[plug] [link] ...and here's the California one - with teeth!

[Leon Brooks]

    http://www.redhat.com/opensourcenow/bill_opensource.html

    To guarantee the security of the State, it is required that systems
    not allow control from a distance or the undesired transmission of
    information to third parties. Systems must be open and allow
    inspection by the State itself, its employees and contractors and
    by the citizens to enable the State to audit its security and
    integrity. These goals necessitate that the encoding of data is not
    tied to a single provider. The use of standard and open formats in
    open source software gives a guarantee of this security and
    integrity access.

    This law is limited to establishing the conditions under which the
    State and its agencies will obtain software in the future, that is,
    in a way compatible with these basic principles. Once passed:

    * The law does not forbid the production of proprietary software;
    * The law does not forbid the sale of proprietary software;
    * The law does not dictate which software to use;
    * The law does not dictate the supplier from whom software will be
      bought; and
    * The law does not limit the terms under which software can be
      licensed.

    The legislative intent is that for software to be acceptable to the
    State it is not enough that it is technically capable of fulfilling
    a task, but that the contractual conditions for purchase and/or
    licensing must satisfy a series of requirements regarding the
    license. Without such requirements the State cannot guarantee its
    citizens adequate processing of its data, watching over its
    integrity, confidentiality, and accessibility throughout time, as
    these are very critical aspects for the software's normal functioning.

Cheers; Leon