The Software Politics Of 2004's Presidential Race

mjamil writes "The NYT(free registration required) has an article talking about the polarized use of OSS in the building of campaign Web sites. Specifically, it states that the sites for John Kerry (Democratic candidate for President) and the Democratic National Committee are built using OSS, while the site for President Bush's re-election campaign uses IIS. Linus and ESR are quoted. It's an interesting look at how even presidential politics are no longer immune to the free software war (free as in beer)." (David Brunton, pictured in the article, wrote to say "Now I'm going to go call my mom... won't she be proud? For all those girl geeks and gay geeks out there, I'm already taken, but it is an awful nice picture, isn't it?")

Comments

What Microsoft gives

[Anonymous Coward]

I guess it's good time to keep our eyes on what Microsoft gives to political parties.

Re:free as in beer

[Big Nothing]

"Free as in beer. Could someone please explain what this means. It comes up often and I don't get it."

The word "free" can mean more than one thing in the english language. In order to explain the meaning of the word "free" you can append a short explanaition, such as "as in beer" or "as in speech".

Free (as in beer) means that the product/service in question can be obtained/used without you having to pay money for it. This is perhaps the most common use of the word in the daily language.

Free (as in speech) is a phrase only valid when discussing information. Free (as in speech) means that the information in question doesn't have a copyright restriction appended it (or similar).

• A car can be free (as in beer). It cannot be free (as in speech).
  
• A recorded song (for example an MP3-file) can be either free-as-in-beer (meaning that you don't have to pay any money for it) or free-as-in-speech (you are free to spread the song, to re-record the song, to perform the song, to play the song in public, etc).

On slashdot, the most common subject of discussion is software. Just like a song, a software program can be free-as-in-beer, free-as-in-speech or both. The idea of OSS is that software should be free (as in speech), so that you are legally allowed to modify, complement, extend, etc. it.

Just because a piece of software is free (as in speech) does not mean that it has no restrictions in how it can be handled. Examples of restrictions are:

• The software can be freely spread, but not profited from (i.e. you have to give it away, or only charge for the cost you have for spreading it - say the cost of a CD-R and post stamp).
  
• The software can be freely spread, but the original licence and creator information must always be spread with the software.
  
• You are free to modify and sell the software for profit but you must always include the original source code.
  
• You are free to modify and extend the software but any modifications you make must be publicly available under the same rules as the original code.
  

Re:It used to be the other way around

[nevets]

Hmmm, I actually remember it being the other way as you state it. GWB with IIS and Gore with Apache. Gore was the one to support the anti-trust case against MS while talking to the people at MS.

From the PoliTech Mailing list and comments

[Hungus]

Subject: Rating the Bush and Kerry Web sites on security
Date: Sun, 27 Jun 2004 17:43:44 -0400
From: Richard M. Smith <rms@computerbytesman.com>
To: 'Declan McCullagh' <declan@well.com>

Hi,

To rate George Bush and John Kerry on the Homeland Security issue, I just
completed two quick security audits of the official Bush
(http://www.georgewbush.com/) and Kerry (http://www.johnkerry.com/) campaign
Web sites. Unfortunately, I found problems at both Web sites.

Here are the results of my testing so far:

1. Both the Bush and the Kerry Web sites have cross-site scripting errors
(XSS). These errors can allow a prankster to create fake Web pages which
load from the Bush or Kerry Web sites but additional content can be supplied
from a different Web server belonging to a prankster. A prankster could
then say anything they want on a Bush or Kerry Web page using a XSS error.
Examples include fake news stories, slogans telling visitors to vote for the
other candidate, and doctored photos of a candidate.

2. Error trapping at the Kerry Web site isn't very good. Typing unusual
characters into Web forms at the Kerry Web site causes Web server
applications to fail and a visitor is shown very cryptic error pages. These
problems might be a sign of SQL injection errors which can be quite serious.
An SQL injection error can sometimes be used by an outsider to break into a
backend database at a Web site and then to make off with private information
from the database.

3. The Bush Web site has hired a company called Omniture to track users at
the Bush Web site. Omniture uses hidden Web bugs to do this tracking.
Perhaps this Web site feature was requested by John Ashcroft? ;-) This
relationship with Omniture is not spelled out in the Bush Web site privacy
policy. For more about information about Omniture, check out their Web site
at http://www.omniture.com/company.html.

4. Both the Bush and Kerry Web sites encourage visitors to add banner ads
for the candidates to their own Web pages. The Bush banner ad uses
JavaScript supplied from the Bush Web server (See
http://www.georgewbush.com/WStuff/BPAdFeed.a spx). The Kerry banner ads use
an embedded IFRAME (See http://www.johnkerry.com/download/promos.html).
B oth banner ad schemes allow the campaigns to track visitors to any Web
pages where the banner ads appear. In addition, the Bush JavaScript scheme
allows the Bush Web server to run any script code inside of other people's
Web pages. This scheme doesn't strike me as a very good idea from a
security standpoint.

5. Both candidates have good Web site privacy policies. For some odd
reason, the Kerry Web site privacy policy is also certified by Truste and
BBBOnline.

6. It appears that the open source vs. closed source debate has also
entered the presidential campaign. The Kerry home page comes from an Apache
Web server running on a Red Hat Linux box. The Bush Web site on the other
hand is hosted on a more corporate Microsoft-powered IIS 5.0 server and uses
ASP.NET. I did not check to see if this IIS server is up to date with
Microsoft security patches.

If anyone else runs across anything interesting at these two Web sites,
please let me know.

Richard M. Smith
http://www.ComputerBytesMan.com

________ _______________________________________
Politech mailing list
Archived at http://www.politechbot.com/
Moderated by Declan McCullagh (http://www.mccullagh.org/)

Now when it comes down to who uses what tools and software let me ask this as my own comment. Do you think either politician even knows what their site is running on? Further do you think they care? Most likely someone on the IT staff at each party knows someone who works at or owns a hosting company and whatever they have as default is what the candidate is using. I would personally be far more interested in what they use personally compared to this, and of course far more than that in their policies and practices.

Re:OR IT COULD BE COINCIDENCE.

[m.corum]

That's spot on. NPR did a story on this about a month ago, and as it turns out, Kerry's site was only using OSS because the people (either hired or volunteer) that designed and implemented the site were fans and users of OSS themselves. Kerry himself had no direct input into the matter.

Re:even for linux fanboys and MS haters

[Anonymous Coward]

i) DMCA doesn't really limit your freedom does it? Draconian "homeland security" laws limit your freedom. Your government's paranoia limits your freedom. Go and tell people in Burma how the DMCA limits your freedom.

So you wouldn't mind if I stole $1000 from you, I presume. I mean, stealing $1000 doesn't really hurt the average American, does it? Go and tell those people in the third world who are trying to scratch a living on a dollar a day how someone stealing $1000 from your bank account hurts you.

ii) How can MS hold back an entire industry when your OSS people are free to innovate all they want?

The existence of a superior solution at a lower price does not automatically mean it will be adopted. In the hypothetical case that MS were using their huge cash reserves to bribe IT managers to choose Microsoft products, for example, it wouldn't matter how good Linux was - Microsoft would be chosen.

I'm not claiming that's happening for a moment - I'm just answering your question. It's a possible way.

iii) fair point. But I feel you are being a little naive if you don't believe Kerry will be *almost* as subservient to big business as Bush.

An equally fair point. But it remains the case that you should pick the lesser of two evils, even if that means you're still getting an evil.

Linux does *not* preserve my freedom. If linux disappeared tomorrow, the world would not blink. 95% of the world's population have never heard of it, and if someone told them about it, they wouldn't care. IT'S JUST A COMPUTER PROGRAM and it WILL NOT change the world.

MS-DOS was just a computer program, of which at least 90% of the world's population have still never heard, and that changed the world - by helping personal computers to become commodities.

Now Linux is changing the world, by helping people in third-world countries to gain access to cheap computers.

Just because you haven't noticed the difference, doesn't mean the world is still the same.

Re:MOD PARENT UP

[MP3Chuck]

As someone who has a NYT registration, I have to say that I've never recieved [noticed?] a single bit of spam coming as a result of said registration.