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Free Software for Politics
kevin lyda writes "The Howard Dean campaign is releasing software for web-based communities under the GNU GPL. The project apparently is based on drupal. See here for more info, and here for the software. Regardless if you're for Dean, against Dean, or you're not an American, it's great to see an American politician on the national level using and promoting free software. I wonder if RMS thought he'd see a U.S. presidential candidate releasing stuff under the GPL when he founded GNU 20 years ago!"
Although I'm politically more with Kucinich, I really admire the way Dean has taken the lead with using novel forms of communications technology. Everything he's done, from meetups to blogging to soliciting individual donations on the internet shows a kind of grasp of the technology that really reflects well on him (or, at least, his staff). The latest news is pretty much in line with that behavior.
It does beg the question--will a Dean presidency be geek friendly? Will it turn back the DMCA and scale back software patents? I'd like to know more, but I'm optimistic for the first time in a long time.
Said Joe Trippi, the Dean for America campaign manager: "It is extraordinary that our grassroots base is now building tools to support itself. This is grassroots squared." He added: "As far as we know, this is the first open source development project for a presidential campaign, and it's definitely the most ambitious."
O.K., so Dean is smart. This is one of the most impressive grass roots campaigns I have ever seen and he has my vote. Assuming Dean is elected President, given his background, perhaps we could have some open source solutions to the health care crisis to enable physicians and hospitals to reduce costs associated with all of the electronic medical records problems that are cropping up.
The ideal pair? Dean and Clark. A thinker and an individual who gets things done. What a concept!
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But will he release his gubernatorial papers under GPL? Right now they are closed source. No one has the right to view them. I am more interested in his political history than some software someone else wrote that he is piggybacking on for publicity.
Strange women lying in ponds distributing swords is no basis for a system of government.
Almost but not quite as irrelevant as the brand of Web server the candidate runs. I still think that Bush is going to really regret doing that stupid Top Gun stunt next November. It isn;t the uniform, its the way you wear it.
I see one big issue for the Open Source Community in the next election and it is not promoting open source. The big issue is PATENTS and Dean is at least listening to the right people here - Larry Lessig.
We don't want much here, we just want the USPTO to actually apply in practice the principles that it claims to apply.
Novel should mean novel, do something on the Internet that has been done for 20 years is not novel.
Prior review get rid of the secrecy in the process, all applications to be subject to a one year protest period, same as the Europeans do
You have to invent it there are a ridiculous number of speculative patents filled where the inventor has actually invented nothing. Typical cases are in the genetics field where the first person to sequience a gene often files a patent that claims the use of the gene to solve every imaginable ailment before the 'inventor' knows anything about what the gene does
Anyone care to claim a bigger priority? This is a platform that everyone can agree on from Redmond WA to Cambridge MA.
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