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Linux Pipeline Newsletter www.LinuxPipeline.com WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 01, 2006 In This Issue: - Mass. Names New CIO; Hardens OpenDocuments Policy - Rumors Fly Over Google's Plans For Desktop Linux Distro - Microsoft To License Server Source Code in EU Case - More News... - Firefox Extensions: The Pick Of The Pack - Linux Kernel Developer Says No To 'Insane' GPL 3 - Five Ways To Keep Your Google Searches Private - Extra: It's Salary Survey Time - More Picks... Join InformationWeek for a FREE, OnDemand TechWebCast on Understanding and Improving IT. In this TechWebcast IT executives will learn how to align IT capabilities with business strategies, leveraging balanced scorecards to define their goals and critical success factors for the provision of IT to the business, and using measurement frameworks to ensure IT is improving. Register and view this TechWebCast today! "http://www.techweb.com/webcasts/improvingit013106" ----------------------------------------- Editor's Note: A Bad Example When Peter Quinn resigned last December as the Massachusetts state CIO, he had just spent the better part of two months imitating a pinata -- with Microsoft's powerful political allies wielding the sticks. His offense: Supporting, and ultimately helping to pass, a state policy adopting the Open Document Format, rather than Microsoft's published but still-proprietary Office XML format. I didn't realize that Quinn had somehow managed to avoid giving any media interviews since resigning -- that is, until last week. Now you can read Quinn's own explanation of why he resigned; who was behind the infamous Boston Globe hit piece looking into his alleged violations of state travel policies (for which he was completely exonerated); and much more, in his interview last week with Groklaw editor Pamela Jones. For many people, Quinn's more-or-less forced resignation raised one key question: Would other public-sector CIOs and IT managers take the hint and think twice before pushing open-source software at Microsoft's expense? In his interview, Quinn himself explains his decision to resign more as a pragmatic matter -- in essence, "taking one for the team" -- but I don't think his answers really address the potential chilling effect his case might have on other Open Source initiatives in the government sector. Here's my own take, based on Quinn's interview and everything else I've read on the subject recently: There is no "chilling effect" in this case, or at least nothing that would scare a reasonable person. Intimidation requires a credible threat -- and a credible threat is precisely what's missing from this story. The political mugging that drove Peter Quinn back to the private sector was real enough, and it must have been a very unpleasant experience. Yet while Quinn himself sees Microsoft's grubby fingerprints on many of the little things that made his work life miserable and drove him to resign, I think he has it backwards. Quinn first fell prey to a unique and undeniably potent combination of bad timing, coincidence, his own political naivety, and the Boston Globe's preternatural taste for sleaze -- and then, once these ingredients were in place, Microsoft and its local hatchet-men swoop in to make an opportunistic meal out of Quinn's career with the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. Even more to the point, however, Quinn faced one truly deadly problem: He lost his only real source of political cover and protection, just as he was busy turning some very powerful state politicians into his new worst enemies. Quinn's own manager, state Secretary of Administration and Finance Eric Kriss, was a personal friend and an equally ardent ODF supporter; while Quinn championed ODF from a technological perspective, Kriss kept Microsoft's political attack dogs, in the Massachusetts Senate and elsewhere, comfortably at bay. To do this, Kriss controlled two key assets that forced other players in this game to treat him with great care: Governor Romney's ear, as a cabinet-level appointee; and control of the state's purse strings. It's hard to overstate just how important a tool -- or, at times, a weapon -- fiduciary authority can be in these situations. When Kriss split for a private-sector job, however, Quinn was suddenly the only target worth hitting on this political free-fire range. In the end, the fact that Quinn himself apparently didn't see any of this coming, once Kriss was gone, illustrates exactly why Quinn needed protection and support in the first place. When Quinn's new boss, Tom Trimarco, kicked off his tenure with blather about not wanting to be "unfair" to Microsoft (which just scraped by last year on $11 billion in revenue and 80 percent margins on its Office software, the poor things), Quinn's long-term job prospects suddenly looked about as secure as a watermelon at a Gallagher show. Nobody would want what happened to Peter Quinn to happen to them. But here's the good news: I'm sure that almost anyone can find better things to worry about. Given the circumstances, Quinn's political pinata act simply doesn't work as a "this could happen to you"-type warning to his colleagues in other states. Actually, the dreaded "chilling effect" couldn't even cool things off in Massachusetts, where Peter Quinn's recently-named successor, UMass Medical School IT chief Louis Gutierrez, was named just this week. Gutierrez is every bit as likely as Quinn had been to fight for open software, systems, and standards -- and to make Microsoft back up its mostly-idle talk about making Office XML a truly open standard. If this is Microsoft's example of making an example out of someone, the company's PR masterminds can't be very happy with their handiwork so far. Have a good week, and as always, stay in touch.
Matt McKenzie
Don't let future editions of Linux Pipeline Newsletter go missing. Take a moment to add the newsletter's address to your anti-spam whitelist: linuxed@techwire.com If you're not sure how to do that, ask your administrator or ISP. Or check your anti-spam utility's documentation. Thanks. Top Linux News Mass. Names New CIO; Hardens OpenDocuments Policy Massachusetts' new CIO, former UMass Medical School IT guru Louis Gutierrez, has a solid record as an advocate for open standards and open-source software -- and in particular, as a vocal supporter of the Open Document Format.
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