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UK Conservatives Slammed Over Open Source Stance

Posted by timothy on from the fully-support-my-party's-stance-on-the-issue dept.

Golygydd Max writes "The UK government has been criticised by the opposition Conservative (Tory) party for its lack of support for open-source software. Now, according to Techworld, a security company that has examined the Tory plans has come out against the use of open source software, citing the number of security problems inherent in the software. This is a sensitive issue for the UK government, still smarting from the loss of 7m family records from HM Revenue and Customs in 2007. What makes this criticism interesting is that this is an attack on the policies of what will certainly be the next British government — it's unusual for a party to be criticised like this before it comes to office. It's an indication of how IT is going to be a battleground in the future general election."

11 of 281 comments (clear)

  1. better than usa by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Funny

    Whenever America disappoints me, I look to the UK with the Nanny-state and their repeated .gov breaches. Thank you to the Queen for giving us a country for a lesser comparison.

    1. Re:better than usa by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Funny

      Whenever I worry that I'm an overly smug asshole, I look to Slashdot comments and thank CmdrTaco for giving us such a good breeding ground for idiots.

  2. Re:An indication? by Hal_Porter · · Score: 5, Funny

    Doesn't matter if it involves IT, their sex lives or what they eat for breakfast.

    Unfortunately with some MPs it may involve all three.

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    echo -e 'global _start\n _start:\n mov eax, 2\n int 80h\n jmp _start' > a.asm; nasm a.asm -f elf; ld a.o -o a;
  3. Open source bad? by buggy_throwback · · Score: 5, Funny

    Then why use it for your website? http://toolbar.netcraft.com/site_report?url=http://www.fortify.com

  4. Re:An indication? by SpringRevolt · · Score: 4, Funny

    An orange, a CAT5 cable and a pair of stockings..?

  5. Re:"Sells software"? Microsoft Partner! by pipatron · · Score: 2, Funny

    It's a little bit like the wikipedia problem - it can cite 100 sources that all use information lifted off wikipedia, it just seems reliable and independently confirmed even though there's really only one source.

    citation needed.

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    c++; /* this makes c bigger but returns the old value */
  6. Comment removed by account_deleted · · Score: 3, Funny

    Comment removed based on user account deletion

  7. Re:Hmmmm.... by sqldr · · Score: 5, Funny

    Clearly timothy is unfamiliar with UK politics.

    Could be worse.. half of america thinks Obama is the antichrist.

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    I wrote my first program at the age of six, and I still can't work out how this website works.
  8. Re:Hmmmm.... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Funny

    Whats wrong with the Daily Mail?
    It's a paper not afraid to point out that every problem our country has is the fault of immigrants and homosexuals.
    It's a paper that tells the TRUTH!
    [/sarcasm]

  9. Re:Unrelated statistics by CopaceticOpus · · Score: 2, Funny

    Don't be silly. The security of a technology company's public website is very important. If they truly believed the conclusions of their report, they would take steps to make sure their site was not hosted by open source software. Even if they don't manage the web server, they could easily request to be moved to a Windows/IIS machine.

  10. Re:"Sells software"? Microsoft Partner! by leoc · · Score: 2, Funny

    1998 called, it wants its anti-open-source arguments back.

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    STFU about slashdot bias.