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153 Comments
- magamiako, on 02/10/2009, -1/+37For what it's worth, the government employs quite a mix of closed source and open source software. Like any reasonable IT person, they analyze what will get the job done for them.
The government has made significant contributions to the OSS community, not the least of which is SELinux which started out as an NSA project.
The NSA went in and provided a framework for security that most people would find cumbersome (and most do not know how to work with), and this standard is used throughout government computers and contractors.
The front end is mostly Windows, which is true. Many employees come out of schools having learned on a Windows PC--it's what they're familiar with. But the back end tends to be quite a reasonable mix. - ILoveBoobies, on 02/10/2009, -14/+40The open source model make much more sense than the closed proprietary model.
Period! - ercax, on 02/10/2009, -5/+25Is being ignorant like being on drugs? It feels good and you can't quit? Is it?
- ha3er0, on 06/16/2009, -6/+25What makes you think you have to "assemble" linux to use it?
Some "uber hackers" likes to compile their own kernels for custom hacks, you don't "have' to do it. - ILoveBoobies, on 02/10/2009, -3/+14Instead of digging me down, why don't you grow a pair and prove to me why closed source is better?
Thanks. - shredswithpiks, on 02/10/2009, -1/+12if only you had used the reply button you could have nitpicked the joke properly :(
- Elsewhere42, on 02/10/2009, -1/+10If they use any open source it should be in the Voting Machines.
Every line of code used in the voting machines should be available for public scrutiny, along with full hardware schematics. - johnomaz, on 02/10/2009, -4/+12Dude, if I dont' boot into Ubuntu for a week, I got a ***** list of updates to do.
- kierucom, on 02/10/2009, -5/+13sangjmoon brings up a valid point. OpenSource would definitely save the government a truckload of cash that would otherwise be spent on software licensing - but what about the need to re-train employees on the new software? Or the costs of transitioning existing data into new software?
OpenSource groups have bent over backwards to make transitions from things like Microsoft Office to Open Office as painless as possible - but when we are dealing with a change of this sort of volume it's never just as easy as "Install Ubuntu / Profit!" - Almightymole, on 02/10/2009, -0/+8"iTunes or WMP > any media player" I stopped reading after that point.
- ILoveBoobies, on 02/10/2009, -3/+10Open source is a far superior distributed collaborative development model. Anyone that argues that point doesn't have enough experience in the IT applications space.
Current State <> Future State as far as apps go.
Further, with the state of the economy, those that don't take open source in to consideration are not very intelligent. - theaceoffire, on 02/10/2009, -1/+7Of course it depends on your system.
If Windows 7 takes 3 seconds to install on your computer, then Linux would take around 3 seconds or less as well.
Remember, Ubuntu is only a couple of GB, including all drivers, programs, etc. It makes sense that it would take less time to uncompress and copy than Windows. - magamiako, on 02/10/2009, -0/+6Unfortunately, "grandma" and "middle aged person who uses computers regularly" are two entirely different groups of people.
On one hand, your grandma has had very little formal IT training in her life, particularly during the years that mattered for her education.
On the other hand, the people that are trained just aren't "dummies", but they actually know a little bit about what it is they're doing and what they expect. And if one thing is off or not right, they will have no part in it.
This occurs even within IT nerds within the IT field as well. People get "stuck" learning one way to do something and resist learning anything else. Case in point, the amount of NT4 Administrators out there who continue to use NT4 and NDS because it's what they know. Meanwhile the rest of the world has moved to Server 2000 and Server 2003.
There are also changes even within Linux that take a while to gain a foothold. Since 2.6, Linux has had solid support for ACLs--yet you see people continuing to use the dated and obselete "chmod/chown/chgrp" utilities to set their security permissions. - Amazetbm, on 02/10/2009, -0/+5Commercial versions of Unix have been used on government servers and mainframes for more than 3 decades.
- tmatyt95, on 02/10/2009, -0/+5I think the IT jobs would move not disappear.
- phantasm000, on 02/10/2009, -0/+5His campaign computers used linux
- benologist, on 02/10/2009, -1/+6But this is an OPEN letter!!!! Everyone is obliged to read those, from the CEOs of major corporations to the President of the USA.
Also it's on blogspot which makes it a +5 Open Letter. - shredswithpiks, on 02/10/2009, -0/+5maybe it's just me but I really like amarok better than itunes or wmp. I guess it's almost out for windows, though...
- melat0nin, on 02/10/2009, -1/+6Not strictly relevant, but there is a petition on the UK government's website mandating public bodies in receipt of taxpayer's money to at least evaluate open source software before deciding what solution to go with:
http://petitions.number10.gov.uk/Open-Source/ - 4321234, on 02/10/2009, -1/+6Microsoft would prolly bribe up about 800 billion bucks to stop it. Let's go for it!
- Yazilliclick, on 02/10/2009, -1/+6open source != free
You want to argue the government should move to open source software as opposed to closed proprietary, that's one argument.
You want to argue the government should move to free software as opposed to software that's licensed and costs money than that's a completely different argument.
There is free proprietary software and there is open source software that costs money also. - jrattner1, on 02/10/2009, -2/+7Another open letter how original..........
- phantasm000, on 02/11/2009, -0/+4i did some volunteering at the columbus ohio HQ, and it was all comps with linux on them
- melat0nin, on 02/10/2009, -2/+6Wow, what an impressively ignorant statement.
- inactive, on 02/10/2009, -0/+4Closed source isn't any better or worse but I know as a graphic designer I have yet to see a viable competitor to the programs I or my colluegues use for work, mainly Photoshop, Illustrator, Indesign, After Effects, and Final Cut Pro.
- clickmyface, on 02/10/2009, -1/+5Well this is easy; people want to eat!
Open source plays an enormous role in the progress of technology. But developers need a day job to pay for the little things like FOOD and CLOTHING. You don’t get the kind of resources, R&D, and brainpower that can help you make something great. You also don’t get funding to take advantage of patents to integrate others work into your product.
Yeah, corporate greed sucks. But it does not over shadow the amazing tech progress that has come out of both large and small project teams at places like Microsoft, Adobe. Apple, etc. Their minds have shaped the industry far more than any others. And they seem pretty happy getting paid to do it. - rmxz, on 02/11/2009, -0/+4No they don't. Most Federal workers just want to keep their jobs, and care little or not at all if they use one vendor's software or another's.
If a budget dictates "either switch to a cheaper software vendor or lay some people off", I know what 99.99% of federal would pick. - DigitalPioneer, on 02/10/2009, -1/+5./make? Are you cd'd to /usr/bin??
- samuelbritt, on 02/10/2009, -0/+4How come, at present, there are 477 diggs and only 42 signatures on the letter? Let's sign it, folks.
http://consideropensource.blogspot.com/ - tnoy, on 02/10/2009, -0/+4You've obviously never worked with the average office worker...
- DanBoodro, on 02/10/2009, -2/+6haha nub
- tnoy, on 02/10/2009, -3/+7Using the number of updates as a benchmark for the quality of an OS is retarded.
I recently reinstalled Windows 2000 SP4 on a machine, after a few reboots, there ended up being ~60 'updates'. Around the same time I installed Ubuntu 8.04.1 and there were around 150 'updates'.
The number of updates means nothing, get over it. If you're going to make an argument in favor of Linux, at least use a valid argument. - ucbmckee, on 02/10/2009, -8/+12So you don't update your Ubuntu install? And you're saying Ubuntu has stock drivers for all new hardware (because older cards work fine in both Windows and LInux, usually). And, if you want a ***** Office-clone, last I checked Star Office worked fine under Windows. Your argument is a bit disingenuous, I think. Good try, though. Nice to see FUD spewing isn't limited to Microsoft.
- inactive, on 02/10/2009, -6/+9Step 1.5. Pray that your device drivers work
Sorry, Ubuntu is not always that smooth of an install. I have installed it on 3 machines and 1 of them gave me a hell of a time with wireless. The default drivers didn't work, nids wrappers didn't work, about a dozen different fix actions on the Internet didn't work, so I gave up. Total time was over 6 hours. I can't remember the last time I had so many problems getting wireless to work with Windows. I like Ubuntu, but spreading propaganda like this really doesn't help the cause. - dakdak900, on 02/11/2009, -0/+3Windows 7 is still in Beta, it is not a fair comparison; by the time its released in final it'll take much longer. Also, Ubuntu fits on a CD (700mb) so its about the same size as XP, and it installs much faster than XP.
- sangjmoon, on 02/10/2009, -12/+15Most Federal workers just want the exact same interface and software they've been using for years. If switching to open source will change that, you will be told to take a flying leap.
- inactive, on 02/11/2009, -0/+3i stand corrected and dug down.
- Taiyoryu, on 02/10/2009, -1/+4Firefox > IE/Safari/Chrome combined
for now anyway, but here's hoping it stays that way - magamiako, on 02/10/2009, -0/+3If you'd like to get technical about it, they could still provide all of this documentation and still get away with fraud on voting machines.
How would you be able to verify the documentation they provided is the exact workings of the internal machines?
Furthermore, how would you know the machines would not be tampered with in transit to voting precincts? Or even more so, while there?
The only way to provide this sort of scrutiny is a public commission of people who know what to look for, hired or brought on for the purpose of validating the machines and the code and hardware prior to going to voting precincts, checked and double checked by other people.
Then have representatives of said group ride with each truck to polling stations, and then stand there and monitor to make sure no tampering goes on.
And how do you know that one of those people wouldn't be corrupt? Or wouldn't be easily corruptable? - rr525356, on 02/10/2009, -5/+8The idea of every piece of software on government computers being open source seems like a bit of a security risk. It's good to have proprietary applications. I think the bigger problem in government is lack of any computers at all...many departments are still paper based.
- rr525356, on 02/10/2009, -0/+3Yeah, if they could just divert their attention from any of those other unimportant things they're focusing on right now...
- ohplease, on 02/10/2009, -3/+6
Linux on the desktop is as capable in terms of centrally managed policy based enterprise computing as NT4.
If you are not an enterprise systems architect then please don't think that just because Ubuntu runs on your laptop that you know what you're talking about when it comes to large footprint corporate desktop policy. - Amazetbm, on 02/10/2009, -0/+3SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop and Red Hat Linux Desktop have had successful deployments in foreign governments.
- theaceoffire, on 02/10/2009, -1/+4"What about the need to re-train employees on the new software? Or the costs of transitioning existing data into new software?"
These costs only need to be done once, while the licenses have to be done constantly.
Not to mention that every new version of the Window's software may be incompatible with older versions (XP doc's are not the same as 95 docs for example), may have vastly different interfaces that require retraining anyway, and may require vast new hardware to run. - notrealdan, on 02/10/2009, -3/+6With that reasoning, they would never switch from their current version of Windows to something newer. Switching from XP to Vista makes a huge change in the interface, presents many application compatibility problems, etc. If you're going to have to change, why not change for the better?
- xevidentx, on 02/10/2009, -1/+4open source is good for some project, but why are people making it a righteous holier than thou crusade? I may use firefox, but i also use office 2007. i might use linux for my web server, but i simply prefer windows on my home machines. good software is good software, whether it's closed source or open.
- OMRebel, on 02/10/2009, -2/+5@icexe - You obviously have no clue what you're talking about. The government very much uses Linux, and has Linux servers and workstations in very mission critical departments/branches.
New programmers? Why? Everyone that I know that is a developer (myself included) can write in several different languages - C, C++, C#, Java, Delphi, etc... The thing is, most of these languages aren't so different from each other. Again, it's obvious you're clueless when it comes to developers. Besides, they already use Linux and have developers writing software for them. Do you think NASA just relies on something they downloaded from the net and they just hope it'll work for them? Geez man, stop being so stupid.
IT staff would NOT need to be retrained. What you're failing to understand is that the US government doesn't hire kids like you that only know about MS Windows. Again, they already have Linux, and support Linux. So this is yet another portion of your post that is wrong and shows your ignorance about this topic.
Now, just who is "***** naive" kid? It's best for you to shut your mouth when you don't know what you're talking about instead of spouting off your "*****". (A suggestion - showing stupidity and resorting to cursing isn't impressing anyone kid. Go get yourself an education.) - TruthKid, on 02/10/2009, -0/+3You are completely correct. As an IT guy for the Army, I can say that if we went open source it would free up cash and time. Every computer the Army buys has a windows license, however the Army also has an enterprise license for Windows, so we're buying Windows twice for every computer that is on an Army property book. Because people use windows at home, they like to play the part of IT and try to circumvent security policies. Most are stopped and complain "oh we can't do ***** on the computer," while some are smarter then the average bear because they know a few tricks. Well if we shifted to Linux, you're killing off a whole bunch of window's know it alls that give the IT guys a job by ***** everything they touch because "I do this on my home computer." Not only that, you save the redundant spending on windows. Open Office for all intents and purposes does everything Brigade and below needs, higher echelons may have unique requirements which windows would still be put into use for them. I had Open Office running on 450ish computers in my BN after coming back from deployment, no one had a clue. Granted the IT guys who run the post found out and made us reimage everything, it proved that the transition would be seamless.
- theaceoffire, on 02/10/2009, -2/+5Ubuntu shows each item being changed, and lets you disable them.
Windows fixes thousands of things under each patch, and you have to accept them all or skip it.
So yeah, there are more items in the Ubuntu update list, but the total size of the updates is much smaller. - Number23, on 02/10/2009, -1/+4Given the Market is off 4%+ today, I'd say the less Obama and his administration says the better...
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