Eighteen months ago, the City Council (Garcetti & Greuel) called for the City's Information Technology Agency (which just lost its General Manager) to present "a reasonable schedule for transitioning city computers to open source software and platform." A report was issued about a month after the initial motion, and the findings have had no action since. IN the report, of the 37 City Departments that responded to the survey, 78% indicated they used no open source platforms.
With a new GM coming to the Department, perhaps it's time to take the recommendations of the report and try pilot project to see how much money could be saved by using open source platforms, which was the intent of the motion.
A lot of "creative" ideas are introduced by the City Council, but some seem to fall off the radar before being fully pursued. Who knows what would happen in all ideas were fully investigated. It's what happened to Garcetti's Recreational Greenway Linkage Plan. It was proposed in May 2004, and nothing happened with it for two years. Per Council Action adopted in 2005, "all Council files pending before the City Council, which have not been placed on a Council or Committee agenda for consideration for a period of two years or more, are deemed received and filed (CF 05-0553)" (which means closed forever).
So, Garcetti's idea for an all-inclusive, Citywide community and City committee to review a greenway plan has been lost to non-action as have other ideas that may have made some real impact if they were followed through, like Councilwoman Galantar's initiative to create a Spanish version of the City's website or Councilman Svornich's call to save the S.S. Catalina or Councilman Weiss's request for clarification and continuation of the Mulholland Security Patrol, or the hundreds of other motions never fully followed through.
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2 comments:
LACityNerd:
While I don't profess to know everything that the hard working people at ITA do for our agency, I'd like to use this relevant thread to thank them for their meticulous conversion of the LAFD 9-1-1 Dispatch System to Linux this past Fiscal Year.
It was an accomplishment without fanfare, and to be honest, also without a predefined forum to publicly offer our proper thanks for a job well done.
As LACityNerd knows (and wonderfully conveys), there is often a great deal that goes without notice, and that many of us in and outside of City government take for granted.
I'd encourage all members of our City family, and those who are stakeholders in our City, to make note of these awards for Quality and Productivity.
Respectfully Yours in Safety and Service,
Brian Humphrey
Firefighter/Specialist
Public Service Officer
Los Angeles Fire Department
I sincerely hope that the City of Los Angeles starts using open source software (when it makes sense). I think that part of any move to open source software should be a partnering with computer science departments at local univerisites and colleges. The state is already paying for C.S. graduate students to code - those students should pay the state back by working on open source applications that benefit all of of us.
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