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Open Source in Government
A reader writes: "There is a feature running on NF about a conference this October. More information can be found on the conference website." It's worth pointing that despite the fact that the conference is two days long, the organizers have asked for material submissions to be included in the conference handbook. So, if you've got some materials/thoughts, start polishing them up.
Ok, Linux, despite what M$ may claim, has a place in today's post-pets.com/IPO/stupid-investing economy. As such, it's not as visible anymore. Think of it this way: when cell phones first came out, you knew who had one. They were different, elitist. Now, hilljacks from BFE Arkansas have cell phones, and no one notices. Once a Product becomes a standard part of everyday life, it just blends into the background.
This conference wants to 'Raise Awareness' and such and such. I think that, for the most part, people are aware of Open-Source. There are few markets, such as the lucrative US gov't market, that have yet to fully embrace it, but that's only a matter of time.
As of today, there are quite a few open-source companies, who unfortunately compete against each other, more often than not. This, IMHO, is the only reason that OSS is not as widely used as of yet. Yes, blame M$. But, that's just marketing. Marketing does wonders, but it's not everything. What is needed to overtake their monopolistic standing is another strong (not as big perhaps, but strong), company, with a very stable business behind it.
When i first heard of United Linux, my thought was, "Finally." But, no, it's simply a loose conglomerate of some lesser distros. What is needed to finally grab hold of these markets that seem so out of reach, is a single entity. If I'm a businessman, and wish to use Linux, I ask, ok, show me linux. What happens? I'm asked, "What do you want? Suse, Lindows, Mandrake, Debian, United, RedHat, ect.?" This does not work. If a businessman were instead told, "Here is Gerf Linux, the best supported and used Linux distro out there. It's the de facto Linux for all users. And, it's parent company, Gerf Inc. is making money, and will be around to support it too." THAT my friends, is what would finally make Linux, or any software in general, look more appealing to a company/government/user/organization. So, who can do that, and how? Sadly, no one. Unless standards were set for every miniscule detail, this system is not going to prosper in the way we wish it to.
Actually, it sounds like he was buying into Microsoft's FUD. The public has become more educated since then.
I live in a third world country, and our government is pushing towards creating standards for the the development of government software. One of the points is to require all software developed for any government instance to be Open Source, they are even considering to create a sourceforge-like repository to handle all the projects.
Why is this? well, I can see one obvious reason: all the local governments, central government instances, institutes, dependencies, etc have in one point of time developed software systems. One of the first dreams about the internet was to make all the government information available for the public, but in a disordered environment where everyone creates their own solution, using their own contractors, using their own tools and methos, you end up with a mess.
I have seen a LOT of goverment software made in tools like FoxPro, VB, Pascal, etc by people who just had little knowledge in the field (mostly just-graduated people who had a "contact" with somebody making the desicions). The issue is that if you make standards and force the solutions to be Open Source (so anybody can audit your code) you gain a lot.
I have always put the peruvian case as an example, the problem is that they got too much publicity and the big boys pushed back. Here everything is being done a lot quieter, but the end goal is almost the same.
I have grat hopes in this kind initiatives.
Life isn't like a box of chocolates. It's more like a jar of jalapenos. What you do today, might burn your ass tomorrow.
The conferance should not limited itself to what Linux can do for the Government but it should ask what your government can do for Linux.
Remember the internet exists not because compuserve decided to open its protocals but because the US government did. Open Source is a public good, and really needs public support (see economics 101, tragedy of the commons, and freeloader impact for details).
The easiest way to support Open Source is to make Code contributions tax deductable. Tax exemption has driven the charity business in this country for years and it has funded a great deal of public good with minimal direct government control, and arguable one of the best overhead/performance ratios. Doesn't United Way operate at 11% overhead? Direct government departments like schools run at closer to 50% overhead with only a fraction of money actually spent in the classroom.
Again - this is a forum to discuss an effecient method for funding the public good which is Open Source through tax deductions for individuals who contribute.
AIK
Why is that an incorrect assessment? In the majority of cases, all of the points are technically correct, especially 4 years ago.
Security issues: Yup. Fixed alot, but they still exist. They're still less than most others though.
Reliability: Yup. This is probably due to hardware rather than anything else as Solaris on Sun was significantly more solid 4 years ago. The gap has closed greatly since, but is probably still not (usually) closed yet.
Support: Most developers are not available to call in case of breakage. The hardware vendors don't support it, people are SOL. IBM fixed that for big iron, others try to support it for smaller machines, but it's not there yet.
Open source = bugs: Yup. Sorry, prerelease QA isn't exactly OSS's strong point. OSS guarantees the bugs will be found, and closed more quickly though.
Licensing issues: Maybe. This is possibly true in certain corner cases.
The thing that will help the government the most is actual deployment and acceptance of Linux. If they can be shown that these things are fixed or irrelevant, they'll be more inclined to look.