[brlug-poly] M$ Spams Free Speech Alley.

[John Hebert]

On 10/29/05, Shannon Roddy <sroddy at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>
>
> On 10/29/05, John Hebert <metanoid at gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> >
> > Shannon, what's up with the JPL situation? I hadn't heard they had
> > problems.
> >
>
> http://www.spaceref.com/news/viewsr.html?pid=18289
>
> Can't find the original article that was on JPL's site.
>
> NASA/Congress has cut funding. I think JPL just laid off 10% across the
> board. They are administered by Caltech, therefore it cuts into Caltech's
> bottom line. Caltech has had some serious budget problems for the last few
> years. Rumor has it that a lot of it was because of a financial officer
> asleep at the wheel around the time of dot-bust. (totally unsubstantiated,
> though he is no longer there... Also, I heard a rumor that MIT hired him
> afterwards. Go figure...)
>
> > "Ok, we'll pay that." If you value freedom, then you must allow LSU to
> > make their own business decisions.
> >
>
> I would only comment that Caltech/MIT is privately funded, where LSU is a
> state funded school. So, for LSU, there should be some oversight by
> taxpayers.


Good point, but I'll guess that even if whatever oversight board that
normally watches LSU's budget knew about the Microsoft deal, they would
probably not know about alternatives. However, I do believe that software
developed with public funds (taxes) should be open-sourced.

John
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