Government use of OSS

[Craig White]

On Thu, 2005-11-10 at 12:39 -0700, Alex Dean wrote:
> On Nov 10, 2005, at 12:14 PM, Erik Bixby wrote:
> 
> > "I mean that as haven't most OSS been developed by US citizins."
> >
> > "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."
> >
> > Couldn't you just say "no?"
> 
> Hear hear.  I'm all for civility.
----
sure - sorry, I wasn't referring to Erik's post

If you look at some of the most important packages in OSS - I'm thinking
apache (perhaps more American than not), samba (definitely
international), openldap (definitely international), and then add all of
the things that couldn't be done in the US because of restrictions such
as openssl, you get a true feeling how international it all is.

A large amount of the original OSS stuff came from UNIX (via AT&T) and
many American universities but it's all been entirely re-written. 

Most importantly, OSS pretty much depends upon contributions by larger
numbers and clearly international means much larger numbers. 

Craig


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