Government use of OSS

[Craig White]

On Wed, 2005-11-09 at 17:43 -0800, Dan Lund wrote:
> I think the primary sentiment is that it's not controlled by the US
> govt indirectly.  I mean, how much would it really take to have the US
> govt have secret talks with Microsoft and have them include a
> backdoor.
> It was talked about in the late 90's.
> With OSS, it's assumed that since the code is open, at least one
> person has cruised the code enough to know there isn't some ultra-l33t
> backdoor that the NSA or other organization could use "in the name of
> terror prevention".
> 
> --Dan
> 
> On 11/9/05, Major.Mikey <bmike1 at mcleodusa.net> wrote:
> > I mean that as haven't most OSS been developed by US citizins.
> >
> > On Wednesday 09 November 2005 06:24 pm, Major.Mikey wrote:
> > > I find it funny that one of the reasons for some of the countries to
> > > migrate is their anti-american sentiment. I uderstand that Linus is/was not
> > > a US citizen (has he naturalized yet) but isn't that mostly who has
> > > developed OSS? Seriously, wasn't GNU (the utilities) developed by a US
> > > organization?
> > >
> > > On Wednesday 09 November 2005 03:23 pm, Matt Alexander wrote:
> > > > Here's an interesting article on the use of Open Source Software in the
> > > > US and in several European governments:
> > > >
> > > > http://insight.zdnet.co.uk/0,39020415,39235707,00.htm
> > >
----
The fact that open source is participatory is what drives people to the
software as opposed to buy it and live with - the consumerist concept
which Americans have adopted so well. Anyone trying to use a personal
computer in the early 80's will surely remember all of the impositions
the software which was available then and that it was expensive as well.
While there has been a lot of improvement in purchased software,
computers and software in general are defined by the limitations rather
than their abilities.

While some of the concepts of things like GNU are American and some of
the capital driving development of some projects, as evidenced by Linus'
creation of the original kernel, substantial innovations and advancement
really knows no boundaries and it takes an ignorant and arrogant
American to suggest such a thing.

Craig


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