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Bill Joy For New National CTO Post?
Posted by
CmdrTaco
on Thu Nov 06, 2008 09:22 AM
from the yeah-that'll-happen dept.
from the yeah-that'll-happen dept.
jddeluxe writes "In an article in today's NY Times, John Doerr of Kleiner-Perkins proffered up Bill Joy's name when queried by Barack Obama for a recommendation for the position of Chief Technology Officer of the Unites States which Obama has promised to create and that the country is overdue to have.
I think that's a brilliant idea, and while you're at it, have the FCC report to him as well, why don't you?" If Bill is unavailable, I'll throw my hat in the ring, although I'm holding out for Secretary of Tubes.
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News: US CTO Choice Down To a Two-Horse Race 284 comments
theodp writes "Barack Obama apparently didn't return CmdrTaco's call. BusinessWeek reports that the choices for the first US CTO have narrowed, and it's now a two-horse race between Padmasree Warrior, Cisco's CTO, and Vivek Kundra, who holds the same title for the Government of the District of Columbia. Two very different resumes — which would you advise Obama to pick?" I just know I was #3 on the list.
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vi (Score:5, Funny)
We will fight! (Score:5, Funny)
Under Bill, vi will be the national standard. Yeah!!!
There will be a revolt! We, the Emacs revolutionary council, will take up arms and fight to the death!
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Re:We will fight! (Score:5, Funny)
isn't there a key board shortcut for that?
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Re:We will fight! (Score:5, Funny)
i think its:
ctrl-meta-shift-r alt-ctrl-p ctrl-' alt-meta-1 shift-2
then recomplie without perl extensions.
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Re:We will fight! (Score:5, Funny)
You GNU emacs losers have to type that, but us xemacs users have it bound by default to the letter 'a'.
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Re:vi (Score:5, Funny)
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Re:vi (Score:5, Funny)
Under Bill, vi will be the national standard. Yeah!!!
If you ask me Bram Moolenaar would be an IMprovement over Bill.
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Or... (Score:5, Funny)
Secretary of the Internet. [xkcd.org]
Isn't he the pessimist? (Score:5, Interesting)
I seem to recall Bill Joy having some decidedly pessimistic and even luddite attitudes towards future tech, but it's been so long since he's been in the news that I don't remember now what. Paranoid about nanotech, I think, for starters.
Re:Isn't he the pessimist? (Score:4, Informative)
You're probably thinking about the 2000 article in Wired, 'Why the Future Doesn't Need Us' [wired.com], which he said in a 2003 interview was Wired's title, not his. [wired.com]. It was criticized in quite [slate.com] a [archive.org] few [reason.com] places, but there were plenty of people who gave merit to what he was saying.
I think it's wise to understand that there are risks inherent to almost any solution, and no just adopt technology for technology's sake -- look at what happened with the election machines, and those damned flash splash pages in the late 90s. I probably need to re-read his article, as I can't remember most of it, but I don't remember it being as pessimistic as people made it out to be.
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Bill Joy's terrorist connection (Score:4, Insightful)
If the Republicans went crazy over Obama's friendship with Bill Ayers, just wait until they find out what Bill Joy said about Ted Kaczynski (the unibomber) in Wired.
Re:Bill Joy's terrorist connection (Score:5, Interesting)
You mean this? [wired.com]
"I am no apologist for Kaczynski. His bombs killed three people during a 17-year terror campaign and wounded many others. One of his bombs gravely injured my friend David Gelernter, one of the most brilliant and visionary computer scientists of our time. Like many of my colleagues, I felt that I could easily have been the Unabomber's next target. Kaczynski's actions were murderous and, in my view, criminally insane. He is clearly a Luddite, but simply saying this does not dismiss his argument; as difficult as it is for me to acknowledge, I saw some merit in the reasoning in this single passage. I felt compelled to confront it."
Bill Joy doesn't sound that out of line. If you're going to confront terrorists, you need to understand their doctrine and motivation so that you can discredit the entire philosophy, rather than just turn them into martyrs.
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Re:Bill Joy's terrorist connection (Score:4, Insightful)
You're assuming that the context will be presented, or matter. Clearly, you've not paid attention the last few years.
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About time (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:About time (Score:4, Insightful)
Actually, a lot of the younger politicos would probably struggle with VCRs, since all they ever knew was iPod or TIVO. Makes them smart rather than dumb, in my opinion, (VCRs used to be a bitch to program).
Do we really need people who know how things work 'under the hood' to make smart tech decisions? Or do we need smart people with vision, who then consult with or employ the right people? Not sure that Kennedy knew how the rockets worked, but he got people to the moon just the same.
Now get off my lawn.
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Re:About time (Score:4, Insightful)
Anyone who can't program a VCR probably can't program much else, nor follows instructions very well. I agree with the OP.
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Re:About time (Score:4, Insightful)
The simple answer is BOTH. We've got 300 million people, surely we can find a few who have a reasonable amount of both technical competency and vision. One without the other to balance it is worse than useless.
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No need (Score:5, Insightful)
We don't need a national CTO. We can make our own technology decisions without the government telling us what to do.
Re:No need (Score:5, Insightful)
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Re:No need (Score:4, Insightful)
Yes, because that approach has worked so well with the financial industry.
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Re:No need (Score:4, Informative)
If you think the government has been staying out of the financial industry for the past 70+ years, you haven't been paying attention.
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Re:No need (Score:4, Insightful)
Paying attention? The unregulated market brought us the Great Depression 70 years ago and until Bush the markets stayed regulated. The _recent_ deregulation is why we're in the mess we're in now.
There's no way you don't already realize this, I'm not sure why you posted what you did.
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Re:No need (Score:4, Interesting)
This is a common misconception.
Bush did nothing to deregulate the financial industry.
He is a flaming chowderhead and guilty of high crimes against the people of the United States and the Constitution. But to be fair, this particular accusation doesn't stick.
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Re:No need (Score:5, Informative)
It wasn't Bush, but it was deregulation and it was Championed by conservatives. The reason why you don't see it mentioned specifically might due to some embarrassment over the bill being signed by Bill Clinton in 1999.
----from wikipedia---
Provisions that prohibit a bank holding company from owning other financial companies were repealed on November 12, 1999, by the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act, which passed the U.S. Senate in one form on a party-line vote of 54 (53 Republicans and 1 Democrat) to 44 (all Democrats) and on a 343-86 vote in a different form in the House of Representatives, before being resolved by a joint conference committee; the conference report was approved by both houses of Congress (Senate: 90-8-1, House: 362-57-15) and signed by President Bill Clinton.[2][3]
--------------------
And here is a thoughtful perspective on re-regulation from people you probably hate:
http://www.aflcio.org/aboutus/thisistheaflcio/ecouncil/ec03052008a.cfm [aflcio.org]
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Re:No need (Score:5, Informative)
That's a flat out lie, mod parent down.
The community reinvestment act was passed during the Carter Administration, and has nothing to with the FACT that lenders made unqualified loans KNOWING IN ADVANCE that those loans would be bundled and sold so that the originator was no longer directly on the hook for the potential (probable) loss.
Deregulation allowed these criminals to get away with this.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/10/01/conservatives-seek-to-shi_n_131020.html [huffingtonpost.com]
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Re:No need (Score:5, Interesting)
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Re:No need (Score:4, Insightful)
Bullshit. The people making these qualified loans knew full well that they were likely to default, they didn't care because they also knew the loans would be bundled and sold.
NO ONE and NO LAW forced these people to make those loans.
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Re:No need (Score:4, Interesting)
I think such things as the prevalence of spyware on PCs and the reluctance of many people to offer music or movie shares stands as proof that most people actually can't make their own technology decisions.
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Re:No need (Score:5, Insightful)
You dolt.
The government has millions of computers, and you don't want someone to set policy? Look at what the mindless, out of control, dead in a ditch projects have cost us.
They're not setting policy FOR YOU, nitwit-- for the government. DO what you want. Let someone put reason into executive branch decision making in government IT!!
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Re:No need (Score:4, Funny)
Security through shit just plain not working in the first place? That's innovative, I like it.
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BusinessWeek article (Score:4, Informative)
This is a huge opportunity (Score:4, Interesting)
The Obama administration may be the place where the driving of the golden spike uniting open source development with open source government takes place. Using Federal IT standards to drive proprietary formats out of the government departments will create a cascade of rationalization and standardization throughout the US economy. Our creaky and costly medical care system desperately needs this kind of rationalization.
Accordingly, a prominent and effective member of the Open Source community should occupy this position, not a big-time software corporatist.
Re:This is a huge opportunity (Score:4, Interesting)
Says you. In my professional experience over the last 10 years, Linux and Apache on commodity hardware have been integral in lowering barriers to entry for small companies and the cost of scaling for large ones.
-Isaac
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Re:I'd rather see someone involved in Free Softwar (Score:5, Insightful)
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Re:I'd rather see someone involved in Free Softwar (Score:5, Insightful)
I don't think RMS would even take it. Being in government requires adherence to a set of principles that many people end up finding reduces their ability to be principled. As an example, RMS would be required to back, in public, copyright law policies that he in private would vehemently disagree with. I just don't see RMS doing that, he's too much of a man of principle.
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Re:I'd rather see someone involved in Free Softwar (Score:5, Insightful)
I just don't see RMS doing that, he's too much of a man of principle.
It goes beyond that. Certain people define themselves as opposition, as being not-the-man, and as such are uncomfortable in any position of authority, even if their principles were in no way being challenged.
These people serve a valuable role in society, but it is not within the corridors of power.
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Re:I'd rather see someone involved in Free Softwar (Score:5, Funny)
He prefers to commune with the wild beastes. I'm pretty sure RMS is sasquatch.
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Re:I'd rather see someone involved in Free Softwar (Score:5, Informative)
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Re:I'd rather see someone involved in Free Softwar (Score:5, Interesting)
Bill Joy is also the guy who keeps warning of the end of the world if we don't stop developing various technologies. He wrote a number of articles and did a bunch of interviews about the world turning to gray goo if we don't kill nanotech research, how computers and weapons will kill us all, etc.
He started work on a self-sufficient, solar powered sailboat, presumably his form of a bomb shelter for the coming techpocolypse.
Basically, he has turned in to a crazy old coot.
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Re:I'd rather see someone involved in Free Softwar (Score:5, Insightful)
This thread points out the problem of anointing one person as CTO. Hate to say it but this is one of those things that might do better with a board, not a leader. That is to say that while there may be a judge, it's the jury that counts. Using one man is not enough, even the SCOTUS has nine. When it's important enough to do something, it's important enough to do it right. RMS should probably be on the jury, along with other notable technology evangelists.
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Re:I'd rather see someone involved in Free Softwar (Score:5, Funny)
Hear Hear...
A board of 7. must have a mix of OSS and Closed source experts, as well as hardware experts.
Experts... not some guy that was CTO for some corperation, I want people that are either leaders in IT technology, or people that made a difference.. Being able to Code or design is a requirement for the position. too many time I have seen CTO's that were promoted from the Sales department.
Oh wait ,that will never happen... because it would be fair and balanced.
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Re:I'd rather see someone involved in Free Softwar (Score:5, Interesting)
But think about it, a really representative panel of that sort would really need someone representing, say, Microsoft, maybe Apple, maybe HP and/or Dell, and then a couple of FOSS guys. Imagine Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, RMS, and ESR on such a committee. Easily imagined. Now imagine anything getting done by this committee, ever... Not so easily imagined. When the closed source guys were not fighting over which of their personal pet technologies was best for a given purpose, they'd be in grid-lock as RMS and the FOSS guys try to block all proprietary anything. I'd be inclined to say that the closed source people should get 4 seats and the FOSS 3 seats: on the theory that it's more likely that at least on closed source advocate would side with FOSS on a given specific question than that the the FOSS guys will ever side with the closed source guys, and if all 4 cosed source guys agree with something it's likely to be a least a slightly open system.
Still I think one guy, preferably fairly neutral and willing to work with all parties and being advised by a committee like you recommend, would be better. He might not always do what any one of us might want or hope he'd do, but a least something will get done.
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A holistic technocracy (Score:5, Interesting)
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Re:I'd rather see someone involved in Free Softwar (Score:4, Funny)
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Re:I'd rather see someone involved in Free Softwar (Score:5, Insightful)
I don't know how to break this to you but the position of National CTO isn't quite as important as the role of SCOTUS. Upholding the laws and constitutional freedoms of the citizenry is much more important than what IM client government employees wil be allowed to use.
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Re:I'd rather see someone involved in Free Softwar (Score:4, Interesting)
Yes, I know what you're saying also, but let me quote rs79, a /. oldtimer:
Brian K. Reid. Everybody else is either too corrupt or too bizarre to actually do the job. Brian understands people, unlike most geek geniuses.
Now, limiting the controlling input to such a function for the ENTIRE COUNTRY to one person is fraught with problems as illustrated by the quote above. Even one President is backed up by House, Senate, and SCOTUS. See, if it's important, there should be some checks and balances. Just the mere mention of M$ on this site is cause for a flamewar. How would a single CTO personage be able to deal with all the crap/politics/bribery/governmental interference and all that will come their way? Even the DoJ was not free from corruption. One person, without a jury behind them, will fall prey to special interests. It seems inevitable. The idea is right, perhaps even the execution of that idea will be, but I have doubts about a single person as head of that implementation.
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Re:I'd rather see someone involved in Free Softwar (Score:5, Funny)
Under Federal law, you have to be a licensed theoretical physicist if you want to begin a multi-billion-year chain fusion reaction.
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Re:I'd rather see someone involved in Free Softwar (Score:5, Funny)
I nominate Ray Kurzweil.
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Re:While we're at it (Score:5, Funny)
My president (and Fox News) has taught me that it's more important that Americans "feel" secure than actually be secure. He just doesn't get that. You gotta listen to your gut on these things. He's too much of a thinker. Probably socialist, too.
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Re:What the CTO needs... (Score:4, Insightful)
One of the first things that should be done is to mandate equal consideration for .NET and LAMP because Java has way too much of a fanboi following in the federal government.
Of course the fact that the federal government has done research that finds that reducing the number of languages reduces costs has nothing to do with them preferring to pick a single standards based, multi-vendor approach. Nope its because they are "Fanboys" and that stuff in the military drones would be better done in LAMP than in Java...
Federal Government uses LOADS of different technologies most of them are in the heavy lifting space rather than being about LAMP type areas (LAMP for Air Traffic Control?).
Ah but you are just talking about websites, which is a single part of the estate and are of course not thinking at all about support and maintenance across thousands of sites and the advantage of having a limited set of technologies would bring in enabling more cross government sharing.
Nope you just want to see your favourite technology being used.
Personally I'd like to see the CTO take a machete to the costs of IT in federal government, OSS would be part of that but consistency would be the major element.
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