Mostly a good thing
Open Source on Rise in GovernmentBy Peter Galli
PORTLAND�The use of open-source software is alive and well and growing among government agencies, including the U.S. Census Bureau.
In an address at the O'Reilly Open Source Convention (Oscon) here on Thursday titled "Open Source in Government," Lisa Wolfisch Nyman, a senior Internet technology architect at the Bureau, said the issue of open source and government was first raised at Oscon in 1999, where many public sector employees said they were forbidden from using open source.
But things have changed substantially over the past four years, she said. "In June this year, Bruce Mehlman, the assistant secretary for technical policy at the Department of Commerce, said that the 'Penguin has landed', which is quite a shift in just four years," she said.
I really think the government should be prevented from using closed source software unless the need is, like,
now and there's no open source software of equal utility. Security concerns over open source is nonsense… the best encryption algorhythms are well known and therefore well proven because they've been widely challenged.
This voting machine thing has me concerned though. Diebold has provided software for its voting machines made to the specification of each state that uses it, and open source software would make that simple to do, but it would also make it simple to do exactly the sort of thing Bev Harris says was possible.
Aahh. Paranoia sucks.
posted by Prometheus 6 at 7/11/2003 09:11:13 AM |
Posted by P6 at July 11, 2003 09:11 AM
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