Comment Re:Of course the government should use open source (Score 1) 207
"Uhm, how bout those guys that pretty much invented the architecture of the net as we know it today? "
They were mostly contractors, not employees. Almost all research undertaken by the Feds has been done by contractors with an oversight office, in this case ARPA/IPTO (which later became DARPA and still is), put together to administer the research teams (contractors).
I've been working as a Gov't Wage Slave for 15 years. I have only met a handful of 'IT gurus.' Most of the idiots screw things up, then yell loudly "I'M A MICROSOFT CERTIFIED ENGINEER, of course I didn't make a mistake!"
I went to a meeting a few months back where an officer asked about Linux, and was told by his "Microsoft Certified Engineer" that "Linux is all command line and much too difficult to use. It doesn't even have a graphical user interface!"
"Okay, kinda true," I said. "I don't think Linux has a graphical user interface, but then Linux is an operating system. It's not really supposed to. Try GNOME or KDE if you want a GUI. Runs right on top of Linux. You can even dumb it down enough to look very much like MS Windows if you like."
So much for "Microsoft Certified Engineers." As far as I can tell, their only qualification is making uninformed proclamations and protecting their jobs by misinforming their bosses about alternatives to Microsoft. (BTW, I'm putting together an old lunchbox this weekend for my new CO. He wants to take it home and see for himself what '..this Linux stuff is all about.' Boy is he in for a surprise!)
Of course, there are *some* organizations which have really interesting toys to play with. My friends at NSA are certainly not bored! Of course, they're not stuck with NT/2000 either!
They were mostly contractors, not employees. Almost all research undertaken by the Feds has been done by contractors with an oversight office, in this case ARPA/IPTO (which later became DARPA and still is), put together to administer the research teams (contractors).
I've been working as a Gov't Wage Slave for 15 years. I have only met a handful of 'IT gurus.' Most of the idiots screw things up, then yell loudly "I'M A MICROSOFT CERTIFIED ENGINEER, of course I didn't make a mistake!"
I went to a meeting a few months back where an officer asked about Linux, and was told by his "Microsoft Certified Engineer" that "Linux is all command line and much too difficult to use. It doesn't even have a graphical user interface!"
"Okay, kinda true," I said. "I don't think Linux has a graphical user interface, but then Linux is an operating system. It's not really supposed to. Try GNOME or KDE if you want a GUI. Runs right on top of Linux. You can even dumb it down enough to look very much like MS Windows if you like."
So much for "Microsoft Certified Engineers." As far as I can tell, their only qualification is making uninformed proclamations and protecting their jobs by misinforming their bosses about alternatives to Microsoft. (BTW, I'm putting together an old lunchbox this weekend for my new CO. He wants to take it home and see for himself what '..this Linux stuff is all about.' Boy is he in for a surprise!)
Of course, there are *some* organizations which have really interesting toys to play with. My friends at NSA are certainly not bored! Of course, they're not stuck with NT/2000 either!
