Complaint that Department of Internal Affairs is hiring staff to evangelise proprietary software vendor’s products
Dear Tony Ryall,
I wish to lodge a compliant that taxpayers money is being used to hire public sector staff to evangelise a for-profit software vendor’s products. A “Microsoft technology evangelist” position is being advertised online, a phone enquiry confirmed that the hiring organisation is the Department of Internal Affairs: http://www.candleapps.com.au/CIA/JobTemplates/CandleICT-NZ.aspx?WebsiteID=3&JobID=36928
This is the Government endorsing a specific vendor.
The real problem is that the inefficient vendor proprietary software lock-in situation has got so bad that the Government now needs to pay staff to promote a particular vendor’s products within government departments. I have long promoted the adoption of free open-source software by government to avoid inefficient vendor lock-in, and to reduce public expenditure on software license fees to overseas corporations that repatriate profits aboard.
Imagine the outcry if Government were hiring a “Telecom Evangelist” position, say, to promote Telecom services within a public sector organisation because Government had got locked-in to a proprietary Telecom telecommunications infrastructure.
