"demanding open source reveals your IP to everyone"
a statement like that reveals that you might be stuck in the same thinking paradigm that proprietary software has been in for years.
the IP of a company's product is not 100% within its source code, it's in the design of the code, its approaches to supporting that product, and the future directions, as well as many other things. don't reduce software down to sheer widgets being made by a factory.
when the VAST amount of government-made reports and software are for public consumption
(and must be released to the public domain anyway)....having open source software used in the government is quite a good idea.
so your argument is why would company A want to opensource their product just for the government's use, only to turn around and have it stolen by other companies ? because they are the original authors, that is why, and they present a better (if not the best) resource for development on that product.
for example...who better to go for Apache development than the original Apache team ? Covalent sells their own versions of apache, customized, and like you said, they are basically "stealing" the IP of the Apache Group, yes ? using opensource software in the government allows for some excellent advantages:
1- the public who is competent enough to evaluate source code can do so, and therefore evaluate how well the govt is making its software decisions.
2- when/if the government makes changes or improves the software, then they are allowed an excellent way to give back to the opensource community its changes. want an example ? take SELinux, the linux distro made by the NSA.
3- a government agency (let's take NHTSA, for example) who writes new improvements for the software can do so more easily (for the example, take the various fortran programs it has written to translate the many different signals coming from the data aquisition equipment used in car-crash sensing devices)<nobr> <wbr></nobr>....they can do this, in most part, to the open set of standards required and usually followed with opensource software.
*demanding* all government software to be opensource might be somewhat extreme, but to overlook the advantages of its use within government is completely short-sighted and representative of circa 1980 thinking.
also, if you think that research and development is 'reduced' and innovation 'squashed' due to opensource software, then you must not have heard of companies like IBM, HP, Linksys, SGI, etc....
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Re:what a ridiculous story
Posted by: smitty45 on July 25, 2003 07:42 PMa statement like that reveals that you might be stuck in the same thinking paradigm that proprietary software has been in for years.
the IP of a company's product is not 100% within its source code, it's in the design of the code, its approaches to supporting that product, and the future directions, as well as many other things. don't reduce software down to sheer widgets being made by a factory.
when the VAST amount of government-made reports and software are for public consumption
(and must be released to the public domain anyway)....having open source software used in the government is quite a good idea.
so your argument is why would company A want to opensource their product just for the government's use, only to turn around and have it stolen by other companies ? because they are the original authors, that is why, and they present a better (if not the best) resource for development on that product.
for example...who better to go for Apache development than the original Apache team ? Covalent sells their own versions of apache, customized, and like you said, they are basically "stealing" the IP of the Apache Group, yes ? using opensource software in the government allows for some excellent advantages:
1- the public who is competent enough to evaluate source code can do so, and therefore evaluate how well the govt is making its software decisions.
2- when/if the government makes changes or improves the software, then they are allowed an excellent way to give back to the opensource community its changes. want an example ? take SELinux, the linux distro made by the NSA.
3- a government agency (let's take NHTSA, for example) who writes new improvements for the software can do so more easily (for the example, take the various fortran programs it has written to translate the many different signals coming from the data aquisition equipment used in car-crash sensing devices)<nobr> <wbr></nobr>....they can do this, in most part, to the open set of standards required and usually followed with opensource software.
*demanding* all government software to be opensource might be somewhat extreme, but to overlook the advantages of its use within government is completely short-sighted and representative of circa 1980 thinking.
also, if you think that research and development is 'reduced' and innovation 'squashed' due to opensource software, then you must not have heard of companies like IBM, HP, Linksys, SGI, etc....
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