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Advocating Open Source Within the Gov't

Posted by Hemos on from the making-headway-within-the-powers-that-be dept.

There's an interesting piece running on Newsforge concerning advocacy of Open Source within the (US) Federal Government. The Feds, as we've talked about here before, are caught in an interesting cross fire - and based on personal experience, I can tell you that they are looking at it. Carpe Diem, folks.

4 of 184 comments (clear)

  1. Open source discussed in the World Social Forum by papo · · Score: 3, Informative

    Other countries like Brazil, China and France are adopting open source software and ideas faster than USA. This is interesting to see because most open source developers are concentrated in the States.

    Just as a pointer: Richar Stallman participated in a debate about patents and trademarks in the World Social Forum realized in Porto Alegre, Brazil. See this link: http://www.softwarelivre.rs.gov.br/ (sorry, its in portuguese!!!) and this one http://www.fsm.rs.gov.br/ing/index.php (in english!).

    --
    "Learning, learning, learning - that is the secret of jewish survival" -- Ahad A'Ham
  2. Not only Open Source, but also Open Standards by mdubinko · · Score: 5, Informative

    An article on XML.com outlines the US government's new mandate to support only open standards, specifically mentioning W3C. Even cooler, the guidelines expressly forbid competing (proprietary) standards.

    See the article

    .micah

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  3. OSSI mailing list by xiitone · · Score: 5, Informative

    The OSSI has a mailing list for discussing Open Source and federal Projects.
    subscribe:
    opengovtprojects mailing list
    or email:
    opengovtprojects-request@oss-institute.org with the word subscribe as the subject

    --
    Elegance is for tailors. -A. Einstein
  4. Re:Give me a break by Mickey · · Score: 2, Informative
    You honestly think that the Microsoft lobbiests will let the Feds choose something that's open-source over their proprietary formats?

    Campaign finance reform has little to do with corporations' hold over the government. If individuals (myself included, I admit) would utilize the representative system already in place, we would be able to wield the influence we think is to be had only the the rich and the corporate.

    Write your congressman. Use your right to vote. If everyone who wanted to see Linux used in the government would write to all of their local, regional, and national representatives, we would see a lot more Linux used in the government. What John Weathersby is doing is good and necessary, but that doesn't mean we should expect him to do it alone.

    Write. Vote. The power is and always has been in our hands.

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    Santa tells me you're bad. That makes you good in my book.