[NTLUG:Announce] SB1579 - Open Source as an option for Texas Govt

[announce@ntlug.org]

As Tom Adlestein informed us today, Open Source software is
NOT an available choice when taking SW bids today for our
State.

Thanks to the help of John Carona, SB1579 has been created
to allow Open Source software to be on the bidlist always
for software considerations.  This is a huge step for the
State of Texas.

But it needs our support (if you agree).  Contact your Texas Senator.
If you do not know your Senator, go to http://www.congress.org
and type in your Zipcode+4 to see who your reps are.

Then go to your Senator's page and use the contact information
to write AND email him/her.  It's important that you do
both.

How much time?  Well Texas Senate is in session only for
a few more weeks so time is of the essence.  Commercial
software companies are already making attempts at tabling
bills like this in hope they will be forgotten over the
long legislative break.  Let's not have that happen in
Texas.  Let your Senator know if you support SB1579.

You can see SB1579 here:
http://www.capitol.state.tx.us/tlo/78R/billtext/SB01579I.HTM

You can find more info about John Carona at:
http://www.senate.state.tx.us/75r/senate/members/dist16/dist16.htm

Tom also mentioned the wonderful work done on SB1673:
http://www.capitol.state.tx.us/tlo/78R/billtext/SB01673I.HTM
This bill, which may seem obvious, is somewhat unique to
Texas (though will likely spread to other states) in that it
mandates the sanitization of disks (for example) that are
disposed of by the government.  See:
http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/nr/2003/diskdrives.html
for why this is a good bill to pass.

I personally want to thank Tom for the work in helping put
these bills together.  I want to encourage all of us to
try to work with our reps to create bills when needed to
protect privacy (eg SB1673) and to encourage better spending
practices (eg SB1579).  Thanks for the great talk, Tom!

You might also want to visit http://www.dallasmorningnews.com
and send a gentle request to Alan Goldstein (Editor of the
Technology portion) that they should run some print on
SB1579 (likewise with the Star-Telgram at http://www.startelegram.com.

Let's get the word out about SB1579.

Thanks,
Chris