So if the paper copy is kept in a file cabinet, do we have the right to know how the lock works on the file cabinet? Do we have a right to try to break into said file cabinet? Should we really lobby the government to outlaw the use of any file cabinet that's not home-brew with published blueprints?
I can find out what kind of lock is used, because I can find out who sells the agency their filing cabinets. But what's more important is who has access to those files, and what is done to ensure their security (besides putting a lock on the cabinet; who holds the key? How many keys are there?)
If I tried to find out this information and the government stonewalled me, I'd be pretty pissed and not a little bit scared. However, government agencies are usually pretty good about allaying citizen's fears by telling them exactly what it takes for someone to get access to information.
What about all the software a government might need that doesn't have a good open-source alternative?
I'd be mightily surprised if it takes more money for the government to get a piece of OSS fixed than to buy a license for a proprietary solution (which is probably overkill anyway).
Should we drive out of business all the companies that make cheap, good, proprietary software for government use?
They've already been driven out of business by M$ and their little brothers and sisters.;-) But seriously, companies meeting that description aren't selling secrets, they're selling software. They will probably be quite willing to comply with government open-source requirements. *And* they'll get a more secure lock on the deal, too; currently, they're constantly looking over their shoulder for big brother to come kick their ass with a better sales campaign.
I'm still not sure that such modifications would need to be secret. The difference between the data and the software is getting blurred. If it's the tool they used to help *design* the plane, but the designs themselves are not implied by the tool (and are secure in their own right), it shouldn't matter much whether that tool is publicly available (except insofar as it might make it a tiny bit easier for another government to design similar aircraft. Good luck on building it, though).
Now, as for the software that actually *runs* on the planes... that's a trickier issue. Still, it's better not to rely on security through obscurity in any case. Your system should be secure enough that even knowing how it works won't get someone in. Right now, there's a whole lot of security that requires *only* the knowledge of how the data is stored to crack it.
Of course, one of the biggest weaknesses in any security system (information or otherwise) is the people who use it. The best security system is easy to use... otherwise, people get lazy. Even if it *is* easy, training and reinforcement is necessary to keep it going... how many of you work in places where there's a post-it on every other monitor that says "Username: Blah Password: Blah blah"?
So if you can do stuff with OSS that's essential to your operations and can't be done with NT, then why is there *one* Linux box in a sea of NT boxes? Shouldn't it be the other way around?
OSS isn't going to win purely on superiority as long as the proprietary developers have more money to throw into their sales and marketdroid departments. Which they will, because they sell their software for a lot more money. which they can, because their sales and marketing departments can woo big contracts for seas of NT boxes.
I've been a big fan of PDF for a long time, but while it is currently an accessible format, it's far from a truly open format. Kinko's went through literally years of negotiations with Adobe to be able to create their KDF tool, which is a very, very stripped-down version of Acrobat Distiller, and creates a (what else?) proprietary format that can only be read by the Kinko's Document Format software. If PDF were open, none of that would have been necessary.
Fact is, right now, government documents, user manuals, and a plethora of other information is easily available on the web in PDF format. But what if Adobe stops making Acrobat Reader? Or starts charging for it? *Now* what do we do? They can stick us surely as any other big software company.
Maybe the next big project needs to be an open-source document distiller/viewer to replace PDF. *That* would be great.
Yes, because, as we all know, Photoshop's sales have gone into the crapper and The Gimp is now the most commonly used image editor amongst professionals.
Where do you get GIMP for the Mac? Since a relatively large proportion of professional graphic artists still use Macs...
Besides, we're not talking about commercial purchase patterns. We're talking about the *government* not being able to save documents that *I* have a right to access in.psd format. Once the government is required to use.png, I can use GIMP or IrfanView or anything I choose. So can they.
Image editing is probably a poor choice for comparisons, since images are almost never archived in completely proprietary formats (though there's a good many GIFs out there, and you'll have a bit of a hassle saving them with GIMP), and since it's more of a niche market with fewer options available. But if the government can't use.doc anymore, then what's the point of using MS Word when they can get something else for millions less?
It does force the issue, especially if you mandate that the default format needs to be open.
My concern, though, is that when proprietary software is allowed on the field, it has an overwhelming advantage in the marketing arena. An open source solution might very well be equal or even superior in all respects to a proprietary solution, but the open source developer can't pay an account manager $100k/year to take the decision-maker to lunch and explain to them just why their solution is better.
If it could be assumed that it would work reasonably well, it might make sense. I fear that there's just no way to allow proprietary developers to compete without handing them the business regardless of whether or not they can provide better.
Perhaps a better compromise would be to only consider open source solutions, unless *none* satisfy the functional requirements (or can be reasonably made to satisfy the functional requirements), in which case the bidding can be opened to proprietary companies. Once they see the price tag difference, though, government agencies might take another look at how open source options can be customized.
"Let's say I have two word processing programs. One is Open Source, but doesn't support the backspace key, or italics, or different fonts. It crashes all the time and the amount of money it would take to fix it is twice as much as the proprietary software costs. The proprietary software supports all these functions.
Which one is best? Which one should we use?
What if the amount it costs to make the Open Source version comparable to the proprietary version is 100 times the cost of it? 1000? 10,000?"
And let's say that Bill Gates gets a better haircut...
You can come up with all kinds of preposterous hypotheticals that appear to support your position, but what it comes down to is vapor. If the open-source solution doesn't support those essential features, find one that does. If it costs more (over the life of the software) to update the OSS, I'll eat my shoes.
Come up with an example based somewhere in the real world, and you might have an argument. But your universe where there's only one OSS option and it's extremely costly (i.e. time-consuming) to tailor it to your needs is not the one I live in.
Just to throw out my own real-world example, the Oracle deal in California would have cost the state $41 million extra over five years if it had gone through. That's 100 full-time programmers at $80k per year, which is an above-average salary in CA. (60k is probably more realistic.) Having seen what proprietary software is actually costing entities, I have trouble imagining your scenario.
Actually, no, that's not what happens. The government, like most large companies, will stick with "shoddy" or inadequate solutions for a very long time because of the prohibitive cost of upgrades. In the meantime, people feel "locked in" a particular license agreement, and don't consider the alternatives. They tend to buy the software company's rhetoric that "Oh, changing horses in midstream would be BAD!"
A law like this *requires* the most important kind of company to use criteria other than inertia in making software decisions. They don't seem to be capable of doing it without making a rule (To wit, the Oracle debacle in California).
"No one should be forced to use any type of software. Its stupid"
I'm sure the people who wrote this law agree. That's why it's very clearly (and openly) defined, such that any software company can meet the regulations if it chooses to do so. It's impossible to make open-source software *into* closed-source software; but the reverse is quite possible.
If you think that every entity should have the right to choose what kind of software they use, why won't you recognize that passage of this law would be the State of California doing *exactly* that? If I announced "as of tomorrow, I'm no longer buying any software that isn't open-sourced" would you rail on me for limiting my own choices? Or would that be "stupid"?
Actually, this law would have no effect on your department (if you were in the California government and it passed). It doesn't require anything with regard to software currently in use. It only says that *future* purchases must meet these requirements.
Which means that, if anything, we might all get an open-source version of SAS out of the deal when they next need to upgrade. Yay! Wouldn't that be a thrill?
"There are people in Government too, should they not be allow to choose whatever suits their job best?"
Erm, no. In fact, there are very few entities, public or private, where this is the case. (Most of the people who have this freedom are software developers.)
Decisions about what software to use are made at a higher level than the end-user in most every case. In many workplaces, it's not even possible to install your own software. Companies spend thousands of dollars on software that actually takes an inventory of everything that's installed on a user's computer, so they can "bust" unauthorized applications.
Why is this? Many reasons. One is compatibility; software has to be vetted by the IS department before you can install it (to make sure it won't break your system), and other people in the company have to be able to open and use your documents. Another reason is licensing. Individual users don't usually have much clue about how licenses work. They'll be perfectly happy to bring in software from home "because they like it" without any awareness that they're violating the software license agreement in their company's name.
Given that in most cases, individual users cannot be granted the freedom to choose the software they use, guaranteeing a certain degree of access and supportability seems a perfectly logical regulation.
As for "Its [sic] unfair," next time you walk into a government agency or even your boss's office and make *that* argument stick, I'll buy you a lollipop. It's not even terribly effective on parents of 10-year-olds these days. Life's not fair. Get used to it.
There is no more important issue for the government to consider in software purchases than what control they have over the use of the software. I don't like the idea of my government being beholden to a private entity, at great cost, to access their *own* data.
What data can you point to that supports the contention that it's more cost-effective to buy a whole new or an upgrade license than to hire a small development team to make the changes they need?
The Oracle deal was going to cost the State of California $41 million *more* over the next five years than going with their existing batch of licenses would have (Oracle claimed it would *save* $100 million). That would pay for a team of 100 programmers (at $80k a year; high but in range for California) for those five years. In reality, they could probably contract a handful of folks for less than a year to make mySQL do what they needed to do.
It's probably pretty indirect leverage, and probably works about the same as all of MS's chokeholds.
O'Reilly writes books about software. He has a good reputation for it. So software companies want him to write a book about their software, and their latest version, etc. They send him free demos, betas, and full versions to this end.
On the other end, book publishing is not a high-profit business. If he had to buy all the software that he writes about, it would be a lot harder to stay in business.
If Microsoft threatened to stop sending him free demos of their software if he didn't moderate his open-source advocacy, it would seriously threaten his business. Think about the last time you went to the bookstore... just how many different books about Windows * or MS Office or heck, even Outlook were there? Enough to fill a gap. If a new version of the software comes out, people are not necessarily going to wait for O'Reilly's book to hit the shelf before buying. And, let's face it, with the combination of MS's market share and user unfriendliness, they probably are his best-selling titles by a good deal.
That's how business works. Principles don't usually make money. People make choices every day based on economic influences. They may not be villains for it, but keep it in mind when evaluating what they say.
"why don't we just let each agency decide what is best for it rather than trying to shove a particular solution down everyone's throat?"
Good idea. As soon as you get Microsoft and all the other big developers to stop lobbying and marketing to governments with deceptive or misleading tactics, we won't have any reason for a law like this.
The reason not to let each agency decide is because it's a crapshoot whether or not the agency has someone around who is *qualified* to decide. If they don't, they'll pick whatever has the prettiest brochure and the most friendly salespeople. And maybe the best fidget toys. Given an absence of expertise, this law would at least ensure that private citizens could say "Hey, wait! That program has this problem! You should fix it!"
It's not a law, it's a bill, and it's quoted here.
And, despite the ubiquitous paranoia surrounding everything government does, I challenge you to find evidence that proprietary solutions are more secure than open-source systems. Starting with the operating system, any given distribution of Linux is a lot less prone to major security vulnerabilities than Windows *. Also, when vulnerabilities are found (more quickly) in various Linux distributions, there's very little likelihood that you're going to have to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars on an upgrade site license to protect yourself from it. Best of all, if you don't like the response you're getting from the developer, you can hire your own to fix problems.
People, quit making things up to feed paranoia about everything the government ever does. They're not out to get you, unless you're out to get someone else. Hm, are you?
Furthermore, this is not the government restricting anyone else's software acquisitions; it's the government making its *own* decision about software acquisition.
Those who want to campaign against government laws restricting qualified vendors better begin at the beginning. Why do you think so many government vehicles are Fords? Usually because they start with the requirement that they must purchase from an American car maker, and then that they have to take the lowest bidder. (A requirement that the company have fewer than 10 major recalls in the last five years seems like a better idea to me, but whatever.)
I guess simple citizen privacy is too much to ask?
If you're a government, it is.
This proposal deals with computer systems that carry all criminal and driver inquiry information used by law enforcement.
This proposal deals with the software running on those computer systems, not the data on them.
Do you have a right to know every time someone else got pulled over and had a criminal history check run on them? Do you have a right to know every time law enforcement may have suspected someone of committing a crime whether they actually were convicted or not?
No, but I have a right to know that that information is as secure and well-kept as it can be. Therefore, I have a right to inspect the equipment (hardware and software) being used. Finding out specs on the machines governments order isn't hard; their vendor contracts are a matter of public record. Finding out what new nasty bug from M$ is going to put *my* information up for grabs is a good deal harder.
If you value the privacy and control of the information the government keeps about you, you should be in *favor* of being able to inspect the system, not opposed to it.
There is no getting around it: for community oversight, the community has to see what's going on. I probably should have posted this link instead of the search utility above, however; it does make it easier to look through the latest applications. But the bottom line is, people have to be willing to look it up every day, as faithfully as they check the new trolls on/. In fact, seeing people ask here for a tool that *already exists* shows me just how unwilling we are to commit any effort to the cause.
"Human rights" is a philosophical idea, and isn't something that countries "legally recognize" mostly because it's not something with a consistent legal definition. That's why I specifically said "human-like rights" to put forth a separate concept. By that, I simply mean that corporations (under many jurisdictions to a greater or lesser extent; not just in the United States) have many rights that emulate rights human beings hold. Some of these they may need, such as the right to due process or protection from unreasonable search and seizure. But I think it's time we start looking at how people need protection from corporations, rather than how the corps need to be protected like people.
Hm, somehow, I'm thinking there's probably a law that says any money or bonus paid to you by your employer is yours to dispose of as you see fit.
Besides which, yes, there would be some of that happening. HOWEVER... it would be very difficult for a company to get 5,000 employees to each sign over their $1,000 to the same cause. Heck, some of them would probably just forget, while others would be properly morally outraged. It would still be a far sight better than the way it is now.
Corporate entities are considered the same as a person under the law. They can sue, be sued, hold patents, trademarks, and copyrights... in short, they have the same legal status you do, without the disadvantages of a mortal body. You can't incarcerate a corporation, or kill it, or disable it, or even make it feel pain (except in the pocketbook). Here at the bottom is a listing of some of the constitutional protections corporations enjoy, for example.
Slashdot Mirror
So if the paper copy is kept in a file cabinet, do we have the right to know how the lock works on the file cabinet? Do we have a right to try to break into said file cabinet? Should we really lobby the government to outlaw the use of any file cabinet that's not home-brew with published blueprints?
;-) But seriously, companies meeting that description aren't selling secrets, they're selling software. They will probably be quite willing to comply with government open-source requirements. *And* they'll get a more secure lock on the deal, too; currently, they're constantly looking over their shoulder for big brother to come kick their ass with a better sales campaign.
I can find out what kind of lock is used, because I can find out who sells the agency their filing cabinets. But what's more important is who has access to those files, and what is done to ensure their security (besides putting a lock on the cabinet; who holds the key? How many keys are there?)
If I tried to find out this information and the government stonewalled me, I'd be pretty pissed and not a little bit scared. However, government agencies are usually pretty good about allaying citizen's fears by telling them exactly what it takes for someone to get access to information.
What about all the software a government might need that doesn't have a good open-source alternative?
I'd be mightily surprised if it takes more money for the government to get a piece of OSS fixed than to buy a license for a proprietary solution (which is probably overkill anyway).
Should we drive out of business all the companies that make cheap, good, proprietary software for government use?
They've already been driven out of business by M$ and their little brothers and sisters.
I'm still not sure that such modifications would need to be secret. The difference between the data and the software is getting blurred. If it's the tool they used to help *design* the plane, but the designs themselves are not implied by the tool (and are secure in their own right), it shouldn't matter much whether that tool is publicly available (except insofar as it might make it a tiny bit easier for another government to design similar aircraft. Good luck on building it, though).
Now, as for the software that actually *runs* on the planes... that's a trickier issue. Still, it's better not to rely on security through obscurity in any case. Your system should be secure enough that even knowing how it works won't get someone in. Right now, there's a whole lot of security that requires *only* the knowledge of how the data is stored to crack it.
Of course, one of the biggest weaknesses in any security system (information or otherwise) is the people who use it. The best security system is easy to use... otherwise, people get lazy. Even if it *is* easy, training and reinforcement is necessary to keep it going... how many of you work in places where there's a post-it on every other monitor that says "Username: Blah Password: Blah blah"?
So if you can do stuff with OSS that's essential to your operations and can't be done with NT, then why is there *one* Linux box in a sea of NT boxes? Shouldn't it be the other way around?
OSS isn't going to win purely on superiority as long as the proprietary developers have more money to throw into their sales and marketdroid departments. Which they will, because they sell their software for a lot more money. which they can, because their sales and marketing departments can woo big contracts for seas of NT boxes.
I've been a big fan of PDF for a long time, but while it is currently an accessible format, it's far from a truly open format. Kinko's went through literally years of negotiations with Adobe to be able to create their KDF tool, which is a very, very stripped-down version of Acrobat Distiller, and creates a (what else?) proprietary format that can only be read by the Kinko's Document Format software. If PDF were open, none of that would have been necessary.
Fact is, right now, government documents, user manuals, and a plethora of other information is easily available on the web in PDF format. But what if Adobe stops making Acrobat Reader? Or starts charging for it? *Now* what do we do? They can stick us surely as any other big software company.
Maybe the next big project needs to be an open-source document distiller/viewer to replace PDF. *That* would be great.
Yes, because, as we all know, Photoshop's sales have gone into the crapper and The Gimp is now the most commonly used image editor amongst professionals.
.psd format. Once the government is required to use .png, I can use GIMP or IrfanView or anything I choose. So can they.
.doc anymore, then what's the point of using MS Word when they can get something else for millions less?
Where do you get GIMP for the Mac? Since a relatively large proportion of professional graphic artists still use Macs...
Besides, we're not talking about commercial purchase patterns. We're talking about the *government* not being able to save documents that *I* have a right to access in
Image editing is probably a poor choice for comparisons, since images are almost never archived in completely proprietary formats (though there's a good many GIFs out there, and you'll have a bit of a hassle saving them with GIMP), and since it's more of a niche market with fewer options available. But if the government can't use
It does force the issue, especially if you mandate that the default format needs to be open.
My concern, though, is that when proprietary software is allowed on the field, it has an overwhelming advantage in the marketing arena. An open source solution might very well be equal or even superior in all respects to a proprietary solution, but the open source developer can't pay an account manager $100k/year to take the decision-maker to lunch and explain to them just why their solution is better.
If it could be assumed that it would work reasonably well, it might make sense. I fear that there's just no way to allow proprietary developers to compete without handing them the business regardless of whether or not they can provide better.
Perhaps a better compromise would be to only consider open source solutions, unless *none* satisfy the functional requirements (or can be reasonably made to satisfy the functional requirements), in which case the bidding can be opened to proprietary companies. Once they see the price tag difference, though, government agencies might take another look at how open source options can be customized.
"Let's say I have two word processing programs. One is Open Source, but doesn't support the backspace key, or italics, or different fonts. It crashes all the time and the amount of money it would take to fix it is twice as much as the proprietary software costs. The proprietary software supports all these functions.
Which one is best? Which one should we use?
What if the amount it costs to make the Open Source version comparable to the proprietary version is 100 times the cost of it? 1000? 10,000?"
And let's say that Bill Gates gets a better haircut...
You can come up with all kinds of preposterous hypotheticals that appear to support your position, but what it comes down to is vapor. If the open-source solution doesn't support those essential features, find one that does. If it costs more (over the life of the software) to update the OSS, I'll eat my shoes.
Come up with an example based somewhere in the real world, and you might have an argument. But your universe where there's only one OSS option and it's extremely costly (i.e. time-consuming) to tailor it to your needs is not the one I live in.
Just to throw out my own real-world example, the Oracle deal in California would have cost the state $41 million extra over five years if it had gone through. That's 100 full-time programmers at $80k per year, which is an above-average salary in CA. (60k is probably more realistic.) Having seen what proprietary software is actually costing entities, I have trouble imagining your scenario.
Actually, no, that's not what happens. The government, like most large companies, will stick with "shoddy" or inadequate solutions for a very long time because of the prohibitive cost of upgrades. In the meantime, people feel "locked in" a particular license agreement, and don't consider the alternatives. They tend to buy the software company's rhetoric that "Oh, changing horses in midstream would be BAD!"
A law like this *requires* the most important kind of company to use criteria other than inertia in making software decisions. They don't seem to be capable of doing it without making a rule (To wit, the Oracle debacle in California).
"No one should be forced to use any type of software. Its stupid"
I'm sure the people who wrote this law agree. That's why it's very clearly (and openly) defined, such that any software company can meet the regulations if it chooses to do so. It's impossible to make open-source software *into* closed-source software; but the reverse is quite possible.
If you think that every entity should have the right to choose what kind of software they use, why won't you recognize that passage of this law would be the State of California doing *exactly* that? If I announced "as of tomorrow, I'm no longer buying any software that isn't open-sourced" would you rail on me for limiting my own choices? Or would that be "stupid"?
Actually, this law would have no effect on your department (if you were in the California government and it passed). It doesn't require anything with regard to software currently in use. It only says that *future* purchases must meet these requirements.
Which means that, if anything, we might all get an open-source version of SAS out of the deal when they next need to upgrade. Yay! Wouldn't that be a thrill?
"There are people in Government too, should they not be allow to choose whatever suits their job best?"
Erm, no. In fact, there are very few entities, public or private, where this is the case. (Most of the people who have this freedom are software developers.)
Decisions about what software to use are made at a higher level than the end-user in most every case. In many workplaces, it's not even possible to install your own software. Companies spend thousands of dollars on software that actually takes an inventory of everything that's installed on a user's computer, so they can "bust" unauthorized applications.
Why is this? Many reasons. One is compatibility; software has to be vetted by the IS department before you can install it (to make sure it won't break your system), and other people in the company have to be able to open and use your documents. Another reason is licensing. Individual users don't usually have much clue about how licenses work. They'll be perfectly happy to bring in software from home "because they like it" without any awareness that they're violating the software license agreement in their company's name.
Given that in most cases, individual users cannot be granted the freedom to choose the software they use, guaranteeing a certain degree of access and supportability seems a perfectly logical regulation.
As for "Its [sic] unfair," next time you walk into a government agency or even your boss's office and make *that* argument stick, I'll buy you a lollipop. It's not even terribly effective on parents of 10-year-olds these days. Life's not fair. Get used to it.
There is no more important issue for the government to consider in software purchases than what control they have over the use of the software. I don't like the idea of my government being beholden to a private entity, at great cost, to access their *own* data.
What data can you point to that supports the contention that it's more cost-effective to buy a whole new or an upgrade license than to hire a small development team to make the changes they need?
The Oracle deal was going to cost the State of California $41 million *more* over the next five years than going with their existing batch of licenses would have (Oracle claimed it would *save* $100 million). That would pay for a team of 100 programmers (at $80k a year; high but in range for California) for those five years. In reality, they could probably contract a handful of folks for less than a year to make mySQL do what they needed to do.
It's probably pretty indirect leverage, and probably works about the same as all of MS's chokeholds.
O'Reilly writes books about software. He has a good reputation for it. So software companies want him to write a book about their software, and their latest version, etc. They send him free demos, betas, and full versions to this end.
On the other end, book publishing is not a high-profit business. If he had to buy all the software that he writes about, it would be a lot harder to stay in business.
If Microsoft threatened to stop sending him free demos of their software if he didn't moderate his open-source advocacy, it would seriously threaten his business. Think about the last time you went to the bookstore... just how many different books about Windows * or MS Office or heck, even Outlook were there? Enough to fill a gap. If a new version of the software comes out, people are not necessarily going to wait for O'Reilly's book to hit the shelf before buying. And, let's face it, with the combination of MS's market share and user unfriendliness, they probably are his best-selling titles by a good deal.
That's how business works. Principles don't usually make money. People make choices every day based on economic influences. They may not be villains for it, but keep it in mind when evaluating what they say.
"why don't we just let each agency decide what is best for it rather than trying to shove a particular solution down everyone's throat?"
Good idea. As soon as you get Microsoft and all the other big developers to stop lobbying and marketing to governments with deceptive or misleading tactics, we won't have any reason for a law like this.
The reason not to let each agency decide is because it's a crapshoot whether or not the agency has someone around who is *qualified* to decide. If they don't, they'll pick whatever has the prettiest brochure and the most friendly salespeople. And maybe the best fidget toys. Given an absence of expertise, this law would at least ensure that private citizens could say "Hey, wait! That program has this problem! You should fix it!"
It's not a law, it's a bill, and it's quoted here.
And, despite the ubiquitous paranoia surrounding everything government does, I challenge you to find evidence that proprietary solutions are more secure than open-source systems. Starting with the operating system, any given distribution of Linux is a lot less prone to major security vulnerabilities than Windows *. Also, when vulnerabilities are found (more quickly) in various Linux distributions, there's very little likelihood that you're going to have to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars on an upgrade site license to protect yourself from it. Best of all, if you don't like the response you're getting from the developer, you can hire your own to fix problems.
People, quit making things up to feed paranoia about everything the government ever does. They're not out to get you, unless you're out to get someone else. Hm, are you?
Furthermore, this is not the government restricting anyone else's software acquisitions; it's the government making its *own* decision about software acquisition.
Those who want to campaign against government laws restricting qualified vendors better begin at the beginning. Why do you think so many government vehicles are Fords? Usually because they start with the requirement that they must purchase from an American car maker, and then that they have to take the lowest bidder. (A requirement that the company have fewer than 10 major recalls in the last five years seems like a better idea to me, but whatever.)
You do know that this is about the California state government and not the Federal government, right?
Also, this law regards future purchases, not current software. It will only save money in that regard, by reducing upgrade costs dramatically.
I guess simple citizen privacy is too much to ask?
If you're a government, it is.
This proposal deals with computer systems that carry all criminal and driver inquiry information used by law enforcement.
This proposal deals with the software running on those computer systems, not the data on them.
Do you have a right to know every time someone else got pulled over and had a criminal history check run on them? Do you have a right to know every time law enforcement may have suspected someone of committing a crime whether they actually were convicted or not?
No, but I have a right to know that that information is as secure and well-kept as it can be. Therefore, I have a right to inspect the equipment (hardware and software) being used. Finding out specs on the machines governments order isn't hard; their vendor contracts are a matter of public record. Finding out what new nasty bug from M$ is going to put *my* information up for grabs is a good deal harder.
If you value the privacy and control of the information the government keeps about you, you should be in *favor* of being able to inspect the system, not opposed to it.
There is no getting around it: for community oversight, the community has to see what's going on. I probably should have posted this link instead of the search utility above, however; it does make it easier to look through the latest applications. But the bottom line is, people have to be willing to look it up every day, as faithfully as they check the new trolls on /. In fact, seeing people ask here for a tool that *already exists* shows me just how unwilling we are to commit any effort to the cause.
Food for thought...
"Human rights" is a philosophical idea, and isn't something that countries "legally recognize" mostly because it's not something with a consistent legal definition. That's why I specifically said "human-like rights" to put forth a separate concept. By that, I simply mean that corporations (under many jurisdictions to a greater or lesser extent; not just in the United States) have many rights that emulate rights human beings hold. Some of these they may need, such as the right to due process or protection from unreasonable search and seizure. But I think it's time we start looking at how people need protection from corporations, rather than how the corps need to be protected like people.
Hm, somehow, I'm thinking there's probably a law that says any money or bonus paid to you by your employer is yours to dispose of as you see fit.
Besides which, yes, there would be some of that happening. HOWEVER... it would be very difficult for a company to get 5,000 employees to each sign over their $1,000 to the same cause. Heck, some of them would probably just forget, while others would be properly morally outraged. It would still be a far sight better than the way it is now.
Corporate entities are considered the same as a person under the law. They can sue, be sued, hold patents, trademarks, and copyrights... in short, they have the same legal status you do, without the disadvantages of a mortal body. You can't incarcerate a corporation, or kill it, or disable it, or even make it feel pain (except in the pocketbook). Here at the bottom is a listing of some of the constitutional protections corporations enjoy, for example.
Wouldn't it be amazing if campaign finance contributions could only come from valid, registered voters?
As it is, foreign governments, multinational corporations, and large PACs have louder votes than US citizens. Doesn't make much sense to me.
I'm patenting the idea that Bill Gates is evil.