Pacheco said he is worried that a business expert in proprietary software "that has a lower cost ownership proposal would be thrown out" of competition by open source interests.
Kriss, a former software entrepreneur now at the state's Republican administration , did not appear at Pacheco's recent hearing -- nor did he "make time for an office interview" according to the legislator -- that examined the issue. Pacheco then sent the letter to Kriss asking the secretary to reply. Pacheco has noted that his committee has subpoena power.
Various computer industry figures have rallied around the issue. In particular advocates of proprietary software have argued that most of the state's existing software revolves around proprietary software. Grant Mydland of CompTIA, a 16,000-member industry organization, has presented testimony arguing that few state employees have even been trained in open standards and that there has been no full peer review of the Kriss policy. Mydland, who is director of Comp/TIA's State Government Relations & Grassroots Programs, also said that the Massachusetts state government currently operates just one OSS server.
"We believe that the new Open Standards/Open Source policy -- as proposed -- could create an institutional 'preference' for open source software over hybrid or proprietary software -- that could incalculably harm Massachusetts' economy, public administration, its citizens, and its information technology industry by severely restricting software choice presently available to the Commonwealth," Mydland said.
"Further, we believe that no new laws or regulations are needed in order to accomplish what the Commonwealth can already do today -- that is, go into the working software market, and acquire the best solution for the given need in every instance. The state can and should buy open source software when it represents the best value based on total cost of ownership; and the state can and should buy proprietary software when it represents the best value based on total cost of ownership," Mydland said.
Bob Friday, Chief AI Officer for Juniper Networks, explains how the advanced technology is transforming operations.
Contact center leaders from 8x8, Awaken Intelligence, and 360insight discuss the importance of agent experience.
AI may force enterprises to rewire parts of their data centers so they are fully optimized to run such workloads. The question is do you use Ethernet or InfiniBand?
