[CLUE-Talk] Request for Help

[G. Richard Raab]

Howdy all,

	Well, it has been awhile since I have seen a few of you. Hope that you are 
all well. I was wondering if some of you might be willing to help on a 
project.  Bear with me as I explain it. 

	Back in April, I crafted an open letter to Governor Owens and sent it to the 
Op-Ed @ Dener Post in hopes that they would publish it. I did this several 
times and then instead sent it several times to the Post and the News. For a 
fith time, I sent it to the Post, News, and the local Denver rag ( I forget 
the name). Finally, I just sent it to the Governor(governorowens at state.co.us 
), Marc Holtzman (his IT guy:marc.holtzman at state.co.us ), the 
Post(letters at denverpost.com), and the News(letters at rockymountainnews.com). I 
received a snail mail thinking me for my input and that it was passed on to 
Marc Holtzman ( I consider this indicative of our current state of 
government). Finally, with extreme patience, I received a phone call from the 
procurrement office and talked to somebody who basically told me that the gov 
would NOT endorse Linux. I spent 1-1.5 hours on the phone talking to hime 
convincing him that my letter was not about Linux, but about getting jobs 
into our state and future employment for the USA without wasting our money. 

	Now, as to what I was requesting of the governor. Simply to create companies 
here rather than sending money out of state. I am proposing to do it in a 
tried and true approach: offer a reward for open source code. 

	The example that I used was with education ( a significant amount of money 
flows there). The school districts should outline what they are looking for 
and from that a set of specs should be created by a small group of techies 
and teachers. Then the reward is posted based on these specs.

	Most importantly, the projects are all to be open sourced. Something along 
the lines of LGPL/GPL, perhaps with a possibility of Mozilla style licensing. 
But still open.

	 After a predetermined length of time (perhaps a year), one project will be 
selected as a winner. It must meet or, hopefully, exceed all specs. If there 
are multiple groups, then a small predetermined group will pick the best 
project to reward. In addition, that group/company will be offered the first 
support contract for a predetermined amount/time. If a suitable arrangement 
can not be had, then the support contract will be opened. 

	So what can you do? Letters might help, especially if you are a better writer 
than I am (that should not be hard as I would rather write code). If anybody 
knows the governor, perhaps a letter, or two, or three in support. Anybody 
know if there is intelligence at the Post or the News? You might try them. 
Thanx
g.r.r.

Original Letter:
Dear Governor Owens,

During the 1970's, Colorado built a high growth economy based on oil and gas.  
Unfortunately, during that time the state government did nothing to encourage 
any other areas of growth.  So Colorado crashed hard during the 1980's.  
Since then, a number of high-tech companies have started here.  Recently, we 
encouraged the building of branches by out of state companies.  Many of these 
branches are now leaving and causing even harder times.

In California, the government encourages high-tech start-up companies.  A big 
part of that is helping companies that are working on new waves of 
technology.  In particular, they support micro-computers, bio-tech, and 
Internet-related companies.  California businesses were able to expand 
rapidly due to the support from their government. This example  shows it is 
better to have a diversified economy that is on the fore-front of technology.  
Colorado's high-tech school was obviously one way of copying their successful 
approach.  ABC (Always Buy Colorado) is also another way to encourage local 
development of local businesses, but these should go further.

Many in the high-tech world believe the next big wave will be Open Source 
Software, especially Linux applications.  Likewise, many countries are 
switching to Linux/BSD for its high security, low cost and the chance to own 
the next paradigm shift.  Many of the high-tech bleeding-edge California 
venture capitalists are investing into this area. Now is the time to start 
the industry here, rather than trying to encourage companies to just build 
branches here. Of course, with the current economy, this is difficult. What 
is needed is leadership and initiative.

When new approaches fail, then it is time to let the past be a guide.  Many 
governments, businesses and individuals in the past have offered rewards for 
the accomplishment of a task.  We are all familiar with how past rewards have 
succeeded such as flying across the United States or the Atlantic.  A current 
reward is designed to encourage cheap flight to space.  These rewards help 
encourage groups to work together and give them the media attention they 
need.

I propose that Colorado offer rewards for local groups for developing software 
for our state.  The group's headquarters must be here in our state (or will 
be upon the granting of the reward).  Rewards should be offered for software 
that are not currently developed here, but which we currently buy from 
businesses out of state or will be doing so in the future. There is a great 
deal of software which is not available in Linux format now, but may, in 
about 2-3 years.  Quicken and turbo tax by Intuit are good examples.  

Educational software is another area where a reward would be useful. School 
administrators could come up with the requirements and the expected time 
frame in which it must be completed.  If several groups meet all the 
requirements, then the administrators (and perhaps the governor) could then 
decide who provides the best software and receives the reward.  The winning 
group would be given a reward (amount decided beforehand) and offered a 
chance for the first two years' support contract.  If the state and group 
can't come to an agreement over the contract, then it will be put up on bid, 
where the winning bid must be lower than what the original group offered.  If 
not, then the group will be awarded the contract.  Finally, the software must 
be offered under General Public Licensing (GPL) or something similar (such as 
Mozilla licensing) so that the state may use competitive support bids 
afterwards, and can be assured of reliability, security and low cost.  These 
licenses guarantee that source code remain in the open so that no one group 
may control it.

Where does the money come from?  From the money currently spent on 
out-of-state software.  By switching to a more efficient, high security, and 
free OS like Linux, Colorado can stop sending our money out-of-state.  The 
cost of the software replaced with this program would also contribute to this 
software.  Colorado currently has three large companies that manufacture both 
hardware and software; Hewlett Packard, IBM, and Sun Microsystems. The common 
software for all three is Linux and Unix. Unix runs on different 
architectures than what the state uses for most of its desktops. By switching 
to Linux, and building new high-tech companies, with less money than 
currently goes out, we can lower our costs and increase our tax revenue 
without raising taxes.  

A final thought is that if this is printed in a newspaper/internet, it will 
then be seen by a number of technicians. Some of them will seize upon this 
idea and suggest it to their own state government. At that point, it becomes 
a race in which the leader wins, with the starter given a huge edge. This 
will require a great deal of leadership to think of Colorado's short and long 
term needs.

Sincerly
G. Richard Raab
3905 S. Kirk Way
Aurora CO, 80013
303.617.4096