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Obama Looking At Open Source?

Posted by CmdrTaco on from the looking-isn't-doing dept.

An anonymous reader writes "'The secret to a more secure and cost effective government is through Open Source technologies and products.' The claim comes from one of Silicon Valley's most respected business leaders Scott McNealy, a co-founder of Sun Microsystems. He revealed he has been asked to prepare a paper on the subject for the new administration."

3 of 306 comments (clear)

  1. The sound you hear by Gothmolly · · Score: 0, Troll

    Is CmdrTaco masturbating furiously.

    Of course the government looks at, and likely uses, Open Source. What's next, "Obama decides to eat breakfast" and we all drool and slaver over THAT piece of minutiae?

    --
    I want to delete my account but Slashdot doesn't allow it.
  2. Campaign Donations by ouder · · Score: 0, Troll

    I bet at this point Bill Gates and top execs at MS wish they hadn't given so many campaign contributions to Republicans and conservative causes.

  3. Re:Open source is paid by the need of the coder(s) by kabocox · · Score: 0, Troll

    They want, for example, a firewall system for their OS. So they write one. Their need sated, they let people have it for free. It costs them nothing to do so (since their need was for a firewall and they paid for it by writing one). It costs no more to let people have it than to keep it secret.

    Other people want a firewall that works with a VPN. So they take the free firewall the others made and add VPN knowledge to it. Their need sated and the cost paid for (by their time) and the benefit offsetting that cost (having a firewall that knows about VPNs) they give it to others to use.

    The first group now has a better firewall and didn't have to pay for it.

    Truly free.

    You seem to be a democrat. I'll explain it. Some one not you was forced to spend their resources to develop said product. Two people/entities in your example paid for work or had their in house guys develop the app and release it. Now in both cases the entities still had to pay those developers to write code. Even if I were a third party, and to me I never paid a cent to it, but use it, the software isn't totally free. Some one (not you) paid for it. It's like the platform give everyone the toys that they want and ignore where the resources to pay for it actually come from. I guess lots of people like getting stuff "for free" when they aren't the ones that are being forced to pay for it. Sooner or later everything rolls around and you'll have to pay for it if you need/want anything done.