Slashdot Mirror
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!
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..
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.
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.
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.