In this artile, at Consulting Times, they discuss the costs in the terms of lives and dollars when local governments do not deploy open standards based software for data sharing. Can local governments afford to create redundant applications to meet new Federal standards for first responder alerts, emergency services, law enforcement, broadcasters? Open Source collaborative initiatives may provide the only solution for the US if the people want to create a safer environment.
The Open Source Dilemma for Governments
About The Author
Eugenia Loli
Ex-programmer, ex-editor in chief at OSNews.com, now a visual artist/filmmaker.
Follow me on Twitter @EugeniaLoli
45 Comments
2004-01-05 6:55 pm
2004-01-05 7:17 pm
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2004-01-06 12:39 pm
Anonymous
Mark,
Looks like your post is still there, to me ( http://osnews.com/comment.php?news_id=5560&offset=30&rows=41#184217 ). But, I gues since you won’t be visiting OSNews anymore, you’ll never see this. 
Later,
Kick
(PS. Feel free to mod this down as off topic. I understand.)
2004-01-06 3:35 pm
2004-01-06 3:41 pm
2004-01-06 4:34 pm
2004-01-06 4:49 pm
By creating jobs for specialized IT propfessionals that dont depend from foreign companies like microsoft, oracle, sun, wathever. Also, since the government can hire local services and developers, the country itself saves a millons.
Unfortunately, corruption in governments is real and microsoft and others can finance means to stop adoption of such software in countries. I saw this happening in Peru and here in Argentina.
I fully agree that those companies which sell software to the government should publish complete APIs and file formats. And I fully support companies that open source their software. But unless they’re producing a custom application, I don’t feel they should be made to open their source code in order to get a government contract.
1. Yes, I know bug fixes happen faster. But, they will happen anyway if it’s commercial software (e.g. oracle), or the vendor’s other customers will complain.
2. And I have yet to see an adequate means of protecting a company’s intellectual property. I’m not saying open source equals piracy. I’m just saying it’s a lot easier.
3. Open standards make things safer, not necessarily open source.
I completely agree…. I’d say standards organisations should release things under a BSD styled license so it’s possible to work with standards as open source or proprietary to give full freedom and options….
That way everyone will be happy…
Well, I certainly hope it’s a Linux advocate pretending to be a Microsoft admirer. But I doubt it. I’ve never met a Linux enthusiast who trolls quite like that, nor does it seem a good use of one’s time and energy.
The sad fact is that a lot of people have no idea what standards exist and how little Microsoft complies with them.
What relevance has this guys comment? Is it somehow related to the story? Nope. Go and spread your anger somewhere else, and by the way, I personally hate racism. Racist remarks have no place on OSNews. Get my point?!
Just watch the movie “the net” with gatekeeper software and u’ll see how proprietary software can be bad. Another good video reference is the movie “antitrust.” I’m sure there are some good literary references, but being from Generation X, i’m not familiar with archaic printed media.
Watch “hackers” too, i think those guys used freebsd. Oh yeah, “matrix reloaded.” Trinity is clearly used unix, or cygwin at the very least.
>Can you zealots please stop it? Can’t you see it’s only you >who want war? What’s next step? GPL Zealots and Bush start a >holy alliance?
As we all know from OSnews and slashdot’s intensive coverage of the election, bush used microsoft on his web server and the democrats used linux. The libertarians though used freebsd as i recall. I guess i’ll have to vote for them then.
I’d make a sympathy vote for any candidate running BeOS though.
No offense intended, but should linux or windows be used on any mission critical systems? I realize linux and bsd have their place on internet servers, and for the moment windows reigns supreme on user friendly desktops for govt. employees. But for mission critical i’d say some sort of OS with that need in mind. For security, u need a trusted system. AFAIK, windows NT 4.0 is rated C2 in the dod standards and linux has not been fully evaluated. Openvms and trusted vms though rated C2 and C1 i believe. I’m not saying they need beyond A1 rating, but some security and high uptime would be nice.
Brings me to another thought … why does my bank’s ATM system crash during an internet worm? These should be on leased line systems and patched boxes. And why does a handful of rooted windows boxes bring down a power plant? This type of stuff is inexusable in 2003.
Indeed a lot more thought has to be put into software choises… if any of the OSS stuff should be used for as you said ATM’s I’d love to hear it to be OpenBSD. I do know you can patch FreeBSD amoung others to become as safe/safer than OpenBSD, but default install is pretty darn safe and that sounds good.
Otherwise Solaris/QNX sounds good in terms of security…
What exactly is your definition of a standard? According to most people in the open source community, if you build something, open source it, and more than 3 people use it, it’s a standard. They call apt a standard, though the last time I checked, it’s actually a package manager.
If you’re talking about a standard like HTML or TCP/IP, then I too don’t see a whole lot of standards in the open source community, who seems to want nothing more than for companies to spend a lot of time and resources developing something, and then releasing the source code so that the OSS community can leach off them.
Of course, proprietary software isn’t perfect, and I think the concept needs to be reworked somehow to keep greedy people from abusing the system. When it comes to closed-source, should a few ‘bad apples’ spoil the whole bunch?
> “According to most people in the open source community, if you build something, open source it, and more than 3 people use it, it’s a standard”
“Most” people in “the” open source community? Sounds like more than 50%. The source of your analysis, please?
> “They call apt a standard”
Who? Is it the same people as in “most people in the open source community”? The same majority? Again, where’s your investigation?
When one creates something which later becomes a standard on which other layers are dependant on, it should be “open”. Open as in, the relevant data for those who are dependant on it, should be available. On the moment it has become populair, profit has already taken place. Therefore it isn’t mandatory after that moment anymore. If the situations continues as is, there’s a too easy advantage which leads to even more empowerment of the already strong.
In any case, i’d really like to see more progressive business models and i believe FLOSS currently contributes to this, though i know there’s other important factors like the people behind it, creative thinking, etc.
Focusing on just one segment of your comment (the only one I can speak on honestly), one of the standards you site (HTML) stating “I too don’t see a whole lot of standards in the open source community” is actually a standard that developers in the open source community adhere the closest to. Mozilla is one of the most prominant open source software projects in the world, and has been for many years – and as far back as I can remember of the Mozilla project it has strode to achieve a very strict adherance to the W3C html standard (THE html standard), not to mention XHTML, XML, etc., etc.
“”And why does a handful of rooted windows boxes bring down a power plant? This type of stuff is inexusable in 2003.””
No, this is a direct result of it being 2003.
If your goal is to light a fire and your fire making equipment consists of two rocks and some kindling then there are a very limited number of things that can go wrong, and problems are simple to diagnose and fix (Weather, wrong rocks, wrong kindling).
21st century solution. I have a lighter: Does it have fuel? Is it gas or petrol fuel? Does the ignition mechanism work? Is the flow rate set too low? Are the pipes clean? Do I need a screwdriver to take it to pieces? etc
The problem here is complexity not an OS, the more complex a system is the more things there are that can go wrong, and the more difficult it is to trace the cause.
A more forum based example might be the processor in your computer. The fact that it exists is a triumph of mass production over probability. It’s impossible to produce a single chip and guarantee that it will work, and yet we’re still here using them (Yield rates are around 75% afaik, information about such things is VERY hard to get).
Expect further failures as systems become too complex to reliably maintain error-free operations (Eg Aerospace).
***
The article was reasonable. I particularily enjoyed:
“Open Source Software does not provide a total answer to all solutions needed in any enterprise.”
Ain’t that the truth.
…who seems to want nothing more than for companies to spend a lot of time and resources developing something, and then releasing the source code so that the OSS community can leach off them.
Who, or what, exactly, has been leached? It goes both way, buddy. Aren’t most commercial web servers based upon Apache (one of the brightest opensource projects)? Quite trolling your FUD around here, man.
When it comes to closed-source, should a few ‘bad apples’ spoil the whole bunch?
The same could be said about OSS… Practice what you preach…
Fact is, open source is ruining the economy. I’d rather have corporations than pimply-faced college students, thanks…
>Fact is, open source is ruining the economy. I’d rather have >corporations than pimply-faced college students, thanks…
Could you please explain us how? We would love to read it!
After reading the article and then the comments I have been forced to conclude that most have not read the article.
This article is about LG (Local Governments city and town councils) failing to implement federally mandated or recommended standards for data storage, aquisition and management.
He says most of the applications (not word processing but LG business applications, eg Public Works) do not exist and are built-to-suit for each local government.
If the standards (both technical and process) are followed the LG (Local Governments) follow the standards, pay someone to impliment the software, the LG then owns the IP, why not share that IP with other LG’s. Or just share the cost of the original development. This may or may not be complete OSS but it is shared source and applications (therefore cost) between LG’s.
I think he means many geeks (who also happen to contribute to Open Source) have problems with acne, facial sores. I hope this clear it up to you.
<<<<AFAIK, that’s OK. OTOH, AFAIK, Windows NT is quote OOL and almost DOA. Counting on old analysis again, ugh. It would be same like claiming: “Windows NT is stable. Therefore, Windows XP is too”. Without extensive arguments, i think it is BS, by default.>>>>
I wasn’t defending NT necessarily, I use freebsd. FWIW, here are the DOD evaluation results. There’s also some results for ancient OS somewhere on the site too.
http://www.radium.ncsc.mil/tpep/epl/epl-by-class.html
Here’s a couple of guides for hardening windows, linux, cisco products:
http://www.nsa.gov/snac/
http://www.nsa.gov/selinux/
Gee i wish my bank’s admins had read these guides <grin>.
The C2 rating (as qualified by the Orange Book) given to WinNT during that time is as effective as unplugging all network connections from the machine. Locking NT in C2 configuration (via c2config if I remember right) made NT into a setup devoid of its purpose – without any network to manage, what’s NT’s use there? And to do any upgrades or security updates on a C2-configured setup, you’d have to relax your permissions. wow.
I do wish that MS would certify its products against the DOD Red Book though… I don’t even know if the latest incarnations of “enterprise-grade” WinNT are even tested for compliance to DOD specs.
Anyway, I do happen to work in a mixed environment of Win2000 Advanced Server + Linux + *BSDs… And as far as I’ve been administering them, the Linux and *BSD machines have been holding out in terms of security way better than those expensive Win2k setups…
Fact is, open source is ruining the economy. I’d rather have corporations than pimply-faced college students, thanks…
Not all licenses are cruel to corporations such as the GPL license. Don’t make the mistake to believe that all open source stuff is the same.
If you take a look on the truly free licenses such as BSD or MIT for instance, you’ll see that these licenses has brought many good things to both the “pimply-faced college students” as well as major corporations such as Microsoft.
So rather focus on saying that FSF or RMS or simply GPL Zealots try to ruin the economy than OSS
To assert that OSS is the tool to fix these types of problems in local government is absurd. The problem is locel government entities each with their own pot of money not being held accountable for the products they have developed by the lowest bidder. The author is not someone that is concerned with standards, but with forceing an OSS agenda. Therefore discrediting himself as a true professional in Information Technology.
Not all licenses are cruel to corporations such as the GPL license.
How, pray tell, is the GPL cruel? You Anti-GPL zealots around here (and the staff here at OSNews has got to be the worst offenders) are just as bad as the Linux zealots you bash (perhaps even worse).
I wish people would understand that the free in the GPL is free as is in we hold these truths to be self-evedent… free. For those of you who failed 5th grade history (or are not from the US. Sorry…), that means that they are free, as in rights. To have rights, you must also have some restrictions. Very few people would argue that the citizens of the US, UK, and the rest of the Western World are not free. But, I do not have complete freedom. I can’t kill you with out expecting some consequences. I am free, but I do have restrictions.
The GPL was created to ensure the freedom of the code. To make sure that improvements where always sent back to the source. You say that’s cruel to corporations? Mind you, we’re not saying that all code should be opensourced. If you develop something in house, and don’t use an OSS. Lock it down tight! That’s your right! In fact, its in your best interest.
But what if you used GPL’d code as a starting point? The original author expects that code to remain free (freedom, baby! Its groovy…). It would be cruel to him/her for the code to now be locked away in some greedy corps basement.
The GPL works for me. I write something, I want it to always remain free. That’s my perogitive. You want to right code under the anarchy licence (aka BSD. Sorry, that’s FUD… sorry…), be my guest.
The GPL was created to ensure the freedom of the code. To make sure that improvements where always sent back to the source. You say that’s cruel to corporations?
But what if you used GPL’d code as a starting point? The original author expects that code to remain free (freedom, baby! Its groovy…). It would be cruel to him/her for the code to now be locked away in some greedy corps basement.
The GPL works for me. I write something, I want it to always remain free. That’s my perogitive. You want to right code under the anarchy licence (aka BSD. Sorry, that’s FUD… sorry…), be my guest.
By using the word FUD you already get the title zealot without any adue…
The thing is, if people write BSD styled code, everyone can benefit from it AND also contribute back AND lock certain parts if so is suitful. GPL’s viral effect basically kills any small player in the software industry and why you might ask?
Let me bring you a perfect example which can be applied to Photoshop/Gimp or MSOffice/OOo
Today only a truly huge company could afford to develop a new office suite. No one can afford to do it from scratch, especially no smaller firms. Now if OOo or GIMP would actually have been free, as in Non commie licensed stuff, Gimp and OOo would have been available but companies could have used parts of it and brought new, better, innovative software where R&D get’s paid by closing the software.
This doesn’t inflict on the original software…. in fact I’m CONVINCED many changes done to your code would be contributed back to your BSD licensed code. A couple of examples would be *BSD OS’s or howabout X, which you probably use every day!
To build a business modell around GPL you need one of two things to make it work
1. No R&D and only paid modifications as consultancy contract
2. Complex software that is in need of support, also the reason to why Linux distromakers don’t make it easy to use but keep it a nightmare and charge you for it so that it becomes, less attractive than windows and also more expensive.
Comparing GPL to BSD license with murder is a braindead comparison. GPL says you can’t do this and you can’t do that. BSD say, hey, do whatever you like with it…. none of them implys that you should hurt another human being, possibly the BSD license says, hey if it can bring you any good and that means you can’t contribute back, fine, as long as computer software evolves we’re happy…
But I guess that’s the difference between the camps… Mac users like beauty software, BSD users like powerful software, Windows users don’t care, BeOS users like slick applications and Linux users care about restricting possibilities…
Gee I know what camp I think sucks the most…
Someone else who just doesn’t get it ®.
But I guess that’s the difference between the camps… Mac users like beauty software, BSD users like powerful software, Windows users don’t care, BeOS users like slick applications and Linux users care about restricting possibilities…
Pure FUD… Not even going to comment on it.
Today only a truly huge company could afford to develop a new office suite. No one can afford to do it from scratch, especially no smaller firms. Now if OOo or GIMP would actually have been free, as in Non commie licensed stuff, Gimp and OOo would have been available but companies could have used parts of it and brought new, better, innovative software where R&D get’s paid by closing the software.
If you’re keeping it in house, or not selling it for profit, keep the changes closed source. That’s perfectly valid under the GPL. But why should I, as a software author, not expect the changes that someone else is profiting off of, be submitted back to me? Isn’t that my right?
Also, why did you have to go down the I-don’t-like-like-the-GPL-so-I’m-going-to-link-it-to-communisim route? You’ve basically lost all credit your argument may have had…
Comparing GPL to BSD license with murder is a braindead comparison. GPL says you can’t do this and you can’t do that. BSD say, hey, do whatever you like with it…. none of them implys that you should hurt another human being
You’ve completely mis-stated my comment. Perhaps the extreme I took my anaology to was too over the top, but that does not make the analogy any less true. A free society has restrictions. Free (as in freedom) software has restrictions, too. That doesn’t make it less free. The restrictions are there to guarentee the freedom of the software in the future. Do you not understand free-beer vs. free-speach?
It is more difficult to make money in the traditional ways using the GPL. But blame Linux distros, not the GPL. They give too much away for free. They should not give ISOs. They are only required to make the source available. Why are they making pre-compliled binaries? All of thier custom apps could be closed source (as long as they only linked against LGPL libs…). But no, its just easier for you to trash the entire model, instead of seeing, and commenting on the real problem.
Later,
Kick
http://ktd.sytes.net <– Donkies can’t spell.
This is really insulting. First of all, I had acne so severe it precluded military service. What does that have to do with my ability to write code?
Secondly, this indicated that you have at best a high school level of understanding of economics. The goal of an economic system it to efficiently allocate scarce resources. Free markets in capitalism are one (extraoridnally efficient) means to do this. If you lower the cost of good, there are many winners. The consumers get to save money. Producers of complmentary goods see increased demand. For example, Linux/BSD compete with Windows. If users save money by getting a free OS, they will increase their demand for 1) computer hardware (which is why IBM, Sun, HP, etc. jump on the Linux bandwagon)and 2) applications (more reasons for Sun, IBM, and thousands of IT companies).
I can code applications for either Windows or Linux if I use a framework like Java. If clients run the applications on a lower cost operating system , the demand for my application will increase. I may be surviving now by writting Windows applications, but the laws of economics suggest that I would do better if clients could convert from Windows to Linux and have more money left to pay me. The catch is simple- Micorsoft has monopoly power and it is able to distort the market so that it it not efficient.
Mr. Anonymous, perhaps you should read this, if you need a clairifcation of opensource:
http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=20031231092027900
There is a ton open souce can do for a product. That has all been drilled into our head. But the biggest reason for open source not be applied to operating systems is because it corrupts a standard for developers to program on.
I know I have said this before, but when I am programming in Windows I know that if I call a print function that Windows is going to handle everything and all I have to do in call the one interface.
However if I am programming in Linux I have to check to see what print server the user is running, and if the user has multiple servers installed as they often do I am to check to see which one has a printer. And then hope to god that they set it up right.
I know that this is an over simplified explanation but this are the kinds of things a developer worries about when targeting a platform for his application. In Windows I only worry about one platform in Linux I have to worry about at least 5 if not 20 platforms that all have different hardware and different servers running fonts and printers and grahpics displays.
Mr. Anonymous, perhaps you should read this, if you need a clairifcation of opensource: