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Linux Business

Advocating Open Source Within the Gov't 207

Posted by Hemos from the making-headway-within-the-powers-that-be dept.
There's an interesting piece running on Newsforge concerning advocacy of Open Source within the (US) Federal Government. The Feds, as we've talked about here before, are caught in an interesting cross fire - and based on personal experience, I can tell you that they are looking at it. Carpe Diem, folks.
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Advocating Open Source Within the Gov't More

Advocating Open Source Within the Gov't

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  • Admittedly it's not a high priority on the government's list of things to do, but it'd be nice to see them save some money on items like licensing fees, which is money spent and getting nothing tangible.

    There might be an inital expense in retraining workers to use the new software, but the benefits seem to outweigh the costs in the long run.
    • There might be an inital expense in retraining workers to use the new software, but the benefits seem to outweigh the costs in the long run.

      Have you ever tried to get a beaurocracy to look beyond immediate expense?
    • The concept being discussed is to introduce new facilities to create new jobs. (at least as I understood it -- I read the article pretty quickly, because I had to pee :-) )

      So obviously, there's a new expense, but it's not in re-training the workers, but in training them to begin with, which would be necessary anyway (if that -- there are lots of unemployed, yet skilled tech people out there, no?).

      The plan makes the government look good, for creating jobs, it makes "us" happy, for promoting open source development, and (IAN an economist, mind you) makes for a better economy (locally and beyond (?)), with the lower unemployment and all.

      /rambling
    • Actually, the FAA is trying to port one of their air traffic management systems to Linux for the sole purpose of saving HP/UX license fees.
    • Save a fortune on licensing fees

      There can be a downside to that as well. If the US Government is mainly licensing US software (and it is) that's economic stimulus.

  • Are there any good reasons government-funded research (excepting SBIR which specifically is intended to help small businesses get going) shouldn't be required to license their code with a nice open license? I mean, we *did* pay for some of that development.

  • support (Score:2, Interesting)

    by tricker ( 78785 )
    one stumbling block is that government agencies (like the one i work for) shy away from products that have no old-school support structure.
    • one stumbling block is that government agencies (like the one i work for) shy away from products that have no old-school support structure.

      Oh, like I can call someone at MicroSoft and get them to help me with my Windows problems...

      • Yes, you can, you just have to pay for it. IIRC you get free help for 2 incidents, after that, better get a nightjob if you need to call a lot...

    • Re:support (Score:3, Interesting)

      by RagManX ( 258563 )
      one stumbling block is that government agencies (like the one i work for) shy away from products that have no old-school support structure.

      This is exactly the problem I've run in to at the gov't site where I work. I've posted about this in other open source thread discussions, but will mention it again here. At my site, the two responses I get when I want to use an open source tool (Nessus, Ethereal, and Snort being the top three I try to use) are: 1)We can't get support for those, and 2)But we can't use free software because someone might have put a trojan in there and we'll never know.

      Of course, since I build the tools from source, #2 doesn't really apply as we could always check them. And I've gotten more support from various mailing lists when I've had questions about my open source tools than I've ever been able to get for commercial products. But the gov't morons here don't like those answers.

      The other thing you'll run in to is that most gov't idiots like to have someone to blame if something goes wrong. With open source stuff, you can't get anything back from the creators if you have a problem, since many of the creators having nothing but their talents. On the other hand, you can't get anything from the commercial entities because of the EULA, but the gov't brainless zombies believe that because they are a business, they can be sued. Besides, we've never had a problem with my open source tools, just the commercial ones.

      RagManX

  • Money makes the world go 'round (Score:1, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward
    When the decision is about to be made, there's always that one "credible" study which proves that open source is not only more expensive, but also doesn't deliver what is absolutely needed. Politicians base their decision on that, hence can't be held accountable for ignoring facts. There's no money in open source, we can't buy our own studies, we lose. Whatever you do, try to get filthy rich, otherwise there's no chance you could ever make people do what you want them to do on a scale that matters.

  • Open source discussed in the World Social Forum (Score:3, Informative)

    by papo ( 57964 ) <jpapoNO@SPAMhotmail.com> on Thursday February 07, 2002 @01:27PM (#2968416) Homepage
    Other countries like Brazil, China and France are adopting open source software and ideas faster than USA. This is interesting to see because most open source developers are concentrated in the States.

    Just as a pointer: Richar Stallman participated in a debate about patents and trademarks in the World Social Forum realized in Porto Alegre, Brazil. See this link: http://www.softwarelivre.rs.gov.br/ (sorry, its in portuguese!!!) and this one http://www.fsm.rs.gov.br/ing/index.php (in english!).
    • Just because they are concentrated in the USA doesn't mean they are from there... The reason they are there is called a "brain drain" and that is where the best paid jobs for programmers are.

      Lots of them were born AND educated elsewhere.

      Lots of projects started elsewhere: SAMBA, Webmin and others spring to mind...
    • That's because OpenSource is HUGE.

      What I mean is, computers are probally the most significant, far reaching, invention that humans, and our human ancestors, have ever invented--just short of fire, in fact. Well, I guess agriculture beats out computers. But that puts em at third place. By loose logic, it follows that software and code being developed and given away for FREE on those machines has the potential to shape and transform human society more than almost anything else. You wanna start the next revolution? Think Marx was right? Stick your ass into high gear, code like mad, and trust me, you will shake the titans of industry. Some call those people tyrants. You'd be hero, you know. After all, computers programmers will control the future, I think that much is clear. Well, maybe not. The military will control the future. But programmers will get to write the history books, and if you think Bill Gates is going to go down favorably in the history books written by a bunch of programmers, you're probally quite mistaken.

  • The government is going through so much trouble to slap down Microsoft for being a monopoly. They should look for an alternative to Microsoft, whether it's Open Source or not. But if they go Open Source, they have more chance of being able to re-use the hardware they already have.

  • Give me a break (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Wind_Walker ( 83965 ) on Thursday February 07, 2002 @01:30PM (#2968439) Homepage Journal
    You honestly think that the Microsoft lobbiests will let the Feds choose something that's open-source over their proprietary formats?

    You really think that all the oil/health care/tobacco/technology industries are going to keep quiet over this type of thing? It impacts them too, you know.

    The government will not change because the corporations (who own the government, figuratively speaking) will not let them change. Until we get rid of campaign contributions and begin doing public funding of campaigns, the corporations will continue to control the government and the open-source movement (and all other movements) will get stomped on.

    • The government will not change because the corporations (who own the government, figuratively speaking) will not let them change. Until we get rid of campaign contributions and begin doing public funding of campaigns, the corporations will continue to control the government and the open-source movement (and all other movements) will get stomped on.

      This only prevents a global change. Individual managers can decide if they want to use a certain open source product. If enough do this, it could initiate change from the inside out, showing the reduced costs, benefits from having the code, etc.

      Software is something that bigwigs in the gov't can't make a decision on without proven results relating to government, so it's a no-brainer to calve to the people that are contributing money to their compaigns or parties (and have a proven track record). If the software is going to save their department millions in licensing fees and maintainance while providing the same functionality, then they have to justify why they want the costly proprietary solution TO THE PUBLIC. As open source becomes more commonplace, this will become an increasingly difficult thing to do.
    • Until we get rid of campaign contributions and begin doing public funding of campaigns

      That's about the worst thing that could happen. Who gets this public money? Anybody that throws his hat in the ring, including my neighbor Jim-Bob who's just doing it for the cash? How do you decide who qualifies, and how it's apportioned? If it's based on previous elections, you've just decided to keep incumbent parties in office forever, which is precisely the current problem. What about third parties? What about people (like me) who object to subsidizing views I don't agree with? Or apolitical types who don't want to fund politicians at all? Why should you steal from (tax) them for politicians' gain? Thomas Jefferson said, "To compel a man to furnish funds for the propagation of ideas he disbelieves and abhors is sinful and tyrannical." Some of us still believe that. If I want to support X's campaign, I will...but I don't expect you to, nor would I force you to. If you want to support his opponent Y, you can go ahead, but don't expect or force me to help you.

      (The Constitution [constitutionparty.com] and Libertarian [lp.org] parties refuse to accept any government money they qualify for on this principle. Rare to find a candidate that is willing to stand on principles these days.)

      What we need is not campaign finance reform but electoral process reform. I should be able to give unlimited support to support the views I agree with. There should be no caps, no spending limits. However, current electoral process favors the incumbent Duopoly and discourages third parties. Why are they called "third" parties? Because plurality voting exposes a false sense of a two-party system! Ever heard of the "wasted vote" problem, or voting for "the lesser of two evils"? We should not have to choose between two evils! Condorcet voting gives every contender a fair chance, because voters' freedom of conscience is preserved.

      Changing to the Condorcet method would be the single best thing that could happen to American politics. I don't see reforms like this happening any time soon. The entrenched parties have too much to lose, so they're not likely to make it easier to defeat them. But something must be done.

      • Who gets this public money? Anybody that throws his hat in the ring, including my neighbor Jim-Bob who's just doing it for the cash?

        What cash?

        Public funding of elections generally means you get a pre-paid postage meter and an address list, and sometimes it means you get a five minute slot on TV at the same time, but on a different day, as your opponents.
      • I have no problem in taxing you to support politicians you abhor, because I am fully willing to support politicians I abhor. Really, we're doing it right now, our tax dollars are supporting politicians that (likely) neither of us would have picked, if we had an open choice. Part of supporting free speech is supporting the rights of people whose speech offends you. The reason I think this needs tax support is that we want people who aren't independently wealthy, or backed by wealth, to be able to compete.

        Really though, I'd like to end campaign financing in the way we see it today. I'd rather "fund" politicians by giving them free spots on TV, funding debates, and the like. This way nobody is supporting anyone else's ideas, they're only supporting an open forum in which people can speak. Like everyone pitching in to buy a soapbox, without limits on who can use it.

        As for who got to use it, I'd say that you'd need to hit a certain number of signatures at various stages. To start, maybe 10k signatures. That'd get state-wide air-time. Maybe 30k to get nation-wide, and 250k to get time during the finals. But without as hard of a limit. And ideally based on the population of their home state, etc.

        My rough steps (with some basic notes as to the reasoning) would be to ban outright all contributions to a politician (call it treason, it's essentialy an attempt to bribe government). Limit campaign spending to some small sum, $10k or so, require receipts. (Make enough things free like TV spots as required that a lot of money isn't important). Let people contribute, but only by going to a campaign office and helping (cash donations favour the rich, time is something everyone has the same ammount of in a day.)

        Taking off spending caps would simply let someone like Bill Gates outright buy a candidate and likely get the elected. It's also lead to a little favoritisms once elected. (There's really no way you can give money to a politician and not be bribing them.)

        However, voting reform I do agree with. A simple system where you could vote for every party you want and the number of seats given was chosen by the their percentage of total votes. Nobody would be unwilling to vote for little parties.

    • I suspect it all comes down to how exposed they are. If it gets a lot of publicity and they feel like the public is watching them, they might do the right thing. If they think they aren't being watched, they will happily shovel taxpayer's money into furnaces, Microsoft's pockets, etc.

      Cockroaches hate the light.

    • Re:Give me a break (Score:2, Informative)

      by Mickey ( 90903 )
      You honestly think that the Microsoft lobbiests will let the Feds choose something that's open-source over their proprietary formats?

      Campaign finance reform has little to do with corporations' hold over the government. If individuals (myself included, I admit) would utilize the representative system already in place, we would be able to wield the influence we think is to be had only the the rich and the corporate.

      Write your congressman. Use your right to vote. If everyone who wanted to see Linux used in the government would write to all of their local, regional, and national representatives, we would see a lot more Linux used in the government. What John Weathersby is doing is good and necessary, but that doesn't mean we should expect him to do it alone.

      Write. Vote. The power is and always has been in our hands.

      • Re:Give me a break (Score:2, Interesting)

        by fishebulb ( 257214 )
        what you said is 100% accurate. The current mindset in the US is of laziness IMHO. A rep doesnt have to worry about being voted out right now, so he/she can listen to the corps and do their bidding. If they knew that the public would not re-elect them, it would be the opposite. Campaigns contribs do not matter if the public doesnt want that person anymore. Im talking about public as the people who are not involved, besides the occasional voting. If I'm a rep, and i do what xyz company wants, but i am still re-elected, I will keep doing what the xyz company wants. It would take a considerable stand to stop this from happening. Not even a huge amount of people, just a commited group. (still needs a fair number of people). Look at the anti-abortion, hardcore family value people. They make up a small percentage of voters. They have the appearance of a large percentage, the loudest voice wins.

    • Re:Give me a break (Score:3, Interesting)

      by wfrp01 ( 82831 )
      I think the Feds may be our best hope. Call me chicken little, but tell me, what do you get when you combine: (1) a digital rights management OS, (2) encrypted network communications, (3) proprietary code. If you can, throw in SSSCA for good measure.

      This is what you get: you have no idea what you get. What's going over that wire? Who knows? What's your OS doing in its secret private places. Giving you a wank job, for all you know.

      Any government that would agree to run, or should I say "be run", by such systems would have to be nuts. Now maybe the US could pressure MS into allowing government auditors code access. Maybe they could get a backdoor, too. But I doubt that priviledge would extend to governments around the world.

      I've heard said (I don't know this for sure) that the reason PC boxes are beige, is that some federal gov't standard mandated that color. The governent being the hugest customer around, the cost effective thing to do was to manufacture to their standards. Whether this is a true story or not, the fact remains that no organization has clout like the US federal government. It looks to me that unless the Feds want MS to give them a poke in the eye, that they might seriously like to consider alternatives.
    • Just an FYI,

      We have run everything important under Linux and have done so for a number of years. Who exactly are the "Feds" you are refering to?


      Eric

    • You honestly think that the Microsoft lobbiests will let the Feds choose something that's open-source over their proprietary formats?

      Just how many jobs does Microsoft create in Trent Lott's Mississippi, for example? Just how beholden to Microsoft are politicians in CA with Silicon Valley, VA and NY with AOL/TW headquarters, NC where Redhat is headquartered, etc.?

      Best,
      -jimbo

  • Not only Open Source, but also Open Standards (Score:5, Informative)

    by mdubinko ( 459807 ) on Thursday February 07, 2002 @01:33PM (#2968460) Homepage
    An article on XML.com outlines the US government's new mandate to support only open standards, specifically mentioning W3C. Even cooler, the guidelines expressly forbid competing (proprietary) standards.

    See the article [xml.com]

    .micah

  • I've said it before, I'll say it again (Score:4, Insightful)

    by dhamsaic ( 410174 ) on Thursday February 07, 2002 @01:35PM (#2968480)
    The biggest problem is support. The government runs mainly on HP-UX and Solaris, and they do that because they know that if something goes wrong, it can be fixed by tomorrow at the latest. Linux needs solutions providers - one company that sells the hardware, the operating system and the support. Someone the government can call if it breaks and say "fix it!" - and have someone working on it less than 4 hours later. If some Linux company can provide that, then we have a chance.

    • Re:I've said it before, I'll say it again (Score:1, Funny)

      by Anonymous Coward
      You meam VA Linu......oh wait :)

    • Someone the government can call if it breaks and say "fix it!" - and have someone working on it less than 4 hours later. If some Linux company can provide that, then we have a chance.

      And of course, you know that's doesn't really happen, right ?

      Companies like HP or Sun don't jump because a customer says so. Much less in 4 hours.

      Customers have this illusion that they call the shots, but the truth of the matter is that you can threaten "I'll dump Sun/HP if this is not fixed pronto!", but no one in their right mind actually does this. The cost of switching to another vendor is way too prohibitive. And companies know this.

      And I know this because I've worked both for the goverment, and for the "Big Company"

      • >And of course, you know that's doesn't really happen, right ?
        >
        >Companies like HP or Sun don't jump because a customer says so. Much less in 4 hours.

        Nonsense. You can get under-4-hour support for most any IBM product, you just have to pay a lot for that support.

        For example, one of our mainframe controllers blew both power supplies. IBM flew a lear jet from Atlanta to Mississippi and had the part installed within 2 hours of us placing the service call.

        Steven V>
    • Linux needs solutions providers - one company that sells the hardware, the operating system and the support. Someone the government can call if it breaks and say "fix it!" - and have someone working on it less than 4 hours later. If some Linux company can provide that, then we have a chance.

      ...if anyone's getting inspired by this...

      ...I'm thinking any company like that will probably be immediately and consistently assaulted by "the enemy."

    • For high-performance servers maybe, but ... (Score:4, Insightful)

      by rlowe69 ( 74867 ) <ryanlowe_AThotmailDOTcom> on Thursday February 07, 2002 @02:03PM (#2968682) Homepage
      The biggest problem is support. The government runs mainly on HP-UX and Solaris, and they do that because they know that if something goes wrong, it can be fixed by tomorrow at the latest. Linux needs solutions providers - one company that sells the hardware, the operating system and the support.

      For high-performance, specialized servers maybe, but you can get commercial-off-the-shelf support for x86 machines from just about anyone. As for the OS, I think RedHat has the Linux support market covered, enough at least to get IBM's attention.

      So the gov't may not have ideas of replacing EVERY machine with opensource, but I don't see much of a barrier with replacing low-traffic servers, databases and desktop machines (negating the obvious MS Office file format issues). The support is already there.
      • While I'm not sure I agree with the original poster's point, separate off-the-shelf support for the OS and the box probably isn't the solution.

        It'll work for any problem that's clearly an OS or clearly a hardware issue (or, by extension, clearly a userland-software issue), but it's not going to help when the problem's unclear. You'll get the A: It's B's fault, B: It's A's fault situation. If everything falls under A's remit, the problem goes away. It might be an OS problem, it might be a hardware problem, it might be a software problem, but in any event, it's A's problem to solve.
    • We find that it's a difficult thing to convince people anyway, regardless of the *claims* of support. We've got actual references that back up our claims, but it's usually not viable.

      Any open source packages we install and deploy for people (Linux/Apache servers, mail servers, etc) we have 24/7 service available. You want someone to call at 3 in the morning if your machine goes down? We offer that - you can get a real callback at 3am within 10 minutes from us if they wanna pay for it. We've done it for other clients running multimillion dollar ordering systems. Most clients just don't want to pay for that.

      Perhaps the government would, but I don't think it's all just about support. "Support" is somewhat a convenient buzzword to dismiss open source stuff. MOST people play up the price angle when pitching open source. But if the client needs to pay for round the clock support for something, why not just use the proprietary stuff in the first place?

      I'm not dismissing this - it's a real issue that still needs to be addressed. But as someone whose company offers round the clock support on everything we install (and some things we don't) I can tell you when you actually OFFER it, they often don't buy.
      • Maybe you aren't charging enough for it? You might laugh, but I can tell you from personal experience that if you don't set the price high enough, you will get overlooked. I have seen government purchases go to a more expensive bidder based solely on the argument that the service must be better, look how much it costs.

        Government funding is really wierd about maintenance too. Budgets can be really tight, and it is impossible to come up with $10K for a new box, but when it comes time to purchase maintenance they can shell out $50K without blinking every stinking year.

        Other people have mentioned it already, but open source would do much better if more companies would make a big deal about their support services, and focus on that. Government people really only care about one thing when they are deciding on what software and hardware to use, who they can blame when something breaks. That is why IBM, Microsoft, Oracle, Dell, HP, CISCO and so on have such a grasp on the government market. The old saying "You don't get fired for buying IBM" is as true today as it was in 1985.
    • I believe Carly has recently promised to do just this - offer the same scale of support on large Linux servers and mainframes that they do on thier HP-UX products. Our company gets about everything from HP, and their service is quite good.

    • Hmmm. Sounds like RedHat and IBM to me.

    • Not a problem (Score:3, Insightful)

      by MtViewGuy ( 197597 )
      If some Linux company can provide that, then we have a chance.

      Yes, that company goes by the initials I-B-M. :-)

      Given IBM's heavy investment in Linux and their reputation for quick service for their biggest customers, if you have a roomful of IBM made server machines running Linux having problems an IBM technician should be on-call for service within a few hours to fix that problem.

      After all, IBM wants to make Linux available on all their big iron platforms, so this could mean that IBM could end up being the larger supplier of Linux-based products and services in the world within a few years.
  • If my tax dollars paid for it, I should be able to use it, look at it, alter, make love to it... whatever I want.
    • Including incorporate it into a proprietary product?

      Corporations pay taxes too....
      • Including incorporate it into a proprietary product?

        Corporations pay taxes too....

        Absolutely. I realize some readers are warming up the flamethrowers and are about to bitch and moan about some aberrations where large companies have paid nothing (in income tax, there are other taxes) but please consider the typical case not exception. I've worked for small companies for the most part and they have paid a lot in taxes.

        The majority of companies out there are as deserving as individuals. They are run by decent and fair people, they pay taxes, they deserve a fair share like you.

        I.e. BSD'ish license not GPL'ish would be more fair.

  • Human Resources (Score:4, Interesting)

    by worldwideweber ( 116531 ) on Thursday February 07, 2002 @01:37PM (#2968493) Homepage Journal
    One of my biggest concerns regarding the adoption of Linux by the public sector is the availability of human resources. Having worked for several non-profits I can say that it is a lot harder for public institutions (and especially government) to hire the right people because there are always political problems. For example, how many Linux professionals come from areas outside the United States? If the government can only hire US citizens, then it will have to cut out a significant portion of its applicant pool. A pool that even on a world-wide level is not that big. As a result, it will have to step up and compete for a resource like a "Linux Systems Administrator" in the US labor market. Given the short supply of these types of people in the US, the price of labor (i.e. the salaries expected from these people) will be too high for a public institution to compete against a private one. Consequently, the public institutions will have to hire folks with lower salary expectations (probably as a result of a lack of experience). Therefore, public institutions will likely have more problems with their systems and blame it all on Linux.

    This is just one scenario that I have seen played out in the government (or government sponsored) institutions that I've worked at.

  • OSSI mailing list (Score:5, Informative)

    by xiitone ( 152104 ) <xiitone AT well DOT com> on Thursday February 07, 2002 @01:39PM (#2968509) Homepage
    The OSSI has a mailing list for discussing Open Source and federal Projects.
    subscribe:
    opengovtprojects mailing list [oss-institute.org]
    or email:
    opengovtprojects-request@oss-institute.org [mailto] with the word subscribe as the subject
  • Did anyone else find the discussion about how gov't contract work really fascinating? That sucessful gov't contractors spread their contracts over multiple congressional districts as a defensive maneuver against budget cuts is a bit ... creepy.

    I realize that this is The Way Things Work, but is it right? or is it merely the propogation of a sucessful strategy?

    Myself, I'm not sure that the way to legitmize Linux in gov't is to politic it in - 'bidness' aside. Getting in front of the policital movers and shakers and presenting facts is one thing. Using that time to pork barrel your own certification company strikes me as distinctly another, regardless of whether or not this is the way things are done.

    Cheers,
    -- RLJ

  • What will prevent Linux from making it! (Score:3, Interesting)

    by GSloop ( 165220 ) <networkguru@sloo ... minus physicist> on Thursday February 07, 2002 @01:45PM (#2968556) Homepage
    I've said this before, but here goes again...

    The Linux we all know and love, the notion of free [beer/speech] Linux won't make it by itself, that's because the Political system responds to money and power. Linux won't cut it there... But pair Linux to some big biz with big bucks. and it might happen....

    The political system only responds to those who have money. Think of it this way. You're a senator or congressman or pres/vp or state elected official. You need money to stay in your job - a job you really wanted, else you wouldn't have gone through the hassle to get in the first place. Now, to get money, you have to be a "good" investment. (An aside - these rules are more true for higher $ political races, and apply less and less as the job gets "smaller")

    Now, Corp A or Very Rich Man B want to give you money - why? - because they want an investment vehicle. These "investors" will continue to invest only as long as you make a return for them. If they find someone who offers better returns, they'll invest elsewhere.

    So, you only have so much time or influence. If you value your job, you'll maximize your return (campaign contributions) by maximizing the return on your biggest job security people (the people who donate the most money).

    So in base, if you're not able to play with the big boys (big contributors) your chance of making a difference is very small. I would suggest that that only way you will, is if you are unopposed by a moneyied (sp) interest. If you are on the opposing side of an issue against a interest with money, and you don't have money, or nearly as much, just kiss it goodbye.

    So, we have to pair Linux to IBM or others who will play the money political game, we can win. But that will probably end up changing Linux to some degree too.

    It's sort of like a pact with the devil. I say go for it, and try to keep Linux true to its' ideals.

    Cheers!
  • The skepticism with which some of the early posts view this possibility is disheartening. Some may forget that the U.S. Government spent a fortune in the 1980s buying computer equipment from Wang in a desperate and untimately unsuccessful attempt to prop up that failing company. When Wang (inevitably) imploded in bankruptcy, Uncle Sam was left holding the bag with a lot of equipment and no support. The point? It didn't make much sense to buy Wang, and "credible" reports may argue against adopting Linux, but if powerful agents on The Hill are backing a project, deals go through in spite of conventional wisdom. To the extent that Weathersby's Machiavellian approach to Hill politics fosters the adoption of open source, his efforts are to be commended - and supported - such that for once, the log may roll in favor of diffuse interests. Winter

  • Critical Mass (Score:3, Interesting)

    by CSieber ( 548526 ) on Thursday February 07, 2002 @01:49PM (#2968574) Homepage
    Clearly the future of Linux in the world is securing govt. contracts and other ways of making publicly known without people going out and having to put it on their desktops. Another good example of this is Red Hat's deal with the Indian govt. to put Linux on all their school computers. India is not a small country folks, and once they start pumping out computer-literate people loyal to Linux, the tide will shift.

    Steps like this are key to solving the Linux Equation. Clearly Linux is superior in every way to Windows (especially for the government) but without a critical mass it will never take over. Hopefully efforts like this (and the one in Germany) will push it past the critical mass stage and Linux will become The OS and not just another OS.

    • Clearly Linux is superior in every way to Windows


      How do you figure that? Just because you said so? Linux is not superior in every way to Windows. It's better at some things, and not as good at others. Saying that it's superior in every way just makes it sound like you are talking out of your ass.

  • ...that despite being glad someone is finally lobbying for open-source software, I felt vaguely dirty after reading this article?

    ick... I need to wash my hands...

  • How about eminent domain instead? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by AnotherBlackHat ( 265897 ) on Thursday February 07, 2002 @01:54PM (#2968618) Homepage
    I'm all for the government using open source, funding it's development, and all the other things that are mentioned in the article, but I think it should go farther than that.

    The government should start buying things that have already been produced and put them in the public domain. And in the more egregious cases, it could use its power of eminent domain to buy the source whether the company wants to sell it or not.

    -- where's that "-1 didn't read article" moderator choice when you need it?
    • The government should start buying things that have already been produced and put them in the public domain. And in the more egregious cases, it could use its power of eminent domain to buy the source whether the company wants to sell it or not.

      For starters, they should buy Hancom Office and turn it loose unto the world.

    • Egads, are you a socialist or something? The government's power of eminent domain is already being abused far too much for the advantage of an elite few. Private property is a fundamental right. Government can not and should not run roughshod over it.

      • Egads, are you a socialist or something? The government's power of eminent domain is already being abused far too much for the advantage of an elite few. Private property is a fundamental right. Government can not and should not run roughshod over it.


        Hmm... I'm advocating the use of government wealth to fund public works projects. If you say that's socialist, I won't argue the point.

        I agree that property shouldn't be run roughshod over, but there is a big difference between /shouldn't/ and /doesn't/ The governments of the world can and do it all the time. Hell, government routinely deprives convicted criminals of their lives, confiscating stolen property isn't even blinked at these days.

        Buying existing intellectual property with the consent of the owner is hardly "running roughshod" over property rights. Neither is forcing the sale of property that was obtained illegally or improperly. It sure beats taking that property with no compensation for the owner.

        -- Just because there are shades of gray, it doesn't mean we can't tell black from white.
      • The only fundamental rights are the laws of physics. Anything else is just a pleasant fiction.

        If it would significantly aid the world, why should MS's office format be opened? Government forced rail companies to standardize on track size (in cases where they hadn't already) and it's paid off incredibly, both for the people and for the once relectant companies.
    • Eminent domain historically and specifically ONLY refers to land property, i.e. ("I'm the sovereign noble lord who gave you title to this land and i have the right to take it from you if i need to"). It is not defined in such a way that could be applied to any other form of property.

      Retard.
  • Would the government be held to comply with the GPL? I'm not sure it's such a good idea to compel the governmentto publicize the source code of potentially sensitive programs.

    Of course I wouldn't have a problem with the government using unmodified open-source packages like Linux, but the practicality of that is an argument for another day. :)

  • Infastructure (Score:3, Insightful)

    by smannell ( 157236 ) on Thursday February 07, 2002 @02:11PM (#2968738)
    All the rest of the vital infastructure required to conduct business is maintained by some form of government or another, why not a PC operating system? In the past century, a business needed electricity, plumbing, and roads to survive. In the past couple of decades, computers have become just as important as the preceeding to most businesses. I think the government should be using my tax dollars to help benifit all commerece, not to stuff Microsoft's coffers. I realize the government is full of red tape, and terribly inefficient at times; but surely they could hire enough people to maintain a Linux distrobution that contains all the basic software needed for most business or home uses. If done correctly it could do wonders for allowing small businesses to compete with the Wal-Marts of the world. Of course that means it will probably never happen, but it is a nice thought.
    • I realize the government is full of red tape, and terribly inefficient at times; but surely they could hire enough people to maintain a Linux distrobution [sic] that contains all the basic software needed for most business or home uses.

      Noooo! Governments are the last people you want maintaining a Linux distro. When the US Federal government defined a computing language, they came up with... ADA!

      Let the government contribute patches which then compete for adoption - see the NSA Secure Linux patches for an example.

      But you don't want government to control software development, because they'll get so tangled up in red tape, multi-year requirements definitions, bloated unwieldy specifications, empire building, incredibly inefficient coding and testing cycles, interagency turf wars, and cover-your-ass political posturing that they'll strangle the software but continue on inertia alone for decades before finally noticing that the systems are dead. Look at the FAA and the Air Traffic Control systems. Look at NASA and it's 5-10 year old "space-certified" hardware and software. Government can't hack big software worth shit, and they should know it by now. Don't even suggest it.

      The point of using "public" (open source, or "free as in libre") software in government is that the public writes it and _gives_ it to the government "free as in beer" so the public doesn't then have to pay taxes for the government to license closed, proprietary software.

      To think that everything "public" must be done by the government is a classically absurd conclusion of inverted Hegelian-Marxist socialist reasoning that assigns all powers to the State leaving The People (you know, us individuals, citizens, you and me) utterly powerless in the final reckoning.

      I could go on, but I won't.

  • The fed and free software (Score:5, Interesting)

    by dyfet ( 154716 ) on Thursday February 07, 2002 @02:15PM (#2968762) Homepage
    Due to some unusual circumstances, I had an oppertunity to speak before a multi-agency federal conference, held at the National Science Foundation last month. It was an interesting group as it included some fairly senior level people from several agencies.

    This conference was not announced for until the Friday before, and yet was fairly well attended, for reasons that became appearent fairly appearent even by the OPEN remarks made by the by some.

    To understand the context of those remarks, one must understand I have had some experiance in federal contracting in the past. Occasionally federal employees would complain about certain vendors entirely in private, and certainly some vendors achieved some level of dislike and disgust in the past, particularly telecomm vendors.

    However, never before had I been in a room with federal employees showing such open and complete contempt for a given vendor. The reason became clear when one of them spoke openly of how reps of this particular vendor had targetted her and the process and methods used to harrass her and other federal employees who would consider to openly choose other products. That this would happen in front of outsiders and also in front of some senior policy people, was a complete shock to me.

    To have one such person in any completely random meeting of federal employees that this might happen to would be surprising. To have this same circumstances explained to me by others, some later in private, and some in other venues since that I had known in the past because I became curious and called some people I used to know, is statistically mind boggling.

    The vendor in question would use a very simple method of intimidation to those that it's reps identified. The next time they would speak to a given person they would make it clear they are watching them and are reporting any inappropriate activity to their superior, the threat implied and clear. They would state specific complaints, whether valid or not, and then that employee would find his/her manager asking about these same things a few weeks later.

    Never in all my years dealing with federal employees had I ever before, personally, or even second hand, heard of ANY vendor doing anything like this, let alone on the scale and scope required for people from random agencies to have much the same story to tell. To say I was and still am very angry is an understatement.

    Out of this it was clear also a grave miscalculation has occured. It became clear that for every person so harrassed, perhaps 10 others would become aware it happened, and all 11 would become rightly angry. There is a groundswell of support for free software in the fed, and really for ANY other software, and this vendor has created it!

    Other things came out of this conference that were also interesting. Certainly there are some who "get" free software, who understands what it means and could do for them, who would prefer it. Certainly it was also true that there were others who would do anything to never have to purchase, install, or deploy any product ever made by such a vendor ever again. I would love to talk more about each these things, and particularly about those who understood free software.

    The reaction of the more senior level agency people was most ammusing of all. For years these people had "friends" who would try to help them with their it needs. These vendor "friends" were of course paid to be such a "friend" to a key agency person, what some might call a "buddy" in the parlance of that particular vendor. For years, they would tell these people free software was not usable, would describe editing and word processing as or in terms of emacs and vi, etc.

    To show these people gnome, kde, abiWord, open office, etc, this was very much an eye opening experiance for many of these senior agency people.

    Clearly those that would be the enemies of free (and open source) software depend on ignore and terror to sell their products. Clearly we must respond with education, enlightenment, and make it clear they alone are the terrorists.

    David
  • Everyone seems to forget that we live in a democracy. Our representatives number one concern is their own welfare, just like everyone else. If they believe that they will be voted out of office then they will listen to what the majority of their constituants(sp?) want. PAC's can't fight democracy.
    /. is a huge community of people that need to realize that complaining won't do anything, we have to appeal to the needs/wants of the general public.

    What needs to be done is to create a PR campaign to combat M$'s to show them how they benefit from voting this into place.

    IMO the general layman never hears how he would be better served by voting into policy that Open Source be mandatory were it does not conflict with national security. /.'s all seem to realize it, but we have to translate out needs/wants into what the general public wants.

    -We need to let them know how much using proprietary software costs them every year.

    -We need to let them know that Open Source code means that everyone has access to the software they need, FOR FREE.

    Maybe we should use envy to accomplish this:
    -Bill Gates lives a life of luxury by gouging you.

    The important thing is that we make it easy for the public to take action AND that the public realize how they benefit.

    I don't know the answers, yet :), but I think that the /. community can come up with them.

    We are our own best hope!
  • During the comment period, I actually advocated cancelling all licenses for MS office/mail software for the federal government, with a 25 year ban on further licenses. There would be a temporary 5 year license granted to allow for switching over to alternatives. During that 5 year period, MS would have to pay LABOR costs for the entire switch.

    This would encourage the federal government to seek free alternatives, while punishing a monopolist. Linux would become more possible as such a HUGE amount of people would then have to start using rtf or somesuch portable format for daily commerce with the government, the biggest employer in the US. From what I understand, when the government switched from Word Perfect Format to Doc Files, MS's market share skyrocketed. All the contractors, and the people the contractors bought from switched with the government.

  • Picking Microsoft's Pockets (Score:3, Interesting)

    by rantenki ( 66616 ) on Thursday February 07, 2002 @02:29PM (#2968850)
    What I like is the potential for the following argument, as it could be forwarded to a politician from any state except Washington;

    What if I told you you could walk right into Microsoft's head offices and take (at least) $500 out of their coffers for every single user installed in our public service sector? You can take that money right out of chariman Bill's pocket, and re-invest it in education, more computers, and more jobs in your home state. Want to know how? Here it is.

    Replace Microsoft products with open source. That's it. There are usable replacements for most if not all desktop software that your employees are using, and they are all available for free. 95% of your users just use Windows and Office, but these packages can be replaced for 0 dollars on a Linux box that costs less and will run more reliably; for free!

    Your only costs are training your existing Windows administrators to run Linux. This will cost less than the cost of the Windows software upgrades that Microsoft REQUIRES you to pay for under their current licensing scheme. You end up with better trained and more valuable administrators, for less money.

    On the server side (all those pretty web pages, databases, and management systems), Linux software tends to be more reliable than it's Windows couterparts, and is also free. If you really insist on paying for your database software, Oracle runs on Linux too! Otherwise, same argument as for the desktop users. Better qualified admins for less money.

    Let's not forget that you are employing teachers in your home state to train these new admins. The money all stays home. Software upgrades are free, so your future costs per year drop, allowing you to buy new computers more often, and keep your employees happy with new equipment. Buy those computers in your home state, your are talking about investing more money back into your own backyard. This is a win-win situation for your taxpayers, and your employees.

    Where's the checkbooks?

  • In Education (Score:3, Insightful)

    by opkool ( 231966 ) on Thursday February 07, 2002 @02:31PM (#2968868) Homepage
    With the meager 0.5% increase in education on the latest Bush budget, I say Education should be a focus for Linux Advocates.

    Public Schools (the K-12 system), would really bennefit from OpenSource / Linux:

    - less burden to administer,
    - unprivilieged users,
    - virus-free systems
    - real multiuser environment
    - powerfull computer tools, from Kdevelop and Kylix to Gimp and OpenOffice
    - extended life for hardware
    - remote installation of programs
    - close-to-zero costs of software licenses.

    Just think about it.

    From a SysAdmin point of view: no more "... I deleted C:/Windows...", nor "...and Code Purple has destroyed my test scores.." nor "...now I must install the latest IExplorer patch to all of the PCs, one by one...". If you are a SysAdmin, you know what I mean.

    From an economic point of view, no more "... and this letter from the BSA asks us to produce the licenses for all the installed software or else..." nor "...and for this new computer that we got, we need to buy a different version of Office, that is, Office XP. And OfficeXP is incompatible with our pool of Office97 around..." nor "...we need to upgrade 20 computers because Windows95 is no longer supported..." nor "...We need a different Antivirus license that costs this much more...".

    My 2 cents.
    • Probably the best benifit to this might be for Linux itself .. A whole generation of kids raise on Linux instead of Windows! What OS do you think they'll use later in life?

  • Not in Georgia (Score:3, Interesting)

    by ThinkingGuy ( 551764 ) on Thursday February 07, 2002 @02:34PM (#2968893) Homepage
    I was recently talking with a programmer who is working for the Georgia state government. I asked him his thoughts about bringing Linux and open source into state government. He brought up a point that I hadn't considered.
    According to this guy, at least, here in Georgia the government put a lot of emphasis on "non-technical" things as "percentage of minority employees," "vendor's land holdings" when awarding contracts to companies. I imagine it is the same in other states that have strong histories of racial discrimination. Anyway, when a public official finds out that for example, Linux is 1) not owned by any company whose assets and employee demographics can be investigated, and 2) doesn't even require spending government money, and thus is of no use in buying votes, a push for Linux probably won't get very far.
    • Now imagine a Georgia-based, African-American owned systems integration company offering (example) to supply all hardware and software for a Georgia goverment agency, using Linux and Open Source software. Most of the initial contract money and virtually all of the training and support services money stays in Georgia and at least some of it goes into the hands of a (probably politically connected) minority entrepreneur.

      Now have another company enter a competing bid based on proprietary software, most or all of which is purchased (licensed) from white-owned out-of-state companies.

      It doesn't take much of a lobbyist to make a case for keeping the money local and supporting the minority-owned business.

      - Robin

  • Best Bit (Score:3, Interesting)

    by junkster191 ( 551312 ) on Thursday February 07, 2002 @03:57PM (#2969475) Homepage
    "All the tech-types can be gung-ho as hell for Linux, and they can put Apache on every server in sight, and that's cool, but that's not the same as actual, official recognition from the people who put on tuxes and go to political functions and hang out with the colonels and generals and admirals and ex-colonels and ex-generals and ex-admirals who control all the heavy dough. To get to these guys you need someone who speaks bidness as his native tongue, and I mean bidness as a language spoken at an Ole Miss football game while you're hanging out, maybe sipping a little bourbon, with Senator Trent, Col. Florian H. Yoste (Ret.) -- "Flo" to his friends -- and the rest of the boys"

    Very good point. How many techies do you know that could name a single starting player on Ole Miss or even recognize a good bottle of bourbon? There is a tremendous amount of money and power in the "good old boy" network, and your typical kernel hacker or BSD zealot is the anithesis of the good old boy image. This is exactly the sort of thing we need to see much more if we actually want to change the world, as opposed to talking about changing the world.

  • Already happening where I'm at (Score:4, Interesting)

    by cje ( 33931 ) on Thursday February 07, 2002 @04:20PM (#2969596) Homepage
    I don't work for the government, but I am a government contractor at a federal facility. Open source has been here (in one form or another) for a long time; we have been using CVS for eight or nine years, and then there are the other popular pieces of OSS such as Perl, Tcl/Tk, and Apache that have become integral pieces of several of our production systems. Last summer my project went through an exercise where our entire GUI was redesigned to use TrollTech's Qt libraries. I had been pushing this for a while; before the redesign we were using Oracle Forms, and there were several reasons that I wanted to get away from them.

    We're really starting to embrace Linux now. I (and several others in the development shop) have been trying to get it in the door for five years or so. Back then, we would get the standard run-around from the government: it's unproven, it's unsafe, it's unsupported, etc. They gradually began to cave in, however, as commercial interest in Linux increased and as it became deployed in more and more capacities. They realized that many of their objections were either being addressed or were ill-founded to begin with. Now, we've got several projects using Linux boxes.

    Part of our long-term strategy for my project (a processing system that generates user products from raw data acquired from various spacecraft) is to move off of our current platform and migrate to Linux or something similar. We are currently based on Silicon Graphics (sorry, SGI) Origin 2000s running IRIX. This was not a bad choice at the time that the project was initiated, because we really do need number-crunching power. However, in the time since then, the power of PC-based machines has risen to the point where an Intel/AMD CPU can easily outperform a MIPS processor. We have doubts about the long-term stability of SGI; furthermore, we use Oracle to house processing and production data, and Oracle support for IRIX is rapidly going the way of the dodo.

    I anticipate that within a couple of years we will have migrated the system (and others like it) to Linux clusters. We won't be stuck paying exorbitant maintenance fees to SGI (or some other vendor) for the specialized hardware, and we'll be getting a lot more bang for the buck. A lot of this is coming about as a result of a shift in government philosophy; these days, the government is more content to let contractors do the job the way they want to do it. And that is how it should be; the government should be in the position to manage at the high-level and measure performance, but they should not be dictating technical details and micromanaging how the work is actually done.
  • Yes, some governments choose linux.. due to budget cuts, etc... not because it's superiour, but because they can save some badly needed money to get the job done.

    (like, they need a web browser, simple email, and a word processor).

    If they have a big budget however.. it doesn't mtatter. If they are using custom software, it doesn't matter. Usually, the overall costs of the system are not drastically reduced by using linux.
  • From www.m-w.com:

    : the enjoyment of the pleasures of the moment without concern for the future

    That's not exactly the phrase I'd choose...

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