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Why would a government mandate the use of Open Source software? I didn't think that it was implicit in the title that it was better.

I am a Linux user at home and do like it as an environment but my reasons for choosing software are not based around it's Open Sourceness. I choose the product which is best for the job. Surely that is the only criteria anyone should ever place on a tool. (Maybe I just don't get it).

If Microsoft had a proven track record with good, stable and, yes I dare, secure software then surely there would be no reason to choose anything else. The only reason that we are in the position where Linux can get the kind of market share users like myself want it to is because it is proven to be a better tool for the job, in an increasing number of applications.

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Read the article idiot. It does not suggest mandating the use of current Open Source software. It suggests that commercial software should be open sourced for government use.

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Actually, it's all about open (or openly documented) standards, and since the standards employed in Open Source software are obviously implemented in the open, the standards are openly documented (and frequently genuinely open as well). Therefore, the users of that software have a certain set of freedoms otherwise denied to them when they use proprietary software whose "standards" are a secret of the software vendor.

What seems to have happened in various sectors, including the public sector in various countries, is that technology policymakers have supposedly taken a "pragmatic" approach: in the technology buying frenzy of the past decade, they've been wowed by neat features and have decided that interoperability doesn't matter because Vendor X (frequently Microsoft) is the "industry standard" and that it isn't a big thing to ask everyone who deals with you to use Vendor X's software too.

Unfortunately, now that Vendor X has them "over a barrel" (insert other metaphors here), they're having to re-evaluate their "pragmatism". Sadly, that is something they should have done for more honourable reasons some time ago, ideally by continuing to use open standards as opposed to sucking up to monopolists.

If you've ever had to edit a Word document or template in order to interact with government agencies then you should realise that the supposed "convenience" in making documents available in such formats is overstated, as you download the huge file, fight with the format and bizarre version mismatches, discover that the document is littered with macros and other in-your-face "features", and doesn't lend itself to convenient automation or decent integration with other technologies. You should wonder who is really in control of your data: you, the agencies, Microsoft?

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Even if ms were good, stable, and secure, there still would be important reasons for choosing open source instead.

Should election machines contain secret code? Say, a windows embedded operating system, with a ms database app?

Or should the code be open source, widely published, and available for audit? Just like the algorithms for encryption keys are available for testing by the encryption experts and researchers. Isn't that how we determine weak keys? And how long it would take, theoretically, to brute-force a key?

Shouldn't the government's most popular (or all for that matter) word processors and spreadsheet and database applications be open source? To allow for examination and auditing of the code? To allow for other companies to submit lower bids for future updates/upgrades? To protect against companies going bankrupt, against being sued into oblivion, against the chance that one or more programmer employees was/is a mole from a hostile country?

ms doesn't like the fact that the government will require an open source office suite? Too bad. They can choose not to do business with the government.

But to say that they are being discriminated against, or that they are being shut out of government contracts is utter bullshit. They can simply continue to bid on government contracts by simply innovating and creating an open source office suite that the government considers superior to others. Or not. It is their decision. They aren't being locked out of anything.

Moreover, foreign nations adopting an open source requirement for software IS NOT adopting a requirement that is a fair trade violation. This is more bullshit. microsoft does not want to provide an open source operating system or office suite to foreign countries? They don't have to. But they can. So can Red Hat. So can any other nation in the US. Adopting open source and free software is adopting a method. Not creating barriers to trade. Not targeting a specific company. It is targeting secrecy.

Adopting free and open source software in government is an important action to take. It is good for government, and good for taxpayers. And it encourages job creation, because more companies and individuals can innovate, can create software that complements with, or competes with, current software in use by the government. And they can provide it a cheaper price, if they have a better cost model. This is win win for government, win win for taxpayers, and win win for efficient businesses. Those businesses that can't compete on price and quality will disappear. AS THEY SHOULD.

And btw, remember the OS/2 wars? ms is hitting newsforge, slashdot, and other boards. The top post is a good example, as are any other posts that contain the phrase, "Linux just isn't ready for the desktop yet", and similar phrases, and other anecdotes of linux/windows comparisons while "growing up".

Using free/open source software in government is so blatently obvious as a "good thing" for those that understand free/open source software, and the philosophy behind it, that one would have to be an idiot, or a ms employee, or a ms zealot, to deny knowing why use it, or that he just doesn't get it.

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Why would a government mandate the use of Open Source software? I didn't think that it was implicit in the title that it was better.

Why governments should mandate the use of Open Source Software for use by that same government

Some of the citizens of some nations maintain a healthy distrust of government as it tends to attract those who are interested in aquiring and using power for their own ends rather than for the good of those governed. Such citizens often demand that their government provide its citizens with information/data about its activities so that those citizens who are vigilant may monitor their government and if needed take steps to alter their governemnt. Why should acitivites accomplished using computers be exempt from such demands? The use of computers does not magically protect governments and their citizens from those who would abuse power. To some , a good track record is not enough, the "best tool for the job" for governments includes an openess about information/data that empowers the vigilant.

Maybe I just don't get it.

As I see it there are two things one might not get. One is that the legislation being talked about is legislation regulating governments, not corporations, nor individual citizens. Since some pundits seem to intentionally confuse this aspect, not getting it, is understandable. The other thing is the concept of how freedom of information applied to governemnts can empower the citizens of those goverments, if you don't get that, then I pity you and your fellow citizens.

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I love your subject line!

And you are absolutely correct.

In a true democracy, in order to protect our freedom, we require Open Government.

Under the rules of an Open Government, we, the citizens, must be able to review everything the government does. There is only one exception, when secrecy is required to protect national security.

Thus it is that we require government purchases to be done through public tender, we require documents to be made available under Access To Information laws, and so on. We do this, despite the expense, because our freedom depends on it.

As you point out, this requirement extends to the software the government runs. If we are to protect our freedom, then we must be able to review all of the government's procedures, including those that are carried out by software.

Note that Open Standards are not enough, because they only give us access to the end result -- we still wouldn't be able to audit the procedure that produced that result.

Finally, just to be clear, I should point out that I am not talking about Free as is Free Software. In this instance, I really mean Freedom, as in Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness.

In other words, the goal here is not the promotion of Open Source software, but the protection of our freedom against ever-encroaching governments.

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basically i agree with you, but i think you are daydreaming if you think that looking at open souc code will give you much insights into the<nobr> <wbr></nobr>:"procedures that produce the results". program code manipulates date, and you usually can check for correctness, security exposure, etc. the procedures that lead to the results are mainly protocol between the various government departments, intradepartmental protocols for decision making, etc. not very likely that looking at program code will give you much insight into that

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"I didn't think that it was implicit in the title that it was better."

I think this article is simply to say, if a government decides to use open-source only, that's not a free market problem. It may be a good or bad decision, but it is not counter to the free market.

Now, I can think of several reasons why government _should_ use only open-source products, but that's not on subject for the story. They generally deal with the ability for the government to choose a separate supporting agency or change vendors at any time. With proprietary software, it's very difficult to do this.

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The US military already returned software to Microsoft because an operating system problem caused an entire ship to lock up. If someone is shooting missiles at you it gives a whole new meaning to blue-screen-of-death...

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Can you please provide a link where I could get more information about this story?

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Here's one
http://www.aaxnet.com/news/M980910.html

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Here's a link:

<A HREF="http://www.gcn.com/archives/gcn/1998/july13/cov2.htm" TITLE="gcn.com">Software glitches leave Navy Smart Ship dead in the water</a gcn.com>

Some highlights:

> According to DiGiorgio, who in an interview said he has serviced automated control systems on Navy ships for the past 26 years, the NT operating system is the source of the Yorktown’s computer problems.

> The Yorktown has been towed into port several times because of the systems failures, [Ron Redman, deputy technical director of the Fleet Introduction Division] said.

> “Because of politics, some things are being forced on us that without political pressure we might not do, like Windows NT,� Redman said. “If it were up to me I probably would not have used Windows NT in this particular application. If we used Unix, we would have a system that has less of a tendency to go down.� [emphasis added]

It's odd, but I don't seem to remember the Initiative for Software Choice lobbying to allow the Navy to choose the best software for the job.

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If my government use a software, I pretend open source and open standards...

because if a citizen have no much money, can use Linux... not Microsoft...

because if my government is locked in Microsoft, tomorrow he'll spend more and more...

because if my government make investiment in opensource, also the last poor man in the world 'll benefit from it...

from Microsoft, only Bill Gates 'll benefit...

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The fact is, the only way you can have a democracy is by governments banishing closed-source altogether (for their own procurement. Companies are free to buy whatever they want). It's vital that government should have source code for every application they use, and probably that source code should also be available for public scrutiny (note that something many never mention, is that governments could "just" ask for source code, without mandating it to be Open.)

Now, the 'why' am I saying that. I'll take the extreme example. Imagine your country is a democratic one, which holds regular elections. One day, people think that counting paper bits by hand and adding results by hand, is not an efficient way of implementing democracy in the 21st century. So, the government makes an offer for firms to implement a software voting system. The corporation that gets the deal has some long-term ideas of how to make lots and lots of money: as there is no requirement about the availability of source, all the code is closed and happens to have some backdoors. When a vote happens, the numbers actually go through the company's strategic office first, where they push the balance just those few votes towards their own candidate... and you actually say good bye to democracy, without most people even realising something is going on.

Now for the skeptical, know that the US voting system uses a database program known as... Microsoft Access. Not saying that there is, or ever has been, manipulation, but the thought there could be (or have been) is kind of chilling. And there is only one way to avoid that: public access to sources.

Another thought about fair competition: closed-source certainly is against fair competition. A lot of software is custom-made, especially in government agencies (who else needs jail databases?). If an agency subcontracts a project, as they tend to do, and only gets the binary, that means they are forced to go back to the same company for bug fixing or any enhencement to the application. The word 'gravy train' comes to mind, rather than 'fair competition.'

To translate in another field, it would be equivalent getting a firm to build a building, and then no other firm could ever build or extend or do plumbery or<nobr> <wbr></nobr>... anything, on that building, but the original builders. (I actually think Roblimo wrote an article about that a while ago.)

So I say, closed source is against democracy, against fair competition and therefore anti-American<nobr> <wbr></nobr>:-)

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The General Services Administration provides stuff to all U.S. government agencies, though agencies can order from anyone, anywhere. GSA has a catalog of approved items that often are NOT mil-spec, though they can be pricey! I have 'ordered-out' from a local hardware store, as long as the item met the requirements of the engineer, the blue prints, while I was on official installations. We used regular conduit, wire, screws, etc., on installations. What met both, local codes, and, Federal spec. or contract spec.

Mil-Spec. and specially contracted items are usually driven by a special project requirement involving safety, life support, mobility. In that case you will have a major contractor, and, a multitude of sub-contractors, who all bid their best offer to meet a contract.

All in a free-market.

Software actually is no different a product. And, you do have NDA with ALL vendors. We make the meatloaf in our dining hall, three vendors supply the catsup, in bulk packaging. We use it, as we see fit, in the moment of engagement with the plate, and the fork, or not, as we need or desire,... Don't you? But, we cannot divulge the contents, recipes outside of government usage! The difference is that we are a team on a concerted mission...subject to oversight by peers/leadership/ and/or the taxpayer's representatives. You are a single consumer, as an individual or a business. You get to make immediate choices. We are given orders from on high. Committees who designed elephants, sometimes, and a lot of loss, wastes, too. But, when making an omelet, you toss a bit of egg with the shells...

Anyway, The government has always had the power to specify that they be given the operating instructions, and that a book of detailed analysis of the process be made available with each and every product. What is the difference between a truck and an application in software? We trained our own techs. in either case! Open Source just adds to the millions of documents available from the Government Printing Office! http://www.gpoaccess.gov/

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And remember that the Microsoft monopoly lawsuit turned much much tamer after the US got a new president. I am not hinting at anything unlawful happening there.

But I do think that such a thing can and will be a very strong incentive for companies to illegally (and nearly undetectable) influence political processes through software.

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Sure no one complained about glue being made to a certain standard to withstand certain conditions, but ask them to publish there recipe for making it to win the contract and watch them scream.

Vice Versa no company would have any trouble with the government demanding certain quality levels in software. To demand open source is ridiculous and the examples given in this story don't even come close to comparing, the issue is not that they are setting standards or bars for quality. demanding open source reveals your IP to everyone, many companies spend millions developing there IP so they can gain competitive edge, why should they turn over there hard paid for work to the world for free, demanding open source is the only sure way of ensuring that research and development is reduced and innovation is squashed, why spend to inovate when you can just wait and take what someone else does when they are forced to open there source.

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>why spend to inovate when you can just wait and
>take what someone else does when they are forced to
> open there source

Time to market.

I have seen it happen in my company: we used GPL stuff, which we modified. We knew other companies were working on that as well, but we needed it done now, to win over deals. Once the deals are won, the competitors can have the enhencements, who cares.

If your company spends its time waiting for others to do stuff, it's not going to go anywhere...

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that's fine as long as your changes don't cost more than the contract. most innovations can';t be covered by winning a single contract.

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But then you have brand name trust: "Oh, I bought from these people [who were the only ones on the market last time] and I was so happy, I'll just go with them again."

Companies actually often bid at loss on very high-profile bids for the PR effect "Yes sir that's right, we made the glue that resisted the Iraqi deserts."

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true, I have done this myself. But then you only have to look at the drug companies for examples, as soon as there patents expire every man and his dog is making the same product at a tenth of the cost because they didn't pay for the R&D, who wins, well the consumer does as long as companies get the right to make there money off it first before everyone copies. you don't have that same right in software, the day its released to the world anyone can be copying and including in there product the next day.

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yes, its terrible...the company can't make as much money....but you said it right there:

"who wins, well the consumer does"

and in the case of government, the consumer (i.e. public, taxpayer, ultimate end-user of the government) wins, whether it is proprietary or opensource. and if it's opensource, then the public has an open-ended amount of what it can "win", whereas with closed-source, that amount is limited by the company.

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Oh well, Microsoft spends money but never really innovated: merely they copied applications that others had designed (Windows: copy of Apple's interface. Word: copy of Wordperfect. Excel: copy of an Apple2 program I can't remember the name now. The list goes on).

I think your argument is very shallow.

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linux copy of every other unix system out there, it is easy to say linux has never innovated to.

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Yes, but Linux doesn't continually whine that it's such a great innovator, and that nobody else matches its innovativity (is that a word?)

Microsoft are continually whining that it's such a great innovator (more like copier, as the previous guys post mentioned).

Linux strives to get the job done that needs doing. Microsoft has to invent new appealing jobs that need doing or they lose profit. Microsoft updates the software and adds the new 'feature' (probably riddled with bugs), then you pay for a nice software upgrade.

Innovation isn't as hot as it's made out to be, Microsoft just make it a big deal because they get their cash flow by making people pay for every little change they can make.

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Ever heard of stuff like ReiserFS.

Currently the GNOME project is working on a dashboard too.

Besides, users expect something familiar on the desktop, and so Linux has to conform to a large extent.

I mean, ever since the GUI was invented, who has tried to break the mold and come p with something different.

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who has ? apple has.

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"demanding open source reveals your IP to everyone"

a statement like that reveals that you might be stuck in the same thinking paradigm that proprietary software has been in for years.

the IP of a company's product is not 100% within its source code, it's in the design of the code, its approaches to supporting that product, and the future directions, as well as many other things. don't reduce software down to sheer widgets being made by a factory.

when the VAST amount of government-made reports and software are for public consumption

  (and must be released to the public domain anyway)....having open source software used in the government is quite a good idea.

so your argument is why would company A want to opensource their product just for the government's use, only to turn around and have it stolen by other companies ? because they are the original authors, that is why, and they present a better (if not the best) resource for development on that product.

for example...who better to go for Apache development than the original Apache team ? Covalent sells their own versions of apache, customized, and like you said, they are basically "stealing" the IP of the Apache Group, yes ? using opensource software in the government allows for some excellent advantages:

1- the public who is competent enough to evaluate source code can do so, and therefore evaluate how well the govt is making its software decisions.

2- when/if the government makes changes or improves the software, then they are allowed an excellent way to give back to the opensource community its changes. want an example ? take SELinux, the linux distro made by the NSA.

3- a government agency (let's take NHTSA, for example) who writes new improvements for the software can do so more easily (for the example, take the various fortran programs it has written to translate the many different signals coming from the data aquisition equipment used in car-crash sensing devices)<nobr> <wbr></nobr>....they can do this, in most part, to the open set of standards required and usually followed with opensource software.

*demanding* all government software to be opensource might be somewhat extreme, but to overlook the advantages of its use within government is completely short-sighted and representative of circa 1980 thinking.

also, if you think that research and development is 'reduced' and innovation 'squashed' due to opensource software, then you must not have heard of companies like IBM, HP, Linksys, SGI, etc....

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People who claim that "the value is in the source code" don't know what they are talking about. I worked for a company which had that attitude - actually it was the founder who had that attitude - and the consequence was that he wouldn't let anyone rewrite or significantly change the software. Consequently, the company went out of business because:

1. The software ran on old proprietary stuff and not what people want to use in the modern age.

2. The maintenance and administration of the source code was extremely deficient.

3. The value was really in the expertise which went into building the original software. But the founder effectively locked it up in something unmanageable and inaccessible.

Glue manufacture and software aren't easily comparable, but one can still realise that it isn't the ingredients list that matters - it's the know-how that went into making the end product. If you want to compare glue-making with the company I worked for, the analogy would be based on a company who had manufactured huge quantities of glue in the early 1990s and then subsequently attempted to sell off those decaying stocks as an excuse for a business plan.

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Do you believe that closed code is safe from prying eyes?

Ever heard of a decompiler?

I bet there are plenty of apps out there that have used proprietary code that's been decompiled, and because they're proprietary themselves, nobody knows about it.

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"...why spend to inovate when you can just wait and take what someone else does..."

DOS, Stacker, Spyglass, Windows, Windows 95, Word...

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> "...why spend to inovate when you can just wait and take what someone else does..."
> DOS, Stacker, Spyglass, Windows, Windows 95, Word...

Don't forget IE and Netscape. The DOJ was kind enough to document that one for us:

http://www.usdoj.gov/atr/cases/f3800/msjudgex.htm

Microsoft's James Allchin:

> I don't understand how IE is going to win. The current path is simply to copy everything that Netscape does packaging and product wise. Let's [suppose] IE is as good as Navigator/Communicator. Who wins? The one with 80% market share.

Notice how this philosophy is so ingrained that the idea of adding features to make IE better than Netscape doesn't even occur to them:

> Pitting browser against browser is hard since Netscape has 80% marketshare and we have 20%. . . . I am convinced we have to use Windows -- this is the one thing they don't have...

So what does occur to them? Not the carrot, but the stick:

> We have to be competitive with features, but we need something more -- Windows integration. If you agree that Windows is a huge asset, then it follows quickly that we are not investing sufficiently in finding ways to tie IE and Windows together.

It's a good thing for IE users that Opera and Mozilla came along, otherwise Microsoft would have no new ideas to copy.

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"demanding open source reveals your IP to everyone, many companies spend

      millions developing there IP so they can gain competitive edge, why should

      they turn over there hard paid for work to the world for free"

I work in an industry that produces software (and the devices that run the
software) for the Department of Defense. The government owns that software,
they paid for its development, they paid us to come up with the innovations
to meet the requirements they set. We deliver the source and the build
instructions. They have representatives to be instructed in how the
software works, attend code reviews and change boards, witness quality
assurance tests. They COULD do a "performance spec" like the glue example,
and get a closed-source product that meets their needs. However, DoD has
to defend against the possibility (usually a 100% certainty) that they will
have to get someone else to maintain the software in the future.

These are the key points to why government SHOULD use open-source: They
know what it REALLY does, and they can get someone else to maintain it.
If it is the right strategy for DoD, why not GSA or the rest of the
bureaucracy? And why pay someone to develop software in order to obtain
these assurances when the development has already been done in public?

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>many companies spend millions developing there
>IP so they can gain competitive edge, why should
>they turn over there hard paid for work to the
>world for free

So our government should should spend millions with private companies to make custom government applications into the private companies IP?

NO! If the government spends these millions it should be the peoples IP. If the private company wants on the government gravy train, let them continue to develop and improve software for the government.

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The so called 'free market' advocate organizations are nothing but a front for Microsoft created for the express purpose of limiting any competition with Microsoft.

The so called "Initiative for Software Choice" is squealing like a pig when it claims a piece of legislation might favor open source, but the Microsoft funded "Initiative for Software Choice" was founded to introduce totally anti-open source clauses into the same types of legislation. Read <A HREF="http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/4/26616.html" TITLE="theregister.co.uk">MS 'Software Choice' scheme a clever fraud</a theregister.co.uk> And <A HREF="http://zdnet.com.com/2100-1104-949527.html" TITLE="com.com">MS leads lobby against open source</a com.com>

Also, the Association for Competitive Technology, an ISC member, is amongst the same family of Microsoft supported organizations which <A HREF="http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/nationworld/134332634_microlob23.html" TITLE="nwsource.com">Faked letters from dead people</a nwsource.com>

Letters purportedly written by at least two dead people landed on the desk of Utah Attorney General Mark Shurtleff earlier this year, imploring him to go easy on Microsoft for its conduct as a monopoly.
...
ATL was founded in 1999 as a spinoff of the Association for Competitive Technology,another pro-Microsoft group.

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I do not know if this is related, but worth a read anyway..

http://www.computerbytesman.com/privacy/blair.htm

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Actually, this is quite related.

One of the main arguments for open-source in government is national security. You never know when some "feature" of closed-source software which you were not aware of will expose information which is supposed to be secret. The story you linked to is a (minor) example of this. With open-source, the source code can be audited for security issues like this, backdoors, and other potential problems.

This does not imply that open-source software is perfect, but rather that the user (in this case, the government) has _control_ over the situation. They can potentially control every aspect of the software which they use. Handing that control over to a private, closed-source software company (God forbid, a _foreign_ closed-source software company) doesn't sound like a very good idea!

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The site www.whitehouse.gov is running Apache on Linux.

<A HREF="http://uptime.netcraft.com/up/graph/?host=www.whitehouse.gov" TITLE="netcraft.com">Check here and see for yourself.</a netcraft.com>

<A HREF="http://promote-opensource.org/modules/news/" TITLE="promote-opensource.org">Another story here.</a promote-opensource.org>
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Hmmmm...

I expect that very shortly we'll see Mr. McBride assassinated.

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Let us pray for his slimy pig soul.
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I won't believe it until I see the body!

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Forcing an OSI approved license will prevent any commercial enterprise from supplying into government. OSI licenses force free (gratis) redistribution (clause 1 of the OSI definition), so a commercial enterprise could sell exactly ONE license to ONE customer EVER, and that customer could redistribute to their heart's content.

This is a BAD thing. While OSS may be mature enough in the server, desktop and even enterprise markets, it doesn't cover all the applications that are required by large organisations and/or governments. There is no Open Source equivalent of SAP or JDE. None of the OSS/FSF databases have the enterprise functionality (scalability and usability especially) of (say) Oracle.

In short government would be forced to fund development of Open Source software to meet their needs, when they could far more cheaply acquire a stable commercial equivalent. And don't even argue with me about the cost issue until you have MANY years experience in software development management.

Now I fully support the idea of "source available" being a government requirement, that is, the source MUST come with the product, but is still covered by Copyright and standard commercial licensing. Government cannot use the source unless the supplier goes out of business or refuses to support the product any longer, but has it for such extreme cases. But an OSI license? Certainly NOT.

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With respect to open source software, consider these questions:

1. Does the customer want to get into the software business?

2. Is it in their interests to redistribute the source?

3. Who do the recipients of the redistributed software look to for support? (See issue #1.)

But anyway, the main issue isn't software development quality or cost here - these things can be disentangled from the ideology, and one can bring forward many examples of good/bad open/proprietary free/commercial products (delete where appropriate) - nor is it about whether companies can maintain high margins on software. The principal issue is control over customer systems and customer data.

In your "shared source" paradise ("cannot use the source unless the supplier goes out of business or refuses to support the product any longer") that issue isn't adequately addressed. Microsoft could easily claim to support systems indefinitely, but ultimately Microsoft could easily retain anticompetitive control over data and data formats (amongst other things) by claiming that they still support such systems, even when in practice they do not. Moreover, adopting proprietary products with "vendor expiry" clauses is effectively the same as forming "legitimised" monopolies.

Meanwhile, can companies sell open source solutions to governments without instantly creating competitors who are selling the same thing? Perhaps not, if you believe that the source code is all that is valuable in a company, but such companies rarely deserve to stick around anyway.

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>>Forcing an OSI approved license will prevent any commercial enterprise from supplying into government. OSI licenses force free (gratis) redistribution (clause 1 of the OSI definition), so a commercial enterprise could sell exactly ONE license to ONE customer EVER, and that customer could redistribute to their heart's content...

That's not necessarily true. First of all, the GPL is not the only open license. It's not even the most open (for commerial options.)

Secondly pruchasers having rights to the source, does not mean that they have carte blanche to deploy your offering.

Say for example if you sell them support, maintenance and gurantee vendor compatibility. None of those transfer with the rights to the source.

So in the case of the buyer who is not willing to deploy and own all development, maintenance and support, the idea of taking that one instance and redeploying it loses it's lustre.

>> government would be forced to fund development of Open Source software to meet their needs, when they could far more cheaply acquire a stable commercial equivalent. And don't even argue with me about the cost issue until you have MANY years experience in software development management.

They are forced to carry the burden of their own development only if the decide to by that ONE copy EVER and redeploy endlessly.

If they buy a stable, commercial Linux distribution, they have the same benefit, with an *option* to tweak the bits. Which BTW, they are not obligated to share, unless they distribute it.

Do not argue with me unless you have MANY years working in open source AND proprietary software development management.


  >>Now I fully support the idea of "source available" being a government requirement, that is, the source MUST come with the product, but is still covered by Copyright and standard commercial licensing. Government cannot use the source unless the supplier goes out of business or refuses to support the product any longer, but has it for such extreme cases. But an OSI license? Certainly NOT.

How about they only use the source if they want to or need to. You assume they will because it's there. You assume, wrongly, that this is harmful to OSS. You assume they won't develop somethign worth sharing.

You seem to fear gov't funding OSS software. Why is it okay that they fund closable source, which then users get charged to use?

As for your last sentence, read more than the press regarding *one* approved license and you'll see how much of your argument doesn't hold water.

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>> government would be forced to fund development of Open Source software to meet their needs, when they could far more cheaply acquire a stable commercial equivalent. And don't even argue with me about the cost issue until you have MANY years experience in software development management.

They are forced to carry the burden of their own development only if the decide to by that ONE copy EVER and redeploy endlessly.

If they buy a stable, commercial Linux distribution, they have the same benefit, with an *option* to tweak the bits. Which BTW, they are not obligated to share, unless they distribute it.

Do not argue with me unless you have MANY years working in open source AND proprietary software development management.

The original author's point was that if a company such as Microsoft (bad example, I know) decided they didn't want to work with the government because they didn't want to open their code , then the government would be forced to 're-invent the wheel' and build whatever they needed from scratch. Most likely at a MUCH higher cost than if they could have just licensed it. Your reply made no sense. Your assumption seemed to be that there was an alternative OSS license available to purchased which may not be true. Keep in mind we're not talking about just the operating system.

I think open source works best when you have an entity such as the government that can take funding from a non-software related source (such as taxes) and funnel it into solution based software development which is then shared with the community. Companies like IBM for example can also do this by taking money from their hardware and closed source software sales to fund Linux development. But this works best in situations where there's nothing else out there that meets the need and the entity doing the development can afford to pick up the whole tab.

Where OSS doesn't work is with companies that derive their revenue from the software itself. Initial development costs can be huge and if you can't sell the software then you can't recover your costs or continue to pay your developers to enhance it. A company like Adobe for example can't survive on help desk calls and they can't count on winning customization work if the whole world has the same intimate knowledge of the software that they do.

OSS is a good idea for operating systems and general applications that are common and used everywhere. But I think the industry needs a certain amount of proprietary software that's built on the open source foundation to maintain competition. The industry can't rely on people developing apps as a hobby the way Linux was developed. We need to maintain a mechanism that allows companies to generate revenue to pay developers so they can continue to build full time. Not everyone is going have a big fat DoD contract.

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Forcing an OSI approved license will prevent any commercial enterprise from supplying into government. OSI licenses force free (gratis) redistribution (clause 1 of the OSI definition), so a commercial enterprise could sell exactly ONE license to ONE customer EVER, and that customer could redistribute to their heart's content.

read this clause 1 again and think about how you could resell gratis. there are more meanings to free than you seem to be able to think of (the clause covers redistribution rights, not duties)

And don't even argue with me about the cost issue until you have MANY years experience in software development management.

and you also seem to think you are the only one who understands these issues. congratulations to a really big head.

Now I fully support the idea of "source available" being a government requirement, that is, the source MUST come with the product, but is still covered by Copyright

can you name one open source project that doesn't use copyrights?

and standard commercial licensing. Government cannot use the source unless the supplier goes out of business or refuses to support the product any longer, but has it for such extreme cases.

how about they need some modifications to the way the program operates that is essential for their operation but doesn't fit into the vendor's plans?

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> Forcing an OSI approved license will prevent any commercial enterprise from supplying into government.

That's not true, but even if it was, so what? Are you are saying that the purpose of government is to benefit corporate interests? I thought it was to serve the people.

With closed source, a single company can hold the government hostage, even affect legislation, through software lock-in. Open Source competition would prevent that.

And there would still be plenty of money in support contracts -- just ask the companies that maintain the government's vehicles.

> While OSS may be mature enough in the server, desktop and even enterprise markets, it doesn't cover all the applications that are required by large organisations and/or governments.

Yes, there would be a transition period during which the government would still require some closed source software. What's your point?

> In short government would be forced to fund development of Open Source software to meet their needs,...

Yes, government spending would support development that benefits all members of the public.

Are you saying that the current situation is better?

Today, that government spending supports software development that benefits a single company -- Microsoft. And then, Microsoft takes the money, and uses it to harm the public by sabotaging new technologies ("polluting" Java) and destroying the openness of ("decommoditizing") the Internet.

when they could far more cheaply acquire a stable commercial equivalent.

This has nothing to do with finding the cheapest software for government. It has to do with protecting our freedom, by ensuring that we can review all government procedures, including those performed by software, and ensuring competition so that no company can hold the government hostage.

Of course, it will also reduce the government's software expenses, and that's not just a lucky coincidence -- competition tends to do that.

And don't even argue with me about the cost issue until you have MANY years experience in software development management.

Twenty-five years and counting, not that it matters -- your pre-emptive ad hominem attack only shows that you don't have sufficient arguments to back up your position.

It's not entirely clear, but I think you are suggesting that Open Source software, especially the custom applications, would end up costing the government more. That argument fails on two points:

1. Open Source allows competition among developers, which tends to encourage efficiency and reduce costs. Under Open Source, the worst case would be where only a single company is willing to do the job, which is what we have now.

2. Common sense suggests that building a system largely out of available Open Source components will be cheaper than building the entire system from scratch. And experience is bearing that out.

> Now I fully support the idea of "source available" being a government requirement, that is, the source MUST come with the product, but is still covered by Copyright and standard commercial licensing.

That's not even close to good enough.

Under a "source available" license, the public would still NOT be able to review the government's procedures, and a company could still hold the government hostage. A "source available" license does NOT protect our freedom.

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"""
There is no Open Source equivalent of SAP or JDE. None of the OSS/FSF databases have the enterprise functionality (scalability and usability especially) of (say) Oracle.
"""

Clearly you have not done your research at all. Have you never heard of SAP DB, the database produced by SAP which is Open Source, and which of course can be used to run an Enterprise SAP installation. Seems to me SAP is doing very well, despite producing an Open Source database in direct competition with Oracle...

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Mandating Open Source is dumb. Our government should be free to choose the most economical supplier of a given product. Depending upon the application, closed source applications may actually be cheaper than Open Source ones. So what? Whatever saves me money. I don't like taxes all that much.

Now if you're saying that Open Source is *necessarily* cheaper, then that's totally wrong. It can be cheaper. It's long run costs have every potential to be cheaper. But having specialists within the government who work on that Open Source, it won't take very long for the bureaucrats to move in and make sure it costs 5 times as much as it should.

Enter the private company who needs to minimise costs to stay in business, has support included in the contract, etc., etc....Say for example, that he's a private entrepreneur with some knowledge of how much the government expects to pay for computing services. Then theoretically, he could underbid the competition by running a niche business just under the required amounts, no?

Perhaps you might want to mandate looking at the *long-term* TCO for all software purchases, e.g., when said software company realises it is running on *all* the PC's and tries to jack up prices...but that could merely be part of contract tweaking...

You want Open Source to be taken seriously? Let it compete on its own, and kick ass. If you have to legislate its acceptance, it has already lost the battle. Open Source don't need no steenking "Affirmative Action" plan. It just needs to compete. It's the American way.

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"Our government should be free to choose the most economical supplier of a given product."

they can, and still have it open source software. because despite what most people think, the government chooses software purchases not *just* on price, but also on many many different things.

you're overlooking some of the advantages that opensource software can bring to the US govt, in more ways than it does in the private sector.

one advantage is the ability for quicker development of customized and additional software changes. have an issue with IIS and SQL Server 2000 ? take a ticket with M$ support, and have a seat, because it's going to be awhile. instead, what if the product was Apache and Mysql or Postgresql ? the world is your support mechanism, and if you don't think the changes can come faster, then you're not paying attention recently.

another advantage is the ability for civilian contractors to further develop on what was used earlier. yet another is the ability for the joe public taxpayer to be able to gain in any of the development that the government does.

there is a reason why some government agencies who write software are required to also give the source to those apps. it's because it makes easier any future development (and modification) of those apps by the general public.

while I might not agree that opensource should be mandated, there are VERY many advantages to having it so. to ignore those advantages would be very short-sighted.

your 'affirmative-action' analogy is flawed, so don't pose the issue in that light. the fact of the matter is that *some* opensource software enjoys somewhat better security and quality due to its massive peer review than proprietary software, and allowing the US public to benefit from any development that the government does (i.e. SELinux) is better for the taxpayer, it's better for the government, and it's better for the end-results that those applications work towards.

Money is not the issue here, and it's only a small part of what makes up the overall benefits.

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>your 'affirmative-action' analogy is flawed, so don't pose the issue in that light.

Stating it doesn't make it so.

>the fact of the matter is that *some* opensource software enjoys somewhat better security and quality due to its massive peer review than proprietary software, and allowing the US public to benefit from any development that the government does (i.e. SELinux) is better for the taxpayer, it's better for the government, and it's better for the end-results that those applications work towards.

I fail to see that. Some extremely qualified members of racial minorities outperform their racial majority brethren. I don't object to hiring "open source" minorities, I object to the assumption that *only* open source is capable of doing the job. Would you rather the doctor doing your heart operation be hired because he was the best, or because he was Denobulan?

See, I'd rather hire based on qualifications to do the job, and if open source happens to be better and/or cheaper in a particular instance, great. Use open source then.

See, I don't have a problem with "programs for National Defense etc., must have source code that can be read and modified to accomodate national security concerns" vs. "all government software must be open source".

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note that I said "some" opensource software has better security.

when it comes to "qualifications to do the job", I don't think it's too hard to see where certain areas (security, webserving, fileserving, and heavy computational applications, to name a few) are much better off using opensource software, hands down.

While I don't think that all govt software should be opensource, I do think that it should be mandated that opensource be given consideration....as in some of the state government laws that have been proposed.

The traditional "disadvantages" of closed source can go head-to-head with the "advantages" of opensource in government, just like it does in the private sector, but there remains one glaring difference with government: the results of government-developed software, having been licensed by the GPL to begin with, comes *back* into the public's hands.

for example...for all non-classified software, most of the US govt agencies have to release to the public the source code for any projects that they use. one example of this is some of the signal-analysis software written for the NHTSA, that filters crash dummy testing data:

http://www-nrd.nhtsa.dot.gov/software/nhtsa-tools<nobr>-<wbr></nobr> fortran/downloads.html

in this example, the source given is fortran, but it could just as easily be perl, C, etc. When the government agencies write code originally licensed with the GPL, they would make that work available to the public, and the public then benefits from it.

if the original product that they chose to develop on/with was closed source, then they can't, even if they wanted to, give those changes to the public.

Now if you think that that amount of software is small and that the benefits to the public are tiny, think again. Those tools shown above (not GPL'd, but they are required to give the source of original software) are used by almost EVERY auto manufacturer, every testing facility, and every dummy manufacturer in the US, and overseas as well. And they make LOTS of money using that source to further their own interests.

Mandating might not be a great idea (nothing absolute ever is, really) but don't just boil the issue down to 'right tool for the job'....it's more like 'right tool, right license, and right intentions for the job'.

I think you're mixing some metaphors that might not translate well when it comes down to the details with your 'affirmative action' analogy. People are not products or tools to use, and to hold them within the same boundaries of "use" doesn't work.

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if you read the article, and the title.

no where does it mention mandating anything, or legislation...so settle down.

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> Mandating Open Source is dumb. Our government should be free to choose the most economical supplier of a given product.

This, and most of the rest of your post, completely misses the point.

This has nothing to do with money. This has to do with protecting our freedom, by ensuring that the people can review the government's software, to ensure that there are no back doors, built-in biases, and so on.

There are plenty of other rules controlling government purchases, that have nothing to do with getting the cheapest price. For example, the military might be forbidden to buy certain technologies from North Korea.

> You want Open Source to be taken seriously? Let it compete on its own, and kick ass.

But Open Source _has_ competed on its own.

And, for government use, Open Source is winning the competition!

It's that second part that seems to be upsetting some people.

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Mandating anything doesn't increase freedom. What you mandate is the best tool for the job, for the least amount of money. If you find that as an end user, you NEED open source, then you put it into the requirements of the contract. But you don't mandate it on general principles.

Note that your example above only requires "open source", not "Open Source"...if Microsoft were to give copies of the source code to the government department responsible, they could see and patch issues with the code - but again, that's a contractual thing. I don't disagree that open source is a good idea, I just don't think the law has any business mandating choices.

> But Open Source _has_ competed on its own.

Well then, it should continue to do so just handily then. I fail to see why it needs the help of legislation to do what it is already doing.

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> If you find that as an end user, you NEED open source, then you put it into the requirements of the contract.

For every purpose except military spyware, government NEEDS Open Source.

> Note that your example above only requires "open source", not "Open Source"...if Microsoft were to give copies of the source code to the government department responsible, they could see and patch issues with the code...

Wrong! It does no good for the government to see the source code.

What is required is for the PUBLIC to see the source code for all government software. It is necessary for the protection of democracy. The public must be able to ensure that all government procedures, including those done by software, are honest, that they don't invade our privacy, that they don't introduce bias into votes, that they don't skim money, and so on.

In fact, a situation where the government can see the source code, but the public can't, could even be worse, because it increases the chances for collusion and corruption.

> > But Open Source _has_ competed on its own.

> Well then, it should continue to do so just handily then. I fail to see why it needs the help of legislation to do what it is already doing.

But you've got it backwards. That legislation is the result of Open Source winning the competition -- of the government concluding that Open Source is a necessary attribute for government software.

And note that the openness of the source is just an _attribute_ of the software. This legislation does not discriminate against any one, which means that any company, including Microsoft, can supply software that has the necessary attributes.

When you say that the government should not be able to specify a requirement for Open Source, you are saying that the government should not be able to specify its own purchasing criteria.

Worse yet, you are advocating that certain government procedures (those done by software) should be secret from the public. Think about it! You are subverting democracy, and reducing the public's ability to protect itself from dishonest politicians, just to benefit one company. But then, Microsoft isn't the first company to put its own interests ahead of the Constitution.

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"It does no good for the government to see the source code."

i agree about govt should be using OSS, but the above statement is so wrong I don't even know where to start.

While it's good for the public to see the code, I would argue that it is better for the government to see the code. Contrary to popular belief, there are worse things out there than the government, and it would be worse for the government to have bought software that was not written the way they expect.

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Simply require all future IT workers applying for a government position be required to be certified (LPI would be a good neutral certification) at the first level, on their own, at their own cost, within the first six months of hiring. And make employment conditional/probationary on this certification. Make a level 2 certification mandatory prior to the one year mark, or 18 month mark, as a further condition of employment. Then tie ANY pay increases/status increases into achieving level 3. Or make it a further condition of employment at the 3 year mark.

With job turnover being what it is, very shortly the majority of government IT departments would be semi-competent to competent on gnu/linux issues. And further, the ms IT workers might actually learn something useful in their own field, like networking and other issues, instead of being click and run drones. This is a widely known issue, not a rant. It even shows up in the ridiculous reports that Gartner puts out. And in many other reports and articles. Quite simply, you need to know more to run linux/unix, and this is a good thing not a bad thing.

NYC, NYS, Texas, and all US federal/state/local governments should do the same. Make linux certification a condition for employment. And make employment probationary, with the requirement of termination written in policy, and in law if necessary, if the IT applicant fails to get certified.

This must be done at no cost to government. An individual doesn't want to spend his own time and money to aquire the necessary skill set to perform? There will be others in his or her place. And government shouldn't be hiring individuals who don't have the skills or mental resources to figure out how to get certified on their own, or by a trade school or user group. That's one way of weeding out the idiots.

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There are valid arguements (as have been presented here) why strict OPEN SOURCE requirements for government software procurement may not be in the best interest of the public. That doesn't mean, however, that it may not be in the public's best interest for SOME of the government's software procurement to carry a strict OPEN SOURCE requirement...

But, the real issue here should be OPEN STANDARDS. Maybe there's a better term, but what's being referred to is that in any democracy it should be a legal requirement that any government documentation be in only free and OPEN STANDARD formats. That means no ".doc" or ".pdf" files unless the complete formatting standard for these file formats is completely open and freely available for anyone to use. It really shouldn't matter to the public at large if government employees are generating documents on proprietary wordprocessors or spreadsheets, just as long as the documents produced do not REQUIRE that same software to open or edit.

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depends on what the software is for. this week's story about diebold's voting system makes me very hesitant to accept closed source for some purposes (voting would be one of them)

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