since he inherited such a mess it will most likely take longer than his Presidency to fix it and get on with the real work that America needs and address your issue.
And as long as that boiler plate works with his core group he will run with it too.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
"seditious Tea Partiers"? (Score:3, Insightful)
Whatever happened to "Dissent is patriotic"?
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.
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]
What do you expect? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
A lobbyist cannot block an appointment...
It was a "figure of speech", not a literal suggestion.
Re:Not a lobbyist (Score:5, Insightful)
Just because a lobbyist has no legal authority doesn't mean they're powerless or without influence.
Did you learn everything about politics and government from Schoolhouse Rock?
Re:Not a lobbyist (Score:5, Funny)
Did you learn everything about politics and government from Schoolhouse Rock?
Well...... yes.
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Did you learn everything about politics and government from Schoolhouse Rock?
Actually, I think that was the Simpsons.
Re:Not a lobbyist (Score:4, Funny)
I'm an amendment to be
Yes, an amendment to be
And I'm hoping that they'll ratify me
There's a lot of flag burners
Who have got too much freedom
I wanna make it legal
For policemen
To beat 'em
'Cause there's limits to our liberties
'Least I hope and pray that there are
'Cause those liberal freaks go too far.
Re:Not a lobbyist (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Not a lobbyist (Score:5, Insightful)
Lobbyists aren't always bad, they don't always achieve their goals by unscrupulous means, and they don't always represent corporate interests with tons of money to throw around.
Lobbyists are an exceptionally effective means for people to communicate with their elected representatives, being a sort of representative themselves. They can provide a clear voice for large groups of similarly minded people, who would otherwise be lost in the noise.
Re: (Score:2)
Re:Not a lobbyist (Score:5, Interesting)
+1, the EFF is a lobby.
Re: (Score:2)
In general I agree with you completely, but lobbyists do have an advantage: they are paid to spend time with representatives making their case. Unless the electorate buys lobbyists ourselves, we have no such full time opinionated political buddy to foist on our civil servants.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Lobbyists block appointments like unions pass legislation.
Re: (Score:2)
Oh, I am sure that, with a considerable campaign contribution from one or more lobbyists, any appointment can be blocked.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Commendable troll. Condescending and pedantic, and convincing enough that most people are taking it at face value. I salute you!
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
There is a good reason why there was meant to be a representative for every 30,000 people. I realize that is over 11,500 represen
Re: (Score:2, Troll)
Lots of people use their mod points to mean either "+1 I agree!" or "-1 You're wrong, moron!" Sucks, but it's true.
Re:And the answer is... (Score:5, Funny)
Who would have modded that recursive?
Who would have modded that recursive?
Who would have modded that recursive?
Who would have modded that recursive?
Who would have modded that recursive?
Who would have modded that recursive?
Re:And the answer is... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:And the answer is... (Score:4, Interesting)
Comment removed (Score:5, Funny)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
To drag this off-topic - Gore may have helped the internet to win.
It diddn't have to.
If prodigy/compuserve/AOL - and the giants of yore - had gotten mail between them working without the use of the internet, a large driver of the internet dies.
At one point, the internet, and other corporate networks that were poorly connected to each other - were growing rapidly.
These networks did not always run tcp/ip - for example AOL.
Gore helped (in some degree) get the legislation that encouraged the internet to grow a