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Get Listed Free In Gov't Open Source Directory
BanJoota writes "Probably most useful for U.S. people, but sounds like a good deal. The story (at Newsforge) says you can list your Open Source business, non-profit group or Open Source project or whatever for free in a 'Who's Who and Who's Doing What in Open Source' book that's being distributed to government agencies on March 15. The deadline's March 1, so better act fast." Newsforge and Slashdot are both part of OSDN. Remember to keep your write-up suitable for pointy-headed managers...
The tin-foil hat brigade may want to bear in mind that Ashcroft, Tenet, Rumsfeld etc. may also take an interest in "Who's Who and Who's Doing What in Open Source" ;-)
This is interresting for several reasons beyond the obvious; The government is now making information available about open source, which means they know it exists. This information will also get reviewed by government agencies and could possibly lead to more open source adoption by government agencies, which would encourage more people in the population to be exposed to OSS. This also gives some air of credibility to open source, possibly the kind that suits will catch on to it and adopt OSS more.
I have an understanding of how government software projects work.
That said, Open Source is respected. People are always trying to get their hands on the latest and greatest from Apache, Mozilla, etc.
Keep up the good work. Your efforts are not blind to us.
Background: 28/M/Bi-Sexual; Owner of a Linux company; MBA Harvard 2003; B.S. Comp Sci MIT 2000
after several government recommendations (US and AU) that departments "should consider an Open Source alternative", they would have had hundreds of angry PHB's saying "WTF - what is Open Sauce? where do I get it? Is this a new version of Windows?"
So, they *finally* sponsored a directory.
You can't expect to wield supreme executive power, just because some watery tart threw a sword at you
I am interested in seeing this guide as well. Will it be published beyond the fortune 1000 / govt folks?
Blogging because I can...
I thought the government was primary running Windows. Are they going to pay attention to this directory or will it end up going nowhere?
I remember this story from almost a year ago, I tried to get involved a number of times but never got a response. Here's the 10 month old announcement: http://lwn.net/Articles/29364/.
... is something fishy going on with this book? (lack of complete disclosure is irritating) Someone might need to see a 2x4.
Now it surfaces again out of the blue
Please help publicise swpat.org - the software patents wiki
I wonder how widespread this guide will be. Just a note, the folks who are putting this out are a private group and not the US government itself.
;)
The National Labs already use a lot of open source software, so it would be great to see more inclusion in other government sectors, maybe saving some tax $$. (Or it will cost more, you can never say
"Sed Quis Custodiet Ipsos Custodes?" -Juvenal
"We see from your dossier you're a Terrorist Mr. Stallman"
Are you sure you want to be listed in a directory like this? Who knows what SCO could do with such as list.
---
IMHO, of course.
May the SOURCE be with you.
... I would submit:
Software name: nmap
Section: terrorist tools
Purpose: Enables evildoers to do evil (and OS detection).
With all ya read about how the government is subverting science etc. It's nice to see that the governmnent is promoting open source which will allow it's citizens to get access to the best/cheapest/open technology rather than promoting what the corprate overlords suggest.
It's also interesting to note that(unlike some other governments) this isn't exactly an endorsement of use for OSS software, but rather a flag telling agencies that it's ok to go ahead with OSS projects you planned, and here are some resources OSS.
It would be interesting though for the government to fund more OSS projects who have a significant amount of dedicated US citizen contributors, but with the deficits and tax cuts, it's probably a pipe dream.
Oh well, a step in the right direction anyway.
Hmm, I sure hope they're looking at other OS stuff rather than just Apache and Mozilla, which always seem to hog the spotlight.
Mozilla's not even that good anyway (I use Mac/Chimera/Outlook).
Sometimes some of my biggest battles in adopting OSS in the gov't/DoD are convincing my fellow engineers. These are old school engineer types who are very scared of change. Even if it sounds reasonable, there better be a damn good reason to change to something new, especially something as "untested" as OSS.
> Remember to keep your write-up suitable for pointy-headed managers...
Did Beldar quit his TV repair gig and move up the ranks at Dilbert Co.?
Last I heard, open source "threatens capitalism". Are we adding ourselves to a black-list?
Really now, what has this administration done to attack and oppress open source developers on the basis of the open source ideology?
In Soviet Russia, the government lists YOU in a directory!
GNAA rocks - cumming to your town soon!
C'mon, if any of the "free software" communist bloc are "Red agitators", it must be the Mozilla devs.
The start by adopting a red five-point star as their icon, and then they release a latest and greatest which is named after a Soviet fighter plane (firefox)?
Please help publicise swpat.org - the software patents wiki
I was wondering why I haven't seen the Coneheads on SNL lately.
Don't get involved in strong-encryption anonymous peer-to-peer projects, particularly those with any sort of anti-DMCA capability, within the United States. And if I do this outside the United States, don't then visit the United States.
Forget thrust, drag, lift and weight. Airplanes fly because of money.
Yup, and just cause they're out to get you doesn't mean you're not also paranoid, something I wish more people would consider once in a while
Information: "I want to be anthropomorphized"
Posting it 2 hours before the deadline... way to get listed.
...in your efforts to get more spam.
Doesn't Chimera use the Mozilla rendering engine?
From http://www.egovos.org/about...
The Center of Open Source & Government works with governments around the world on Open Source policy and strategy.
Information wants to be free.
Entertainment wants to be paid.
You just want to be cheap.
Story Posted On:
:P
Sunday February 29, @09:54PM
Dealine:
March 1st
- - - - - - - - -
Slashdot, your source for timely news.
And for all you people who only read slashdot at work.... neener neener neener....
www.slightlycrewed.com - Because aren't we all?
http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/
Yup, no BS in CS.
Daryl McBride stands up with a copy of the book in his hand in front of the conference:
"As you can see, this is a list of projects that have illegally stolen SCO code and are currently using it to invite terrorism into the US."
Slashdot sucks
The submission deadline is March 1st...yet the government is going to be distributing these books on March 15th? Of the same year? Can they be that efficient?
better luck next year
Paperz Pleaze! Kein paperz? Shoot zem!
(By order of Herr Rumsfeld)
.
NT2?
"Doesn't Chimera use the Mozilla rendering engine?"
People like UIs, not just rendering engines.
"Derp de derp."
Actually, based on reading over old FBI files released under FOIA and seeing the sort of people that the FBI build files on (i.e. just about anyone of note), it wouldn't surprise me if Stallman has a file.
He stands to be a significant player in the next decade or so in the intellectual property world. He has an impact on politics, and is a rabid idealist.
I mean, China's pushing for a domestic software industry and relying on much of his work now, right?
May we never see th
On one hand it's a great list for businesses who are interested in resources for open source. On the other, it's a great list for proprietary software makers to target. Especially companies that are threatened by open source like a certain Redmond company.
Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.
Warning: this is a little off-topic, but it is an issue I am concerned about.
I hope you're being sarcastic, since Open Source software has nothing to do with threatening capitalism. In fact, I would argue that OSS is in the spirit of capitalism!
At its core, capitalism is about minimizing costs of creating and distributing resources through competition. Risk is one of those costs, yet OSS reduces those risks when compared with other proprietary solutions. No large-scale software projects are free of bugs, so a risk of using any software is the stability of the creator. The firm may go out of business; the software may be discontinued; or the firm may charge more over time. OSS can be developed indefinitely, even after the original creators can not be relied upon to maintain it at a reasonable price. That is the value of the source code.
What are the advantages of open, Free (as in Freedom) code? One problem with any software includes the development costs of programmers and the project's administration. A firm could hire programmers to create code under any license (open or closed) requested, but these costs can be huge for large-scale projects (the projects from the above paragraph). It makes sense that if programming resources could be spread throughout the marketplace, then an individual firm's cost of software maintenance could be reduced to feasible levels. But how does one firm encourage its competitors to cooperate with it? The answer are open standards. For over two hundred years, it has been shown that common, open standards - such as money values, weights and measures, or product specifications, among others - help reduce costs as a whole in a market. (Note that when the price of a product is determined more by demand than supply, then this translates into higher profits.) By allowing the source code of a software application to be open and free from abuse by any one firm (hence, Free), then the code gains the advantages of open standards. The contributions by one firm can't be stolen by another firm, and additional restrictions and costs - like royalties or other fees - can't be levied by any one firm. Hence, Free OSS is more economical than proprietary closed source software for large, complicated projects.
But does the sharing of code go against capitalism? No! There is competition between open source software projects (such as Gnome vs. KDE, Mozilla vs. Konqueror, Linux vs. BSD). The market forces help streamline the administration/design of any individual projects, or it will be dominated by others and eventually become irrelevant. The users of OSS lower their individual costs and become more competitive in their respective markets. (For instance, OSS lowers IBM's costs of maintaining software. They can't really sell it, but IBM gets their money back - and more - by selling their experience with the software!) Thus, Open Source software lets firms be more competitive.
Note that some software projects are either too small or too big to be economically Open Source. The market may not be large enough to support the costs of the program (such as large databases like encyclopedias, or complex programs like robotic control software). On the other hand, there might not be enough interest in other projects (such as program documentation, which is generally poor in the open source community). Still other types of software may be the product (such as entertainment software like games or web-logging tools, or other commercial software such as p2p clients). Despite these limits, a lot of software could be economically Free OSS in a capitalistic society. Of course, others could be fueled by volunteer efforts for which we should be more grateful.
Please accept my apologizes for this rather long, rambling rant. I get worked up sometimes: I hope you understand. :-)
It is impossible to enjoy idling thoroughly unless one has plenty of work to do.
- Jerome Klapka Jerome
People like UIs, not just rendering engines.
Not on slashdot, they don't!
But seriously, saying that "mozilla isn't that good" and that "the default mozilla UI isn't that good" isn't quite the same thing (and liking or not the UI is pretty subjective; I have no problem with the Mozilla 1.6/Firefox 0.8 default UI).
Besides, with firefox everything in the UI is so customizable that it's increasingly becoming a pretty moot point, IMHO.
Treehugger? Treehugger... Treehugger!
oh heck no not in a boat not with a goat i dont wanna be gov spam i dont wanna Unka Sam!
Never underestimate the logical power of sarcasm
If you view the html source on their web page you'll see they used javascript.
Isn't javascript proprietary?
Are you saying OSS is "untested"? At least half the internet is run on OSS software! I guess that doesn't count for anything.
Open source software is audited, tested, validated, and independently certified often times these days. Many organizations use OSS as reference specs.
Can your proprietary closed source software say all that?
Now all those stagnet projects might get a little attention when the creators/owners of those projects line up to register on this site. Greeaat... Just what we needed another dead pool list of open source projects.
Don't do it! Once they have the list, black helicopters will appear and you'll disappear.
Josh
Sllort is a long-time troll. Check the troll blacklist.
I wouldn't trust that information without verification.
Indeed, this could end up becoming a listing of the first to be put up against the wall when the revolution is put down.
Oh, say does that Star-Spangled Banner entwine / The myrtle of Venus with Bacchus's vine?
No government service is free for anyone who pays taxes.