Syringe.Net.Nz - International ‘What The Fuck’ Day

Thursday, November 06, 2008

So the New Zealand companies office is advertising on their front page an Open Source CMS system called Plone.

What on earth is up with that?

It’s great that thy have enough self awareness to know what CMS system they use, but, is this really the sort of thing a Government department should be doing?

Maybe if they were using a New Zealand developed tool like from the guys at kick ass Wellington firm Silverstripe then at a REAL push this might be excusable behaviour, but, Plone is some foreign developed tool. To be honest no matter who or what the tool or vendor I think this is totally inappropriate.

Was this signed off by the MED PR folks?
Was this done by their internal IT team?
Was it a vendor that did it?
Is this appropriate for a Government department?

PoliTechLaw|Thursday, November 06, 2008 2:58:34 AM UTC|Comments [6]|

Thursday, November 06, 2008 3:31:18 AM UTC

That's pretty off for sure.

Tim Haines

Thursday, November 06, 2008 8:12:06 AM UTC

A sure sign of the credit crisis. They must be short of funding!

Interesting to think that I paid taxes for this ad to be on the Companies Office website.

Bigglesworth

Thursday, November 06, 2008 8:18:42 AM UTC

Follow the link -- the Companies Office is a sponsor of World Plone Day, the MED is hosting the Christchurch event, and many of the speakers are from various government departments (MED, Electricity Commission, Treasury, National Library, Auditor General, Women's Affairs). It looks like Plone enjoys fairly wide support within the government.

I agree that it's a little bit odd to see an advertisement for a CMS on companies.govt.nz, but it doesn't look like this was just thrown up by some renegate developer.

Phillip Pearson

Monday, November 17, 2008 12:26:16 AM UTC

I just googled and found Plone is a free product, it seems they are showing some appreciation for the value they have received from this Open Source Goodness.
I don't see anything wrong as Plone has saved them heaps of money... they are doing their bit for the community

Mark

Monday, November 17, 2008 12:54:27 AM UTC

I think it would be fine for a private company to support such an initiative, but, I don't think it's appropriate for a government department to be doing so.

To give an example.
I think it would be fine for someone from the companies office to give a presentation at a Plone event about how they are using the tool etc...

I just don't think it's appropriate to be advertising the tool on the front page of their site. Imagine for a moment they were advertising on their site that Telecom New Zealand had provided then free x, y or z....

Chris Auld

Monday, November 17, 2008 10:18:20 AM UTC

I won't call it advertising as this seems like a quid pro quo with no money involved. They are creating awareness and hats off for a govt dept for doing it's bit in informing it's web site users about what OS can offer.
Mark

Mark

All comments require the approval of the site owner before being displayed.

Name
E-mail
Home page

	Remember Me
Comment (Some html is allowed: `a@href@title, b, em, i, strike, strong, u`) where the @ means "attribute." For example, you can use <a href="" title=""> or <blockquote cite="Scott">.
Enter the code shown (prevents robots):
Live Comment Preview