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Who Opposes Open Source Software In Government?
Skapare writes "Linux Journal is doing a story with a roundup of who the players are that are opposing open source in governments. The one I find interesting is the Gates connection to BSA. But I think we all need to become familiar with this round-up of special interest groups not operating in our interests (as taxpayers)."
It's why open source is a grass roots movement. We aim to capture hearts and minds on a fundamental and righteous level. We target the wallet second.
Open source saves the government money. Open source would create more governemnt jobs, by not only keeping existing support personnel, but also by creating openings for developers that would tailor systems to the ever-evolving government technology base and needs. It makes complete sense to switch to open source. Why we don't switch is easy to see: Microsoft gives military politicians plenty of incentive not too.
Britian, France, Japan, Peru, China and Germany are all moving to Linux and open source. Hell, some are even writing up legislation that gives incentives to businesses that do so as well. Why aren't we (the United States)?
... is open standard "document" formats. I don't care if Uncle Sam or anyone else chooses to use Microsoft (or any other) software. However, anything and everything that The People have access to must be stored in an open format that The People can read with the software of my choice. PDF, XML, plain text, latex, postscript/ghostscript, PNG images out of a scanner, dead trees, who cares.
And what part of "shall not be infringed" don't they understand?
Don't blame me, I voted for Kodos
I think people greatly underestimate the amount of effort, blood, sweat, and tears it would take to "switch" (so to speak) a government agency (let alone a whole government) to Linux.
The old adage applies: if it ain't broke, don't fix it. While some would no doubt argue that Windows-based systems are "broke", the fact is that government agencies somehow manage to make their computers crunch numbers and store data on Windows machines.
In general, taking down a running, working system in order to replace it with something else is always a risky move. It is never something to be taken lightly.
Hopefully, Linux can work its way into US government agencies, because it has a lot to offer. But acceptance will be necessarily slow, and we should not expect otherwise.
We can praise the nations that throw caution to the wind and roll out Linux rapidly. But we should not be so negative to those that take a more cautious stance. Linux is NOT a perfect beast, and it should surprise no rational person that it is, at this time, treated as "the devil you don't know".
The decision of which software to use should not be made by legislators, it should be made by people experienced with the technology. Mandating the use of open source only limits choice. Bills that mandate that open source be considered are less damaging, but pointless, since if an open solution exists that is viable, a smart engineer will consider it. I work with government clients all the time, and as much as I like open source software, some of it just doesn't meet the needs of my client, for open source software that does, I am more than happy to recommend its use. It's about finding the best tool for the job, not the one that best fits my political views.
Go away, or I will replace you with a very small shell script.
Seems reasonable yes? Anything that does the job should be allowed to compete. Certainly. But in the case of government the question is "what exactly is 'the job'?". The government (ostensibly) exists to service the public interest. The public interest demands that our government be independant from corporate influence. Commitment of government to a closed source solution provided by a single vendor gives this vendor undue influence over governmental process. The public interest also demands that our data be accessible now and into the future. Clearly closed data formats cannot provide this. Finally, the public interest demands that government computers be secure. Without access to the source code it cannot be proven that there are not back doors providing access to sensitive government data.
So the question when evaluating a piece of software, say, a database, for governmental use is not just "Is this the best database" but "Is this the best database that ensures data accessability and security without tying us to a single corporation." Only open source software can provide these important considerations.
Note that this is not "discrimination" against closed source vendors. Any company can provide software to the government, as long as it satisfys these requirements.
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
word.
I think the answer is to provide a dummy option on all ballots designed such that people that don't know better would be more likely to pick it.
take the slashdot polls for example:
"Whats your favorite breakfeast?"
a) cold pizza
b) cold cereal
c) cowboy neil's underpants
lots of people dont understand what cold pizza or cold cereal even are and would rather vote cowboy neil's underpants as their favorite breakfeast because they think its funny.
when using the results to determine which infact is the most popular breakfeast cowboy neil's underpants is discarded and the stupid-vote eliminated.
bite my glorious golden ass.
Each opponent asserted the playing field was level and open-source legislation would introduce unfairness into the procurement process.
Why should free software and commercial software be treated equally? What does this have to do with "fairness"?
I give my government lots of money. I have a right to expect that they don't buy commerical stuff if there are reasonable free alternatives. If they do go out and buy something commercial, they should be required to document carefully the reasons for their choices.
Even if the free software were to require larger IT staffs (which it doesn't), I'd much rather see my tax dollars go into salaries for local government employees than disappear somewhere in Microsoft's bank account up in Washington state soemwhere.
When will people realize that truly secure software is not compromised in the least when people see the code? In other words, if seeing the source gives a hacker a leg up, that code is either buggy or poorly designed. Period. It's that simple.
Is Linux perfect? No. Is any reasonably complex software perfect? No. But open source does at least as much to help the people trying to secure the code as it does for the people trying to break it.
On a separate note, the government is the last place I want to see closed-source software used. I feel that as a citizen of a democracy, I have the inherent right to see what's being done and how.
First, Microsoft said it believed this was a national secruity risk. Their sale is therefore willful treason, regardless of the facts.
Second, the fact that our enemies have access to information our own government does not have compete access to really is detrimental to US security. China can and will give that code to all the people they think they have to in order to find weaknesses to exploit. The NSA can only go so far in protecting against those attacks because Microscrew continues with their "fork" and new sofware is being deployed on government desks all day long with windoze updater. It's doubtuf that the NSA or anyone besides Microsoft can keep up with all the different versions of software that gets put on those computers, so any weakenss the Chinese find will have a high probability of sucess. Windoze is fragile enough without help from professionals representing one of the world's most repressive regiems having the source code to understand exactly how random expoits found work.
It should be obvious that free software levels the playing field and alows everyone to help fix the problems. The results are already in because we know that IIS gets broken all the time, but free software is not.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
The technocrats are the ones pushing the bills, legislators are the ones with doubts.
Mandating the use of open source only limits choice.
No, it does not. Software companies are free to open their code at any time.
Bills that mandate that open source be considered are less damaging, but pointless, since if an open solution exists that is viable, a smart engineer will consider it.
That does not mean that he can use it. Vendors must be aproved in order for state employees to purchase things. The process of aproval is Byzantine at best and one that does not work well for free software that may not have a vendor at all. Bills that free state employees to use software they want to use would be a Godsend.
I work with government clients all the time, and as much as I like open source software, some of it just doesn't meet the needs of my client.
That's hollow. Name one thing that propriatory software does that free software does not besides interoperate with propriatory software. In those rare instances, a purchasing agency can claim "sole source vendor" and make the purchase and those are looked on with susupecion.
It's about finding the best tool for the job, not the one that best fits my political views.
This IS about finding the best tool for the job . Free software is almost always better than it's closed source counterparts. Free software, in part, helps to avoid vendor lock in, a very real goal of state purchasing laws. Legislators have already decided they don't like getting raped by vendors. Vendor lock in always results in a lack of legitimate competition and inferior goods in the end.
The only political view that you need to have is a belief in full disclosure in state afairs. From honest discource, function and trust flow. Indeed, it's the closed source view of the world that requires the most radical assumptions. It requires you to believe that you don't own your computers, that you should be so very greatful that your computer does a few things and you agree to limitations on your use of that computer, that you pay absorbedent fees instead of developing your own solution, even that you will never even attempt to understand how the program works. That kind of nonsense is not accepted in most government purchasing, where complete honesty and accountability through inspection is required. The closed source software companies, which have only existed in their current form since the early 1980s, has a lot of nerve to try to impose these conditions on the public and call it IP rights.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
The US is BOTH a republic (because Dubya is an American), and a democracy (because the head of state is elected by the people, loosely speaking)
Don't be confused by the fact that your political parties are the Republicans and the Democrats...
"Go to CNN [for a] spell-checked, fact-checked summary" -- CmdrTaco