Well folks, Hoboken is officially on the, uh, map. That is to say we have reached infamy that only a few elite can lay claim to. What is it, you ask? No. It’s not the birthplace of baseball. It’s not the birthplace of Frank Sinatra, Joe Pantoliano, G. Gordon Liddy, or Pia Zadora. And no, its not the place where the first Blimpie, wireless phone call, electrified train, and air conditioning unit is from, used, demonstrated, and installed, respectively (according to Wikipedia).
So what is Hoboken now famous for? Hoboken has been Slashdotted!!!
And now, you ask, what did we get Slashdotted for? The automated parking garage on Garden Street between 9th and 10th streets was written up on Wired.com. Slashdot, being a technology focused site, highlighted the issues of software licensing and a commentator quoted in the source article suggests that open source software (OSS) – which is almost always free – as a possible solution to (or could have prevented) the fiasco that shut down the garage recently.
Apparently, Hoboken didn’t pay to renew the software for the system and it was shut down. Hoboken didn’t pay because it, according to the article, accused the company that operates the system of deliberate sabotage. The two wound up in court and the mess boiled over when the police removed the employees of the company from the facilities (and taking with them the knowledge needed to run it).
The article is well written and I’m not going to talk about the technology part of the article like the other sites have. I want to focus on the observation that Hoboken got itself into hot water by not negotiating the contract properly. Who is our General Counsel and where were they in this deal? Shouldn’t he have done a better job reviewing and writing up the contracts to build, operate, license, and maintain the system?
I used this garage when I was living uptown (right next to it, in fact) and I loved it! It was fast, easy, and 95% reliable. The few times that I had to wait for my car was not because of a technical glitch but of happenstance. I knew the person who operated the system and found them likeable enough; he even let me into the control room once to see the robotics in action. If I live uptown again, I’ll probably use it again too.
But if I can get back to how Hoboken messed up another contract for a moment. We seem to be getting into a lot of bad deals of late and this is really starting to get to me. A few years ago, the government shut down. This year, it couldn’t pass a reasonable budget without some wacky scheme to sell land and lease it again – its a financing deal, they said.
Well, whatever these debacles were, its obvious that we have lots of them. When are we, as citizens, going to do something about this and kick these people to the curb? Who’s running this town, anyway? Krusty the Clown?
Check out the coverage here, here, here, and here.
UPDATE 8/10, 8:30pm: Ars Technica also has coverage here.
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