Posted by: Anonymous Coward
on July 26, 2003 04:25 AM
I love your subject line!
And you are absolutely correct.
In a true democracy, in order to protect our freedom, we require Open Government.
Under the rules of an Open Government, we, the citizens, must be able to review everything the government does. There is only one exception, when secrecy is required to protect national security.
Thus it is that we require government purchases to be done through public tender, we require documents to be made available under Access To Information laws, and so on. We do this, despite the expense, because our freedom depends on it.
As you point out, this requirement extends to the software the government runs. If we are to protect our freedom, then we must be able to review all of the government's procedures, including those that are carried out by software.
Note that Open Standards are not enough, because they only give us access to the end result -- we still wouldn't be able to audit the procedure that produced that result.
Finally, just to be clear, I should point out that I am not talking about Free as is Free Software. In this instance, I really mean Freedom, as in Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness.
In other words, the goal here is not the promotion of Open Source software, but the protection of our freedom against ever-encroaching governments.
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To empower the vigilant. Absolutely!
Posted by: Anonymous Coward on July 26, 2003 04:25 AMAnd you are absolutely correct.
In a true democracy, in order to protect our freedom, we require Open Government.
Under the rules of an Open Government, we, the citizens, must be able to review everything the government does. There is only one exception, when secrecy is required to protect national security.
Thus it is that we require government purchases to be done through public tender, we require documents to be made available under Access To Information laws, and so on. We do this, despite the expense, because our freedom depends on it.
As you point out, this requirement extends to the software the government runs. If we are to protect our freedom, then we must be able to review all of the government's procedures, including those that are carried out by software.
Note that Open Standards are not enough, because they only give us access to the end result -- we still wouldn't be able to audit the procedure that produced that result.
Finally, just to be clear, I should point out that I am not talking about Free as is Free Software. In this instance, I really mean Freedom, as in Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness.
In other words, the goal here is not the promotion of Open Source software, but the protection of our freedom against ever-encroaching governments.
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