[Tfug] FWD: RUSSELL PAVLICEK: "The Open Source"

[Jim Secan]

This is a very serious problem, and it reaches even deeper than he
describes.  I do some work for the DoD on data-collection systems, and
we've been told by the USAF Network Nazis that Linux/OS solutions were
unacceptable on USAF networks because of security worries.  The only
acceptable solutions were (you guessed it) Microsoft Windows.  The lobbying
reaches down to the worker-bee level with FUD and everything else MS and
their friends can bring to bear.

Jim

>========================================================
>RUSSELL PAVLICEK:    "The Open Source"    InfoWorld.com
>========================================================
>
>WE, THE OPEN PEOPLE
>Posted September 13, 2002 01:01 PM  Pacific Time
>
>AT THE RECENT LinuxWorld Conference & Expo, open source
>made headlines when a group of protesters, including
>Red Hat CTO Michael Tiemann, marched to city hall. The
>cause? To promote open-source software in government.
>
>This march, one of a few scheduled across the globe on
>that day, is actually a symptom of a much larger
>effort taking shape in the open-source world today:
>political activism.
>
>You don't need a Harvard Ph.D. to realize that techies
>are rarely natural politicians. They didn't come into
>monikers such as "geek" and "nerd" by being the most
>popular people in the class. And many are far more
>comfortable writing code than writing their
>congressman.
>
>Why, then, would these folks take to the streets
>against their most basic nature? Because they perceive
>they have little choice.
>
>And they are correct. Open source has proven itself
>disruptive to the process of creating and distributing
>software -- so disruptive that its most ardent
>opponents have resorted to new tactics to stem its
>onslaught. Foes of open source have found it difficult
>to compete with something that drives prices to the
>ground. Likewise, they have found it painful to fight
>on the field of features with a community that often
>swarms over needed features like bees over a honeycomb.
>
>So, some of those who resist open source have taken the
>fight to the halls of the lawmakers. Many of these
>corporations have been busily promoting legislation to
>stop the spread of open source through force of law
>rather than the force of competition. The alphabet
>soup of bills including the SSSCA (Security Systems
>Standards and Certification Act), CBDTPA (Consumer
>Broadband and Digital Television Promotion Act), DMCA
>(Digital Millennium Copyright Act), and UCITA (Uniform
>Computer Information Transaction Act) all have
>provisions that threaten the growth of open source.
>Fierce lobbying efforts actually seek to prohibit
>governments from even considering open-source alternatives.
>
>Published reports indicate that lobbying may have even
>forced the National Security Agency to discontinue
>developing a highly secure Linux kernel. It seems that
>some in government have swallowed the sour pablum,
>claiming that security through obscurity is essential,
>even when history has shown it to be woefully inadequate.
>
>The situation is so bad that prominent Linux kernel
>hacker Alan Cox announced that he would no longer
>travel to the United States because the DMCA allows
>for imprisonment of foreign programmers. This was
>clearly illustrated when visiting Russian programmer
>Dmitry Sklyarov was jailed for the high crime of
>demonstrating that Adobe's eBook protection schema was
>nowhere near as effective as advertised. Writing code
>legally in other countries can now cost a programmer
>25 years in prison in the "land of the free."
>
>Is it any wonder that grassroots efforts are mobilizing
>open-source supporters? The community has learned how
>to produce good software -- even if it means taking
>political action.
>
>Contact Contributing Editor Russell
>Pavlicek at pavlicek@linuxprofessionalsolutions.com.
>Copyright 2002 InfoWorld Media Group Inc.

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