Department of Natural Resources rejects open source

If we’re going to rebuild our economy on a solid foundation, we need to change the way we do business in Washington. We need to restore the American people’s confidence in their government – that it is on their side, spending their money wisely, to meet their families’ needs. –President Barack Obama (link)

At long last, here’s a response for why we won’t be using OpenOffice.org –regardless of whether or not it makes financial sense to do so. More importantly, management throughout our state seems dead set on laying off employees to deal with budget issues. The potential savings of switching the office suite and email server to OpenOffice.org and Zimbra is $1.8 million for the Department of Natural Resources. Imagine this savings throughout the state!

If you find this questionable or offensive, I urge you to contact elected officials, media, and share this information with everyone you know.

RESPONSE: DNR is part of a very large state technology enterprise. As such we are required to adhere to a number of policies outlined in law governing the implementation and use of technology. In addition to those areas that are mandated by law, it is important that agencies within the state enterprise work together to create a technical environment that fits together well and is compatible. DNR works closely with the Department of Information Services (DIS) in maintaining a compatible set of technologies that work well within the agency and across the enterprise. This includes the software we use. As of now the state has not chosen to pursue Open Source Technology (OST) or Open Source Software (OSS) to any significant degree. There are pockets of OSS software in use within the state, most notably the Linux operating system, and DNR has a few small, niche products used to manage elements of the network that run on Linux. But we have a very large investment in Microsoft, ESRI, Oracle, and other products on both the desktops and servers within the agency. To convert to new software would be a very time consuming and expensive undertaking – technical staff would have to learn how to manage the new software and make sure there weren’t incompatibilities with existing applications and services, and agency staff would have to learn all new software for word processing, spreadsheets, and the rest of the desktop and server based productivity software they use. Then we would have to make sure that we were reasonably compatible with the rest of the state and our constituents.

DNR will continue to follow DIS’ lead in the technologies we use and if DIS decides it makes sense for the state to broadly adopt OST, DNR would follow. If you are interested in a more in-depth discussion of OSS, what it is and some of the issues surrounding it, check out the following link: http://www.washingtonpolicy.org/Centers/technology/policynote/OpenSourceSoftware.pdf

Author:  Pat Gebhardt, Information Technology Division Manager
Post Date:  4/17/2009

---

See the follow-up from Carl Gipson, author of the document referenced at the end of the response.

Interestingly, the DNR moved from Novell to Microsoft Exchange. I sent a public disclosure request this morning to find out if the move saved the agency money or increased expenses. A friend who works for the Liquor Control Board said their agency is looking into open source to save money. Not all agencies appear to share a loyalty to DIS/Microsoft. As for those policies mentioned, WAC or RCW numbers weren’t given so it’s not possible to figure out which policies prevent an agency from using open source software.

Here’s more follow-up from Representative Reuven Carlyle and the DNR’s legislative liaison Heath Packard. I especially enjoy how Heath thought he needed to quote WACs and RCWs as well as explain what a legislative liaison does for an agency.

---

From: Packard, Heath (DNR)
Sent: Friday, April 17, 2009 3:12 PM
To: Carlyle, Reuven; DNR RE CPL
Cc: GEBHARDT, PAT (DNR); Toso, Aaron (DNR); DRESSEL, JOSH (DNR); HOBACK, PRISCILLA (DNR); YOUNG, LENNY (DNR); GILLISS, EDIE (DNR); WILSON, PHILLIP (DNR)
Subject: RE: government contracts

Dear Representative Carlyle,

Thank you for your interest in DNR’s IT issues.  Pat Gebhardt, DNR’s IT Division Manager, and I are happy to answer your inquiry about the “status of DNR’s IT issues.”  Would you please provide some more specifics with regards to your request?

Thank you also for your thoughts about communications with DNR staff.  It is critically important that the DNR and its staff be good stewards of the state’s resources.  My designated job is to coordinate communications with the legislature and other government officials.  This coordination is necessary to ensure that the agency is using the state’s resources, and your time, efficiently and effectively.  In addition, we have a legal obligation to report any agency “lobbying” activities to the Public Disclosure Commission (RCW 42.17.190, WAC 390.20.052, 054, and 120).  So, I need to know who on staff is talking to which decision maker, when, and what they are discussing.

To that end, staff who are communicating their own personal opinions directly with legislators have been directed to do so using their own resources (i.e. personal time, computers, and email, etc.).  Please be advised that Josh’s views are not the official views or opinions of the agency.  We respect your interest in Josh’s opinions.  We also respect Josh’s freedom to communicate directly with you.  In turn, we ask that you and Josh also respect our policy to coordinate official DNR positions and communications through my office, and to respect our policy for individual staff to communicate their own opinions to legislators without using the state’s valuable and diminishing resources.

In closing, I can assure you that Commissioner Goldmark is very interested in government utilizing the best available technologies to create government efficiencies.  Open source software could be a way to do this, but that discussion needs to happen at a broader level.

Thank you for your time and understanding.  I look forward to hearing what specifics you would like to know regarding DNR’s IT issues.

Most sincerely,

Heath Packard
Office of the Commissioner of Public Lands
Department of Natural Resources

#09-0304

---

From: Carlyle, Rep. Reuven
Sent: Thursday, April 16, 2009 8:13 PM
To: DNR RE CPL
Cc: GEBHARDT, PAT (DNR); Packard, Heath (DNR); Toso, Aaron (DNR); DRESSEL, JOSH (DNR)
Subject: FW: government contracts
Importance: High

Hi Peter,

I hope you are well. 

I’d like to share this email communication with you between myself and your internal IT staff.  I hope you don’t mind my intervention or feel I’m being inappropriate by sharing this material with you.  I feel it’s important that you—and all agency executives—understand the perspective of technology people on the ground relative to overall IT strategy.  I hope your team will actually reward Mr. Dressel for having the courage to attempt to improve HOW your agency goes about it’s technology work, even if his direct outreach to legislators makes folks uncomfortable.  Technology is an area where literally tens of millions is being wasted within state government so DNR is, of course, no exception whether his views are valid or not.  While I am unaware of his particular concerns, I do share his philosophical belief that vendor-driven IT strategy decisions are wasteful at best and almost inherently inefficient from both a pricing and service perspective.  I also happen to share his view that open source is the wave of the future while proprietary solutions (hardware and software) are old fashioned.  His core argument (without judging your agency’s particular situation or his specific allegations) is valid, in my view, and Rep. Mark Ericks, Rep. Ross Hunter and I are working on strategies to deal with this problem at the legislative level.

For the record, I don’t know Mr. Dressel nor have I communicated with him other than through these exchanges. 

I hope you’ll look into this and use this as a teachable moment for how better to achieve your agency’s objectives. 

Your partner in service,

Reuven.

Reuven Carlyle
State Representative
36^th Legislative District

---

I was listening to this on the way home from work tonight and decided it makes a great theme song for The Chrome Documents.

Thou Shall Follow the Lead of the Federal CTO

This morning I woke up to see my social network successfully continue to grow. I now have 66 followers on Twitter which includes quite a few press contacts. On Facebook I reached 317 friends. I believe social networking is going to help this movement reach the audience it needs, so these numbers, when they’re unsolicited, imply an interest in changing the system.

On that note, Dana Blankenhorn had a post this morning with video from the new Federal CTO Aneesh Chopra. Here’s the video…

When the Federal CTO gets on board with something, be assured supporting state legislation is just around the corner.

Microsoft's $528 million Washington tax break

This was one of the comments on the ZDNet post about the Chrome Documents. Sent an email to Jeff Reifman today and I’m looking forward to his response.

Posted by Ole Man - 04/19/09
http://crosscut.com/2008/02/02/microsoft/11167/

The Redmond company makes products here but records software sales to PC makers and high-volume customers through an operation in Nevada, where there is no corporate tax. So Washington is missing out on revenue it could use for badly needed infrastructure needs – like replacement of the 520 bridge.
By Jeff Reifman

When I heard that Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates had invoked the phrase "creative capitalism" at last month's World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, it reminded me how Microsoft avoids paying taxes on Washington-made software by selling it through Nevada. Since 1997, I estimate, the company has avoided paying more than $528 million in state taxes while racking up $92 billion in profit and distributing more than $42 billion in dividends to shareholders. Microsoft's creative capitalism has deprived Washington state a lot of tax revenue it needs to pay for critical infrastructure such as replacing the aging 520 bridge that many of its employees use to get to and from corporate headquarters in Redmond.

In 2004, I wrote about Microsoft's tax practices in Seattle Weekly. Since then, the process has continued unabated as Microsoft's revenues have continued to grow.

http://www.seattleweekly.com/2004-09-29/news/citizen-microsoft.php
Citizen Microsoft
It's time we stopped acquiescing to the behemoth in Redmond, because what's good for big business isn't necessarily good for Washington.

http://www.fool.com/portfolios/rulemaker/2000/rulemaker000217.htm
Why Microsoft's Stock Options Scare Me

Forget Windows 2000. As far as I can tell, the single most lucrative product Microsoft (Nasdaq: MSFT) sells is its own stock. Microsoft receives almost as much cash inflow from the stock market as it does by selling goods and services. Here's how:

Basically, Microsoft receives cash by issuing employee stock options, after which the company then receives billions of dollars in tax deductions from the IRS for doing so. Add in the warrants it sells on its own stock, and the company made over $5 billion off the stock market last year (fiscal year ended July 1999), tax-free. For comparison, its after-tax net income was only $7.8 billion. Microsoft may not be much in the programming department, but its accountants are impressive.

http://www.macnn.com/articles/09/03/31/apple.tax.vs.ms.tax/
'Apple tax' really Microsoft tax?

Not only are Mac buyers not paying an especially hefty Apple tax, Windows users are the ones paying more for their systems in the end, an editorial claims. Whereas Apple's gross margin for the past five years is said to have been 31.83 percent, Microsoft's margin is noted to have been 81.69 percent. Most of the money is said to have been wasted, moreover, on unsuccessful products such as Vista, the Zune and Live Search.

More tangible costs to owning a Windows computer are argued to include the common trope of resale value, as a three-year old MacBook may be worth half its original cost at the same time as a Dell might be worth only 20 percent. Windows users may further have to invest in anti-virus software, as a result of the OS being targeted more often. If such software is purchased on an annual basis, it may significantly raise the true price of Windows.

Any more "GOOD" evidence you want to present for Microshaft?