Contracts? (Score: 1) by lmariachi@pipedot.org on 2015-11-28 02:32 (#VZP4) In its zeal to push the "see, government is inherently incompetent and inefficient" narrative, TFA completely neglects to mention the role of private contractors in all that. Who's landing these plums, and why aren't the contracts written with milestone payments, performance mandates, and clawback provisions for if/when the contractor fails to deliver? And we know integrating cruſty legacy systems is no cakewalk, but there's zero analysis or technical detail of the cause of these failures. How do you spend upwards of half a billion dollars and have nothing to show for it? Who's rolling around in that money now, and why aren't they behind bars, or at least being sued? Re: Contracts? (Score: 1) by evilviper@pipedot.org on 2015-11-28 15:29 (#W10C) In its zeal to push the "see, government is inherently incompetent and inefficient" narrative, TFA completely neglects to mention the role of private contractors in all that.TFA really isn't heavy-handed at all. They list some successes as well. But really, it's no secret that a huge number of high-profile government IT projects have failed, spectacularly, so no "zeal" nor "push" is needed to make the point. They list a few reasons for the failures. And whatever may be going on with the contracts, it doesn't change the simple fact of a history of big and expensive failures, and the terrible side-effects that harm everyone.
Re: Contracts? (Score: 1) by evilviper@pipedot.org on 2015-11-28 15:29 (#W10C) In its zeal to push the "see, government is inherently incompetent and inefficient" narrative, TFA completely neglects to mention the role of private contractors in all that.TFA really isn't heavy-handed at all. They list some successes as well. But really, it's no secret that a huge number of high-profile government IT projects have failed, spectacularly, so no "zeal" nor "push" is needed to make the point. They list a few reasons for the failures. And whatever may be going on with the contracts, it doesn't change the simple fact of a history of big and expensive failures, and the terrible side-effects that harm everyone.