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Peter J. Quinn Investigated for Travel Omissions

Posted by ScuttleMonkey on Sat Nov 26, 2005 11:29 PM
from the corporations-skating-on-thin-ice dept.
Microsoft Government Politics
tadelste writes to tell us O'Reilly is reporting that a recent story in the Boston News about Peter J. Quinn is nothing more than a desperate attempt to slant public opinion in the Massachusetts OpenDocument frenzy. While we have documents showing Microsoft's lobbyists paying for big trips for the former House Majority Leader and his family to go to England and Scotland, Mr. Quinn seems to be getting the spotlight for incomplete travel records. From the article in question: "On most of the trips, Quinn said, his travel and other expenses were paid for by the sponsors of the conferences. On two of the trips -- to Tucson and Washington, D.C. -- Quinn paid his own way, according to state records and an interview with Quinn."
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  • Who the hell (Score:4, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Saturday November 26 2005, @11:32PM (#14122127)
    Is Peter J. Quinn?

    • Re:Who the heck (Score:5, Informative)

      by saskboy (600063) on Saturday November 26 2005, @11:35PM (#14122138) Homepage Journal
      The link is already getting slow so here's the info:
      Peter Quinn has served as Chief Information Officer (CIO) for the Commonwealth of Massachusetts since September of 2002 and Director of the Commonwealth's Information Technology Division (ITD). Mr. Quinn is also Founding Chair of the Government Open Code Collaborative (GOCC). As ITD Director and CIO, under the Executive Office for Administration and Finance, Mr. Quinn is responsible for setting information technology standards in the Commonwealth. Mr. Quinn came to public service following a successful career in private sector IT, most recently as the CIO for Boston Financial Data Services

      http://www.mass.gov/portal/site/massgovportal/menu item.2231afa58be831c14db4a11030468a0c/?pageID=itdu tilities&L=1&sid=Aitd&U=quinn_bio_publicsite [mass.gov]
    • Where have you been? He's the guy Microsoft hates for making the OASIS OpenDocument Format the state standard and opening the door to openoffice.org and Sun's Star Office 8. He's been instrumental in getting government to use open source software. After the ruling Microsoft went bonkers. here a quote from Bernard Golden of IDG: Microsoft has reached out to a couple of politicians in Massachusetts and gotten them to object to the process of this decision. The politicians have raised issues that mandating

      • Re:Who the hell (Score:5, Insightful)

        by ClickOnThis (137803) on Sunday November 27 2005, @12:11AM (#14122293) Journal
        here a quote from Bernard Golden of IDG: Microsoft has reached out to a couple of politicians in Massachusetts and gotten them to object to the process of this decision. The politicians have raised issues that mandating ODF would also mandate use of OpenOffice and that OpenOffice's open source license would mean that any commercial product that attempted to comply with the mandate would also become open source.

        Wow, two FUD-bites in one quote: (1) mandating ODF would mandate (i.e., force) use of OpenOffice; and (2) vendors that create products compliant with ODF are forced to become open-source. Obviously 200% bull, but an impressive serving of it.

        Not that I doubt the veracity of what you're saying, but do you possibly have a link for this quote? Really, it belongs in a FUD gallery somewhere.
        • Well ... sorry for replying to my own post, but I found the link. [techtarget.com]
        • A little clarification would be a good idea though --

          #1 It IS a mandate. Page 18 of v3.5 of the ETRM states that documents shall be saved in the ODF format. Not a mandate for OO.o, but a mandate for ODF; the ETRM spells out what programs are currently supported. It's an odd mandate because page 21 that says "oh yeah, you can use pdf as well".

          The fact that they list off supported programs gets a little fuzzy. Government documents often 'require' things by listing off acceptable purchases. Even odder

      • Re:Who the hell (Score:5, Interesting)

        by neillewis (137544) on Sunday November 27 2005, @12:17AM (#14122310)
        Microsoft is already paying for development of an ODF converter for MS Office. They'd rather feed smear stories to the press and buy off politicians than give their customers what they want, but they'll readily support OpenDocument if they start losing those customers.

        Either way, it looks like the days of the Office monopoly are numbered, and the 75% monopoly rent profit margin too. Micosoft only has itself to blame if it doesn't want to compete on a level playing field.
        • "Microsoft is already paying for development of an ODF converter for MS Office. They'd rather feed smear stories to the press and buy off politicians than give their customers what they want, but they'll readily support OpenDocument if they start losing those customers."

          And as I keep replying to people who insist the MS will "support" ODF....

          SUPPORT != DEFAULT

          Have you ever been in any MS office product and tried to change the default? I can just about assure you that the default will be (or already is) MS X
        • [Microsoft would] rather feed smear stories to the press and buy off politicians than give their customers what they want
          When they don't have any actual arguments to fight with, what else can they do?

          Another Microsoft backed lobbying effort was the fake grass roots movement "Campaign for Creativity [corporateeurope.org]", which tried to convince the European Parliament to introduce software patents in Europe, by pretending to represent "artists, designers, writers, photographers, software developers, musicians, engineers, inventors". In reality it was just a site put up by the lobbying firm Campbell Gentry, and financed by companies like Microsoft and SAP.

          This (failed) lobbying effort has how been nominated as one of the contenders for the "Worst EU Lobbying Award" 2005 [corporateeurope.org].

          The "winner" will be selected by an open Internet poll. If you want to donate a mouse-click to the fight against software patents and the companies that try to introduce them by corrupting the political system, you can go to the site and vote online [corporateeurope.org].

          The award is organized by a number of watchdog groups that are working for cleaner and more transparent methods in politics, so although the award as such sounds a bit humorous, the underlying issues are quite serious.

    • Peter J. Quinn is the CIO for Massachusetts. He's the guy ultimately responsible for picking ODF over Microsoft, which then resulted in MS making their XML-based document formats for Word, Excel, and Powerpoint "open".

      Groklaw [groklaw.net] already has an article on it basically exonerating Mr. Quinn.

    • He's the CIO of Massachusetts. A real stand-up guy, I translated for him for three days when he came to Japan. Committed to open source, very concerned about open document formats specifically because he thinks governmental organizations need access to documents in perpetuity and shouldn't lock-in to a vendor.

  • Guts (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Doc Ruby (173196) on Saturday November 26 2005, @11:42PM (#14122176) Homepage Journal
    At worst, if Quinn got free vacations at OSS conferences paid by OSS corporations, it will show that at least OSS corporations are fighting proprietary corporations like Microsoft in an arena where victories are won every day: buying political decisions. The OSS revolution is a practical one, not an ideological one (though some ideologues like Stallman can be useful). Maybe once the tiny sector of government that is its technology formats and software is open and transparent, we'll have some luck fixing the political part. Until then, I remember the fortune cookie "it's best not to know how laws and sausages are made".
    • Why? what's so bad about sausages?

      seriously though, this would've been a great opportunity for an object lesson. He should've stored all of the plans and approvals in an old, no longer easily accessable format. Come to think of it, nothing in TFA specifically precludes this from having been his course of action all along...
    • The OSS revolution is a practical one, not an ideological one (though some ideologues like Stallman can be useful).

      It's funny you make this comment, given Stallman is the leader of the Free Software revolution, not the Open Source Software revolution. The OSS revolution was created precisely because of a disagreement over this obsessive focus over ideology: OSS's ideology focused more on the practical effects of open software, though with the ideological assumption that open source will always end up prod

    • Re:Guts (Score:4, Insightful)

      by Thing 1 (178996) on Sunday November 27 2005, @03:33PM (#14125100) Journal
      I saw a great refutation to that quote, in someone's signature here:

      "The less a man knows about how sausages and laws are made, the easier it is to steal his vote and give him botulism."

      From http://science.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=169368 &cid=14119001 [slashdot.org]

  • another paid ad (Score:2, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward
    looks like scuttlemonkey got his xbox 360

  • Peter Quinn at FISL6.0 (Score:3)

    by Russ Nelson (33911) on Sunday November 27 2005, @12:27AM (#14122344) Homepage
    I met Peter Quinn at FISl6.0. He certainly did not impress me as any kind a politician, much less a corrupt politician. He seemed like a pretty regular guy.
    -russ
  • George Radwanski resigned as Privacy Commissioner of Canada over dubious expense claims. Unfortunately, an investigation did back up the charges. I say unfortunately because Radwanski was an effective champion of our privacy rights.

    All of this is to say that Peter Quinn may be a good person doing good things but, there is a line that may have been crossed... as PJ points out in her article: It is too bad that 3 time Pulitzer winner Stephen Kurkjian didn't wait until he had the full story before publishing h

  • Taking a page from the Rove playbook (Score:4, Insightful)

    by HangingChad (677530) on Sunday November 27 2005, @12:43AM (#14122393) Homepage
    Don't just attack the message, smear the messenger.

    We complain about not having good candidates to vote for, but what sane person is going to run for office in this sleazy poliical climate?

    Yes, Mass. was proposing an open document format. That would make him a good choice as a keynote speaker at OSS conferences. And they break this on a weekend? This stinks like yesterday's diapers.

  • a political liability for Gov. Mitt Romney (Score:5, Insightful)

    by miked98 (126805) on Sunday November 27 2005, @12:55AM (#14122436) Homepage
    This story is a caricature of a purposefully leaked, politically motivated hatchet job that -- to the glee of the "unnamed sources" who served it up -- got past the Thanksgiving rag tag staff and onto Page One.

    It's unclear what this very public investigation about is even about. Misuse of taxpayer dollars? Quinn paid *his own way* to attend two of these technical conferences and was an invited expenses-paid speaker for others. Cozy relationships with corporate sponsors? The article notes that his expenses-paid conferences were sponsored by a "galaxy of computer companies" -- e.g. the free market. Not filling out the proper paperwork? Since when is improper paperwork Page One material? (Maybe Quinn never got the memo about those TPS reports).

    So what is Peter J. Quinn guilty of? Being a political liability for Governor and Presidential Hopeful Mitt Romney. Having one of your employees piss off the bosses of the world's richest software company is no way to kick off your 2008 campaign fundraising drive.
  • "First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win."

    Assumming the "they laugh at you" is the FUD campaigns, I could deduce we're currently experiencing the "then they fight you" stage.

  • Groklaw's view (Score:3, Informative)

    by golodh (893453) on Sunday November 27 2005, @07:28AM (#14123344)
    See Groklaw's comments at:

    http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=200511261 63314567 [groklaw.net]

  • Microsoft Hatchet Job Using The Globe (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Master of Transhuman (597628) on Sunday November 27 2005, @07:54AM (#14123398) Homepage
    Nothing more.

    The Globe is owned by the New York Times, which is Sultzberger being used by Bush and cronies to sell the Iraq War. Now we have the Globe being used by Microsoft to attack the Open Document Format decision in Massachusetts.

    Once a sellout, always a sellout.

  • We Simply Sought His Advice (Score:5, Informative)

    by Uggy (99326) on Sunday November 27 2005, @07:56AM (#14123401) Homepage
    I'm the CTO of Altamente, mentioned in the article. We invited Peter to the conference in Puerto Rico simply because we felt that the government of Puerto Rico needed to hear what Massachusetts was doing with regard to IT. How simple is that? We don't do any business in/with Mass.

    It was a great opportunity for one government to share with another some of the challanges and difficulties of budgeting information technology and one possible solution that Peter's office had proposed. Since we're an open source company, it makes perfect sense that we like what he was doing with OpenDocument.

    It's just a stupid witch hunt. His trip to Brazil, Puerto Rico and most of the far flung conferences were paid by people who wanted to hear what he had to say, what he was doing, and how they could do the same. As many people wanted to listen to Dr. Edgar David Villanueva from Peru, lots of people want to hear what Peter Quinn has to say as well. Same deal.

    • Re:WTF (Score:3, Informative)

      by Bacon Bits (926911)
      It's MS dragging the name of a government official through the mud just because he is choosing open standards over MS.

      It's kinda what /. is for.

    • Re:WTF (Score:2, Insightful)

      by tadelste (659411) *
      It's news for nerds because it's about free software in the government - Linux, Openoffice.org, Firefox. It's also sad because Microsoft has to stoop to dirty tricks and can't accept it's loss like men.
    • Unfortunately that is the way of most politicians these days. The need to constantly raise compaign funds has made most of them little more than paid whores. Most citizens are left with voting for "their" paid whore and against the other guy's.

    • Re:Hopefully, this is misunderstanding, but may no (Score:5, Informative)

      by Compholio (770966) on Saturday November 26 2005, @11:53PM (#14122223)
      I'm huge Open Source, linux, anti-Microsoft (in the "I-wish-they-would-cut-out-the-monopolistic-abuse- crap" sense), but not at the cost of ethics.

      Then I suggest you read both articles carefully, the boston globe one doesn't even list any violations that make sense in reality-land. For example:

      Even though a galaxy of computer companies are listed as sponsors of many of the conferences, Quinn did not list any of them on his authorization forms or the business relationships any of them have with the Commonwealth.

      If you've ever been to a tech conference you know that the list of sponsors is immense, it would not make sense to list a single company on that list because it is the conference itself (not its sponsors) who decide to pay for your visit when you're a guest. The globe article even points out earlier in the story that the guy's legal advisor didn't know exactly what he needed to do with regards to listing who paid for the trip - and later in the story it notes that when his expenses were paid by a single company he did list the name of the company.
      • If you've ever been to a tech conference you know that the list of sponsors is immense, it would not make sense to list a single company on that list ...

        I think this is more about who paid for the travel.

        On most of the trips, Quinn said, his travel and other expenses were paid for by the sponsors of the conferences ...

        This guy is supposed to list the companies that financed his travel. He apparently didn't. He fscked up and gave Microsoft amunition. Quinn unecessarily caused the general public to q

        • Re:Hopefully, this is misunderstanding, but may no (Score:5, Insightful)

          by DrJimbo (594231) * on Sunday November 27 2005, @01:23AM (#14122513)
          max born said:
          This guy is supposed to list the companies that financed his travel. He apparently didn't. He fscked up and gave Microsoft amunition. Quinn unecessarily caused the general public to question the motivations behind the opendoc initiative. And all over some simple paperwork.
          Oh for cryin' out loud. Are you serious?

          Nobody lists all the fsckin' companies that sponsor a conference when they are being paid by the conference. If I got funded by a tv station, I would list the tv station but not all of its sponsors (advertisers). What you say makes no sense and is not how the real world operates.

          The guy didn't fsck up at all. The Boston Globe was trying to raise muck where there wasn't any muck to be found. They published this crap and now they are being ridiculed.

          • Nobody lists all the fsckin' companies that sponsor a conference when they are being paid by the conference.

            Look. I'm on your side too. But rules are rules. If the MA state law says you must declare XYZ then you must. That was my point only.
            • If the state law says you have to list who paid for the trip, and you list the conference, then where is the problem? If you go to E3 as a speaker, EA did not pay for your trip, the E3 conference did. If you are an Olympic athelete, the Olympic committeee pays for your trip, not Coke.

              When you ask for reimbursement, you document why and where you went, the costs, mileage (if applicable), and the applicable code. Often the agency will reimburse you, and then the event will reimburse the agency.

              I really dou

            • Re:Hopefully, this is misunderstanding, but may no (Score:4, Insightful)

              by pallmall1 (882819) on Sunday November 27 2005, @04:02AM (#14122935)
              If the MA state law says you must declare XYZ then you must.
              Big IF there. Even the Globe doesn't know if Quinn needed to or in fact DID declare anything necessary, because they don't even know what, if anything, it would be necessary for him to disclose. They just ran a Thanksgiving smear on the guy without even knowing what the rules are that they wrote on page one he's being "inquired" about. Kind of like that "XYZ" bullshit you mentioned.

              The Boston Globe method was to 1) ask what the disclosure rules are because they didn't know, and then 2) print an article on the front page that says the Governor's administration has launched an inquiry into possible ethics violation by Quinn. Note that the big pile of #2 the Globe put on page one came before they knew what the rules are, or without giving Quinn a chance to respond because they couldn't reach him on THANKSGIVING DAY.

              If you can't smell this smear job, you should see a doctor and let him count the holes in your head. It's not about what "side" anyone is on, it's about ethics, and the Boston Globe has demonstrated that they have none.

    • Re:Hopefully, this is misunderstanding, but may no (Score:5, Insightful)

      by mabhatter654 (561290) on Saturday November 26 2005, @11:56PM (#14122238)
      looking at other news sorces, he filed for all of these, but may not have been "pre-approved" and some people [pro microsoft] think he should have put all the sponsors of the events down.. not just the committee paying him... it's a tempest in a teapot. There's no wrongdoing here, just squibbling about whether he filled out the paperwork right or not. All of these happened AFTER the decision was made to switch to ODF too.

      This was a political thing.. some reporter thinks they're smearing somebody... they waited for a long weekend to even report it when he can't respond... this is editorial abuse, heads should be rolling... and not his.

    • You know what? It does look bad, but it looks bad for Quinn and his possible ethical lapses.

      It's not obvious to me that this is a big deal. But the panicky "Another desperate attempt...!" tone of the article certainly makes it sound like a big deal!

      I was also unimpressed by :

      Pamela Jones of groklaw pointed out that representatives for the disabled were demonstrating an unseemly helplessness in raising their complaint. Because several open-source tools support OpenDocument, anyone who wants accessibility a

    • We are talking about lazy documentation on what probably will amount to a couple of thousand dollars by someone who probably makes well over 100k/year. Would you honestly risk a high paying job, one you have invested a great deal of time and effort in, over a couple free trips to CONFERENCES?

      If this were real fraud, he would have crossed every t and dotted every i to avoid attention. No, this looks like a case of a really busy, dedicated individual who was a bit careless with some mundane, tedious paperwork

    • Re:Hopefully, this is misunderstanding, but may no (Score:5, Interesting)

      by Reverberant (303566) on Sunday November 27 2005, @12:35AM (#14122365) Homepage
      I hope it's mostly a case of not dotting the i's, not crossing the t's,

      Given what I know about working for Mass, I strongly suspect that's the case.

      <begin anecdote>

      Back in my last job, I did some consulting for the MBTA [mbta.com]. There was no problem with traveling within the state on project business. However, traveling out of the state on project business was a big deal, requiring several levels of approval. At one point we needed to fly to Colorado to conduct some testing - it would have cost several $million to test locally, and several $thousand to test in CO. I think it took something like 2 months for the approval to come through. Since the testing wasn't too time-critical, we just waited for the T to give us approval.

      <end anecdote>

      Given my experience working for the state, and my experience going to conferences, I don't find it hard to believe that Mr. Quinn may have been running against conference registration deadlines, hotel room deadlines, and airfare deadlines - I suspect that he followed proper procedures when he could, but if there was a time crunch (maybe it took too long for a gov't bean counter to approve the first of 12 forms), he may have just asked his boss (and council as TFA noted) for verbal approval.

      Frankly, as a Mass taxpayer, I'm happy that state workers are going to conferences. Of course if it was a golfing junket, it would be a different matter. But (IMNSHO) technical people need to go to conferences to expose themselves to news ideas, to meet contacts, and, yes, to schmooze with vendors.

    • Re:Happens to the best of us (Score:5, Insightful)

      by faedle (114018) on Sunday November 27 2005, @12:06AM (#14122271) Homepage Journal
      Except, as it has been pointed out elsewhere, it's not obvious he actually broke the law.

      He went to a couple of trade shows on his own dime, and maybe didn't file every little slip of paperwork required. It happens. Was it a major ethics violation? No, it doesn't appear to be.

      Far from the two felony convictions Microsoft has recieved. If you, personally, recieved two felony convictions, you'd be disbarred from even bidding on projects with the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. Why is Microsoft seemingly the sole exception to just about every state's "felons cannot provide services to the state" statutes?

      Next time you go 5 MPH over the speed limit, I expect you to duly walk into the nearest police station and demand they write you a citation. After all, the law is the law.
    • That's unreasonable. It's not even enough money to warrant a Class C Misdemeanor. How do you know he didn't have exemptions. Most states follow the model paper work redution act. Mass is usually among the states that follow the model acts. The O'Reilly article says he that his boss was contacted and said he had permission. RTFA.
    • "I don't think I can take another microsoft advert in my life, let alone two in a row, but if I see another today I'm going to shoot myself."

      Ever think that's Microsoft's plan? Kill off the Linux users through bad journalism induced suicide?
    • What are you talking about ? Accessibility comes with third party add-ons. No Microsoft code.

    • Re:From TF O'Reilly A (Score:2, Informative)

      by Anonymous Coward
      "to add the kind of accessibility features Microsoft has taken years to develop?"

      Excuse me sir, you assumptions are showing.

      Microsoft did not develop the products (such as JAWS) that add accessibility features to MS Office.

      If anything, Microsoft hindered development of such products.
    • I'm very confused by this though. The globe is known for being a horrible, LEFTIST newspaper. They should be chomping at the bit to get interviews with RMS about this.

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