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Linux Journal On Linux's Adoption In U.S. Courts
Sam Hiser writes "Tom Adelstein writes in Linux Journal that, technically, one-third of the U.S. Government has moved to Linux: its Third Branch, the Judiciary. That's 30,000 users across 800 locations, comprising the nation's Federal court system. Given our information overload, it's easy to miss the most significant kernels of news."
...that the wide use of Linux in the court system will make judges just a little more skeptical of the legal antics that Microsoft will undoubtedly be throwing against it in the years ahead.
I think it is especially significant that Linux has been adopted by the Judicial branch which is both the most savvy branch (people hate Congress and the White House, but few hate the SCOTUS) and, constitutionally, the one given the most power over the other two. I look forward to an activist judge mandating that all branches must use Linux to adopt and maintain transparent government.
Anyway, probably is the beginning of a good move. If something could shift the balance towards open source, open formats (hope there the court resolutions are not published in msword format, or required that format to present documents) and really wider access to information ("no, you can't show THIS for contract/base software limitations").
It doesn't much matter what branch of the govt uses it. At the end of the day the Gov't controls around 1/4 of the nation GDP. It controls how and where that's spent.
ALLOT of money flows out of the gov't and stirs allot of industry. Especially durring recessions, that have been a classic time for gov't over spending, since FDR, to restimulate the economy.
If you want that money, you will run what ever software the gov't tells you too. Ideologies aside you have a buisness to run. To be compatible with the gov't agencies is essentials.
And as that money spreads out, to subcontractors, and support industries the chain of compatibilty does as well.
I worked for 2 years for a company that did court document back up. They declared what their standards were. If we wanted the contract we did as we were told. And we chose the servers that meant the absolute least friction between start and support.
This is a much bigger deal than just public relations.
I would rather be ashes than dust!
Free, less expensive: same incentive. I was commenting on the propagation of Linux as a whole, not just in this case.
A blog like any other.
Now let's see the US government follow in Germany's footsteps and directly sponsor the development of some critical piece of open-source software.
What, Total, er, now, Terrorism Information Awareness, CAPPS II, and Echelon aren't enough for you?
Following in Germany's footsteps indeed.
Although I think Reichminister Ashcroft isn't so much following the footsteps of the current Bundesrepublik Deutschland as those of Das Dritte Reich -- that is Himmmler's and Heydrich's footsteps.
Opinions on the Twiddler2 hand-held keyboard?
I recall hearing once that the government was required to go with the lowest bidder in a new contract for many of it's purchases.
So.. isn't linux the lowest bidder?
So, is the government required to use it then?
Just curious if anybody knows about this..
To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
Yea...and Microsoft is trying to pollute/proprietize it with Active-X technologies. If the dept. of justice allows this, then a large portion of the web will be inaccessable to non-IE browsers.
I completely agree with you in principle. Without getting overly political, I still feel it's appropriate to point out that lately the SCOTUS (and the judicial branch as a whole) has had a lot of its powers reduced. The PATRIOT act is just on of the ways the legislative branch has given the executative branch the ability to bypass the courts. The requirements for trials, warrants, and openness have been greatly reduced post 9/11. There was recently even a bill introduced to allow Congress to overrule the courts if they wanted. (Fortunately this got voted /laughed down).
This is to say nothing about the current "the president's executive priviledge overrides any other law" memos that are making news lately...
Finally, it's important to remember that the judicial system as a whole, especially the SCOTUS, is the slowest branch. As you pointed out, they mut wait to be called, and they almost always act after the fact. If legislators pass an unconsitutional law, or the executive branch steps on someone's rights, there is a considerable window in which the law is in effect, and those people rights are trampled before the SCOTUS can put a stop to it.
Checks and balances are the cornerstone of the US system, and branches fighting for power is in the design. Unfortunately there have been some fairly substantial swings lately which will hopefully right themselves soon.
All in all, I expect the users will be as productive. Solaris->Linux isn't a world of difference.
The real reason this is significant is because it means that US Government-approved application developers are making Linux software. An OS is something you run apps on; no apps, no need for the OS.
As to the almost FUD-inducing statements about free and performance, free is good but free doesn't mean without cost. Crap software costs you money through either downtime or lost performance. I doubt the AOUSC failed to evaluate the performance of the software or put in a QoS clause in the contract.
They paid $9,000,000 to the prime, Titan Corp, not counting the in-house management costs which in my experience will run 10-25% of the contract cost. Support will be provided by either AMS, the provider of the Momentum financial software, or BakBone & Linux Advantage, who is providing the archival software.
Momentum is already used by 94 districts and AMS had to go through the "approved vendor" process (whatever that might be, I don't work for AOUSC) so they are obviously providing the AOUSC acceptable level of support or else they would be removed from the list.
BackBone is providing Netvault, a back-end archival solution. Backup services are something Linux has been doing in the enterprise space since the mid-90's. To my knowledge, 10 years of experience in the IT field *is* a long-term study.
I am an employee of the Federal Courts and WordPerfect is still the word processing program of choice. We only have a handful of Office licenses and those are primarily for Excel. I believe the reason is that the AOUSC has a license with Corel for an unlimited number of users.
My second reaction was "What if they don't like it?"
Then it dawned on me that individual judges neither have interest nor reasonable say in what their computers are running. So, for the most part, the point is moot.
However, there is one interesting twist. How much leniency is SCO allowed to give the federal government. You know the "if sco wins, it will cost the federal government $22M" point will come out in court. While that should not have a direct effect, no judge wants to have his name attached to that. Of course, SCO will cut a deal for government use of "their" code. But big a deal are they allowed to give the government before it's considered preferential treatment?
:wq
It's been a couple of years, but I used to run the computer lab at a law library. WP/Word use was pretty even, but I think people would throw a fit if they tried to get rid of WordPerfect.
Lexis/Nexis and Westlaw were both deploying web interfaces, and only training new users on them, rather than the desktop client software. At the time (Fall 2000) they worked find on Netscape 4.x.
The law firm I work for just recently started using linux servers to store our documents to keep up with the new electronic filing rules. And the boss (the lawyer) still thinks the best way to view a website is to print it out and read it (not kidding, and among lawyers this type of thing is not rare).
Since all judges were once lawyers, and lawyers must be forced to even acknowlege the tech tools around them (on their desk even), I think it's a good bet to say that the Justice's would be shoked to hear they even have computers (let alone that they run linux).
So don't worry, I'm not.
Nostalgia ain't what it used to be.