Get Listed Free In Gov't Open Source Directory 123
BanJoota writes "Probably most useful for U.S. people, but sounds like a good deal. The story (at Newsforge) says you can list your Open Source business, non-profit group or Open Source project or whatever for free in a 'Who's Who and Who's Doing What in Open Source' book that's being distributed to government agencies on March 15. The deadline's March 1, so better act fast." Newsforge and Slashdot are both part of OSDN. Remember to keep your write-up suitable for pointy-headed managers...
What a convenient guide! (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:What a convenient guide! (Score:5, Funny)
Old Fogey (Score:5, Funny)
Stallman FBI files (Score:5, Interesting)
He stands to be a significant player in the next decade or so in the intellectual property world. He has an impact on politics, and is a rabid idealist.
I mean, China's pushing for a domestic software industry and relying on much of his work now, right?
Stallman? it's mozilla I'm worried about! (Score:5, Funny)
The start by adopting a red five-point star as their icon, and then they release a latest and greatest which is named after a Soviet fighter plane (firefox)?
Re:Stallman? it's mozilla I'm worried about! (Score:5, Funny)
Don't you mean "red alligators"? =)
Re:Stallman? it's mozilla I'm worried about! (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Stallman? it's mozilla I'm worried about! (Score:3, Informative)
Not likely.
MiG-25="Foxbat" but that's about as close as I got with these folks. [lucia.it]
Looks like my browser is safe from any accusations from Ashcroft or any of the rest of that cheersome lot. For now anyway.
At least they didn't name it after the MiG-15.
Re:Stallman? it's mozilla I'm worried about! (Score:3, Informative)
It was a joke. The Firefox was an Uber-killy mind-controlled Soviet plane that one of Clint Eastwood's characters stole in some movie or other.
Re:Stallman? it's mozilla I'm worried about! (Score:3, Funny)
Heck, if you add in Carmack and all his Satanic symbols, the OSS world is really in deep shit with the religious right.
Re:Stallman? it's mozilla I'm worried about! (Score:2)
Re:Stallman? it's mozilla I'm worried about! (Score:1)
And what's that got to do with gay marriage?
Re: _crazy_ sig! (OT) (Score:3, Insightful)
Yup, and just cause they're out to get you doesn't mean you're not also paranoid, something I wish more people would consider once in a while
Re:What a convenient guide! (Score:5, Informative)
There needs to be a list so that there's an instant point of contact for quality assurance purposes.
If a software project that the government is interested in can routinely keep the dialogue with the government open, then the government can more appropriately and usefully utilize these Open Source software tools for their purposes.
It's a win/win situation, really. If you think the government has any "evil" plans, think again. This is the best for all of us.
Re:What a convenient guide! (Score:5, Funny)
Seriously!
Wow, what tinfoil hatism! (Score:1)
Re:What a convenient guide! (Score:4, Interesting)
That's going to be a problem with an open source developer? It's not hard to identify open source projects and their development team members now.
Re:What a convenient guide! (Score:3, Funny)
I am not worried about them. What about SCO????
Note to self: (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Note to self: (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:What a convenient guide! (Score:1)
"We are willing to wipe the slate clean, to give you a fresh start and all we are asking in return is your cooperation in bringing a known terrorist to justice."
Re:What a convenient guide! (Score:2)
What do I do now? And who's that guy with sunglasses and talking into his sleeve??
Damn...
The Open Source Revolution (Score:2)
Progress (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Progress (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Progress (Score:2, Insightful)
Something tells me SCO isn't going to get much of a chance to get GPL considered as illegal !
Re:Progress (Score:5, Insightful)
Who runs egovos.org and what makes you think it's the government? According to whois [internic.net], the registrant and administrative contact is Tony Stanco [freedevelopers.net] (don't know if that's really the same person).
Re:Progress (Score:2)
Yes, it's the same person. I, and other Free Software developers whom I know well, have made very bad experiences with this person.
BTW, freedevelopers.net (which is linked to in the parent posting) is very dead. I'm still listed prominently on the "projects and proposals" page even though I've asked numerous times for my name to be removed from that page. I don't want to have anything to do with Tony Stanco or freedevelopers.net anymore.
Re:Progress (Score:5, Interesting)
And the not so interesting bit is that it's so typical of the government...doing a job that's already been done. All this information really didn't need publishing. Freshmeat, Sourceforge, linux.com's directory...
What worries me more is that managers are going to actually go to some of these project websites...let's just say most open-source project people don't have very good marketing skills, or at least never put much effort into their homepages for the "what IS this?" crowd..save the really big/popular projects like Gimp, Gnome, etc. They just don't try to sell themselves. Often times I'd kill just to have had a project that, right up front, detailed is major features and how it compared to what else was out there...
I assure you this: Open Source is respected (Score:3, Interesting)
That said, Open Source is respected. People are always trying to get their hands on the latest and greatest from Apache, Mozilla, etc.
Keep up the good work. Your efforts are not blind to us.
Re:I assure you this: Open Source is respected (Score:2, Insightful)
Mozilla's not even that good anyway (I use Mac/Chimera/Outlook).
Re:I assure you this: Open Source is respected (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:I assure you this: Open Source is respected (Score:3, Funny)
People like UIs, not just rendering engines.
Re:I assure you this: Open Source is respected (Score:2)
Not on slashdot, they don't!
But seriously, saying that "mozilla isn't that good" and that "the default mozilla UI isn't that good" isn't quite the same thing (and liking or not the UI is pretty subjective; I have no problem with the Mozilla 1.6/Firefox 0.8 default UI).
Besides, with firefox everything in the UI is so customizable that it's increasingly becoming a pretty moot point, IMHO.
Of course its free! (Score:4, Interesting)
So, they *finally* sponsored a directory.
How can regular people get the book? (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:How can regular people get the book? (Score:5, Informative)
"Listing in the Reference Book is free, and the book will be distributed at no charge to registered attendees of the Conference."
I guess you have to attend.
Re:How can regular people get the book? (Score:2)
Put on some ultra-cool sunglasses like James Earl Jones wears and let your fingers do the walking.
Re:How can regular people get the book? (Score:1, Informative)
Not quite the same as having a personal copy for your own collection but it would give you access to the information contained in this publication.
Government & Open Source (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Government & Open Source (Score:4, Informative)
This has been quiet for a while... (Score:5, Informative)
Now it surfaces again out of the blue
How widespread? (Score:5, Informative)
The National Labs already use a lot of open source software, so it would be great to see more inclusion in other government sectors, maybe saving some tax $$. (Or it will cost more, you can never say
Are you sure? (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Are you sure? (Score:2, Funny)
If I were Fyodor... (Score:5, Funny)
... I would submit:
Software name: nmap
Section: terrorist tools
Purpose: Enables evildoers to do evil (and OS detection).
Re:If I were Fyodor... (Score:2, Informative)
Check out here what a terrorist he is. [slashdot.org]
Fyodor: A slashdot sponsored criminal.
Re:If I were Fyodor... (Score:4, Funny)
Purpose: Enables evildoers to do evil (and OS detection).
should be...
Purpose: Hacking the Matrix
Re:If I were Fyodor... (Score:2)
Purpose: Breaking into control systems for nuclear power plants
Now that's something for governments to worry about
It's nice to see the government PROMOTING science (Score:5, Interesting)
It's also interesting to note that(unlike some other governments) this isn't exactly an endorsement of use for OSS software, but rather a flag telling agencies that it's ok to go ahead with OSS projects you planned, and here are some resources OSS.
It would be interesting though for the government to fund more OSS projects who have a significant amount of dedicated US citizen contributors, but with the deficits and tax cuts, it's probably a pipe dream.
Oh well, a step in the right direction anyway.
Write For PHB's And Reference for Engineers (Score:5, Insightful)
Sometimes some of my biggest battles in adopting OSS in the gov't/DoD are convincing my fellow engineers. These are old school engineer types who are very scared of change. Even if it sounds reasonable, there better be a damn good reason to change to something new, especially something as "untested" as OSS.
Open source is tested (Score:1)
Open source software is audited, tested, validated, and independently certified often times these days. Many organizations use OSS as reference specs.
Can your proprietary closed source software say all that?
Pointy headed? (Score:5, Funny)
> Remember to keep your write-up suitable for pointy-headed managers...
Did Beldar quit his TV repair gig and move up the ranks at Dilbert Co.?
well (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:well (Score:3, Insightful)
That being said, open source has many enemies, and not all of those have objections against "playing it dirty". Should an open source opponent ever try to associate open source with, say, terrorism, and succeed; it will not exactly help those on this list sleep better.
Re:well (Score:3, Interesting)
Not that this directory seems to be anything like that
Open Source does NOT threaten capitalism (Score:2, Insightful)
Warning: this is a little off-topic, but it is an issue I am concerned about.
I hope you're being sarcastic, since Open Source software has nothing to do with threatening capitalism. In fact, I would argue that OSS is in the spirit of capitalism!
At its core, capitalism is about minimizing costs of creating and distributing resources through competition. Risk is one of those costs, yet OSS reduces those risks when compared with other proprietary solutions. No large-scale software projects are free of b
Re:Open Source does NOT threaten capitalism (Score:1)
Yeap and... (Score:3, Funny)
pointy-headed managers? (Score:5, Funny)
Re:pointy-headed managers? (Score:1)
Wow.. (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Wow.. (Score:2)
This could really make you successful... (Score:4, Insightful)
It's not just U.S., from the look of it... (Score:5, Informative)
The Center of Open Source & Government works with governments around the world on Open Source policy and strategy.
As always.... (Score:5, Funny)
Sunday February 29, @09:54PM
Dealine:
March 1st
- - - - - - - - -
Slashdot, your source for timely news.
And for all you people who only read slashdot at work.... neener neener neener....
Re:As always... (Score:2)
Meanwhile at the conference... (Score:5, Funny)
"As you can see, this is a list of projects that have illegally stolen SCO code and are currently using it to invite terrorism into the US."
Something's Wrong Here... (Score:5, Interesting)
The submission deadline is March 1st...yet the government is going to be distributing these books on March 15th? Of the same year? Can they be that efficient?
Re:Something's Wrong Here... (Score:1, Interesting)
Also, it keys the submitted information on *your* title, not your *project* title. I bet there are a ton of projects in their database with the title "Senior Software Engineer" or something.
Tough luck if you're trying to change any of this info.
Mixed blessing (Score:2)
Irony (Score:1, Insightful)
Isn't javascript proprietary?
It's a conspiracy! (Score:1)
Josh
This isn't free (Score:1)