[plug] [link] Open Source win in Mass. US

[Craig Ringer]

>>So ... open standards required, yes. Open source allowed, yes. Open 
>>source required - no.
> 
> Just to keep this argument balanced and noisy, I'll object to that. Is
> it really acceptable for government departments not to have a bias
> towards contractual arrangements that provide access-upon-request for
> source code / design documents / circuit diagrams?

No - it's not only reasonable, but a very good idea. That wasn't what I 
was talking about, either. Perhaps I should have said "using the term 
open source as is defined by http://opensource.org/, ...." but I think 
that was pretty obvious.

> The Defence
> department already has such "biases". Take, for instance, voting
> machines. If Australia were to introduce electronic voting, would we
> find it acceptable for closed solutions to be used?

No, we wouldn't. There are situations where I think it's OK - I don't 
have to like not having the source, but sometimes it's part of a 
trade-off I'm willing to make for software that otherwise better meets 
my needs. On the other hand, I don't have the resources to audit the 
code even if I can get it, and if I didn't have the right to use it for 
much else then there's really not much point in having it. That does not 
mean that areas with special security needs - government, voting, 
network security, etc - should be OK with not having source code.

Source code access and other things should just be part of the normal 
process of evaluating software. Sometimes it's just nice, sometimes it's 
a hard requirement - it depends on what the role of the software will be 
and the nature of the organization.

Craig Ringer


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