I think any legislation that "directs" or "demands" the state to use open source without equally considering commercial, is a bad idea. Public entities should weigh both commercial and open products together. And whatever solution works best should be used. If that means commercial, then commercial it should be. Just because something is "free" doesn't mean it better. Furthermore, many things that are "free" aren't really free. There are hidden costs, like support, administration, documentation, etc. As for quality and security, my feeling is that everything (open source or commercial) has its positives and negatives. You're basically choosing which positives and negatives you find most appealing. The best solution is to let the free-market decide. Public organizations should have options, just like any other consumer. They shouldn't be forced into using any technology. Furthermore, from my experience, many government agencies DO consider and use open source technologies. I don't see why legislation is necessary. It would just create more paperwork and administrative overhead? ___________________________________ Andrew Plato, CISSP President / Principal Consultant Anitian Enterprise Security 503-644-5656 Office 503-644-8574 Fax 503-201-0821 Mobile www.anitian.com ___________________________________ > -----Original Message----- > From: Robert Johnston [mailto:bob@private] > Sent: Monday, July 14, 2003 4:54 PM > To: crime@private > Subject: CRIME GNU Help > > > Is anyone working on getting legislation passed that directs > the state to use open source software before going > commercial? Giving the budget crises et al. I tried to get > budget numbers on what we are paying for commercial software > packages that could easily be replaced by GNU based products. > No-one has or is willing to give me any information. > > I just read in LJ that a couple of states had run into > resistance from MS and others when trying to push this > through. I am thinking about getting some interested folk > together to get see what we can do. > > Any comments? > > > ***** > > Robert Johnston > Datajockeys, LLC >
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b30 : Wed Jul 16 2003 - 13:33:45 PDT