The US government needs Free and Open Source Software!

[n0cmonkey]

.pdf

 

[n0cmonkey]

Here is a brief article on theregister about this.

"In the long term removing FOSS would remove an important source of price and quality competition. Without the constant pressure of low-cost, high-quality FOSS product competing with the closed-source products, the closed-source vendors could more easily fall into a cycle in which their support costs balloon and costs are passed on to their locked-in customers."

Why?

"... to promote product diversity. FOSS applications tend to be much lower in cost than their proprietary equivalents, yet they often provide high levels of functionality with good user acceptance."

See. It's even good for Microsoft. ®

 

[charrison]

Originally posted by: n0cmonkey
Here is a brief article on theregister about this.

"In the long term removing FOSS would remove an important source of price and quality competition. Without the constant pressure of low-cost, high-quality FOSS product competing with the closed-source products, the closed-source vendors could more easily fall into a cycle in which their support costs balloon and costs are passed on to their locked-in customers."

Why?

"... to promote product diversity. FOSS applications tend to be much lower in cost than their proprietary equivalents, yet they often provide high levels of functionality with good user acceptance."

See. It's even good for Microsoft. ®

Open Source is far from a perfect solution. But open source should be used when it makes sense.

Open source apps are initially cheaper than commercial software, but they are also tend to be lacking features and much needed support. There are office suites out there, but MS Office is the standard for the time being. I am sure the govt would save a bundle if it used corel office instead of ms office.

G++ works, but nothing compares to visual studio.

 

[Martin]

won't happen. MS has very very deep pockets and they can easily buy politicians.

 

[n0cmonkey]

Originally posted by: charrison

Originally posted by: n0cmonkey
Here is a brief article on theregister about this.

"In the long term removing FOSS would remove an important source of price and quality competition. Without the constant pressure of low-cost, high-quality FOSS product competing with the closed-source products, the closed-source vendors could more easily fall into a cycle in which their support costs balloon and costs are passed on to their locked-in customers."

Why?

"... to promote product diversity. FOSS applications tend to be much lower in cost than their proprietary equivalents, yet they often provide high levels of functionality with good user acceptance."

See. It's even good for Microsoft. ®

Open Source is far from a perfect solution. But open source should be used when it makes sense.

Open source apps are initially cheaper than commercial software, but they are also tend to be lacking features and much needed support. There are office suites out there, but MS Office is the standard for the time being. I am sure the govt would save a bundle if it used corel office instead of ms office.

MS Office is the standard. I will give you that one. I really dont care

G++ works, but nothing compares to visual studio.

Compile an application for glibc 2.1 for linux on an alpha platform.

When Closed Source vendors are offered no competition they offer nothing new. Look at XP. There are no features that I saw that are worth $300 to upgrade from 2k. Upgrading from OpenBSD 3.1-stable to 3.2-release offers me a ton of features.

Also, why should our government be spending millions, if not billions, of dollars on lower quality software? Why setup a Windows firewall when they can setup Linux or OpenBSD for much much less? It baffles me.

 

[n0cmonkey]

Originally posted by: MartyTheManiak
won't happen. MS has very very deep pockets and they can easily buy politicians.

I know you arent a total idiot, Ive read some interresting posts from you before. But I have to say it: IT IS ALREADY HAPPENING. To make a small quote from the pdf:

Firstly, it has produced infrastructure software such as OpenBSD with low rates of software failure combined with early and rapid closure of security holes...

DoD is using OpenBSD. The paper also mentions SARA and Snort, two great FOSS products in the security industry.

Should I get into the fact that DARPA has sponsored more FOSS software than most people care to think about? The internet was born on DARPA money on a BSD system

EDIT: forgot to close quotes.

 

[charrison]

Originally posted by: n0cmonkey

G++ works, but nothing compares to visual studio.

Compile an application for glibc 2.1 for linux on an alpha platform.

I was referring to dev tools, not just something to just compile with

When Closed Source vendors are offered no competition they offer nothing new. Look at XP. There are no features that I saw that are worth $300 to upgrade from 2k. Upgrading from OpenBSD 3.1-stable to 3.2-release offers me a ton of features.


Win2k is a very feature complete OS for the consumer, and that is the reason MS is having problems selling XP and will likely extend win2k as a product.

OpenBSD is a nice OS, but as far as general consumers go, it is not a feature complete OS.








Also, why should our government be spending millions, if not billions, of dollars on lower quality software? Why setup a Windows firewall when they can setup Linux or OpenBSD for much much less? It baffles me.

Actually for the cost, they should be buying dedicated hardware for a firewall. But like i said, it not just about initial cost. It is about cost over a lifetime of maintance. Not everyone can setup an openBSD firewall, but almost anyone can setup a firewall on windows and if they cant, they can pick upthe phone and be lead thru the process.

 

[n0cmonkey]

Originally posted by: charrison

Originally posted by: n0cmonkey

G++ works, but nothing compares to visual studio.

Compile an application for glibc 2.1 for linux on an alpha platform.

I was referring to dev tools, not just something to just compile with

So you can compile the program?

When Closed Source vendors are offered no competition they offer nothing new. Look at XP. There are no features that I saw that are worth $300 to upgrade from 2k. Upgrading from OpenBSD 3.1-stable to 3.2-release offers me a ton of features.


Win2k is a very feature complete OS for the consumer, and that is the reason MS is having problems selling XP and will likely extend win2k as a product.

You reaffirmed my point, is that what you meant to do?

OpenBSD is a nice OS, but as far as general consumers go, it is not a feature complete OS.

We are not talkinga bout consumers.

Also, why should our government be spending millions, if not billions, of dollars on lower quality software? Why setup a Windows firewall when they can setup Linux or OpenBSD for much much less? It baffles me.

Actually for the cost, they should be buying dedicated hardware for a firewall.

I agree, but I think we would disagree on what dedicated hardware means...

But like i said, it not just about initial cost. It is about cost over a lifetime of maintance. Not everyone can setup an openBSD firewall, but almost anyone can setup a firewall on windows and if they cant, they can pick upthe phone and be lead thru the process.

You can do the same with PF based firewalls. Not everyone can setup Checkpoint and have it working perfectly. In fact, I dont think its possible But this in no way makes the use of Open Source and Free Software in the government any less important.

 

[charrison]

Originally posted by: n0cmonkey

Originally posted by: charrison

Originally posted by: n0cmonkey

G++ works, but nothing compares to visual studio.

Compile an application for glibc 2.1 for linux on an alpha platform.

I was referring to dev tools, not just something to just compile with

So you can compile the program?

When Closed Source vendors are offered no competition they offer nothing new. Look at XP. There are no features that I saw that are worth $300 to upgrade from 2k. Upgrading from OpenBSD 3.1-stable to 3.2-release offers me a ton of features.


Win2k is a very feature complete OS for the consumer, and that is the reason MS is having problems selling XP and will likely extend win2k as a product.

You reaffirmed my point, is that what you meant to do?

OpenBSD is a nice OS, but as far as general consumers go, it is not a feature complete OS.

We are not talkinga bout consumers.

Also, why should our government be spending millions, if not billions, of dollars on lower quality software? Why setup a Windows firewall when they can setup Linux or OpenBSD for much much less? It baffles me.

Actually for the cost, they should be buying dedicated hardware for a firewall.

I agree, but I think we would disagree on what dedicated hardware means...

But like i said, it not just about initial cost. It is about cost over a lifetime of maintance. Not everyone can setup an openBSD firewall, but almost anyone can setup a firewall on windows and if they cant, they can pick upthe phone and be lead thru the process.

You can do the same with PF based firewalls. Not everyone can setup Checkpoint and have it working perfectly. In fact, I dont think its possible But this in no way makes the use of Open Source and Free Software in the government any less important.

The goverment is a consumer.

 

[n0cmonkey]

Originally posted by: charrison

Originally posted by: n0cmonkey

Originally posted by: charrison

Originally posted by: n0cmonkey

G++ works, but nothing compares to visual studio.

Compile an application for glibc 2.1 for linux on an alpha platform.

I was referring to dev tools, not just something to just compile with

So you can compile the program?

When Closed Source vendors are offered no competition they offer nothing new. Look at XP. There are no features that I saw that are worth $300 to upgrade from 2k. Upgrading from OpenBSD 3.1-stable to 3.2-release offers me a ton of features.


Win2k is a very feature complete OS for the consumer, and that is the reason MS is having problems selling XP and will likely extend win2k as a product.

You reaffirmed my point, is that what you meant to do?

OpenBSD is a nice OS, but as far as general consumers go, it is not a feature complete OS.

We are not talkinga bout consumers.

Also, why should our government be spending millions, if not billions, of dollars on lower quality software? Why setup a Windows firewall when they can setup Linux or OpenBSD for much much less? It baffles me.

Actually for the cost, they should be buying dedicated hardware for a firewall.

I agree, but I think we would disagree on what dedicated hardware means...

But like i said, it not just about initial cost. It is about cost over a lifetime of maintance. Not everyone can setup an openBSD firewall, but almost anyone can setup a firewall on windows and if they cant, they can pick upthe phone and be lead thru the process.

You can do the same with PF based firewalls. Not everyone can setup Checkpoint and have it working perfectly. In fact, I dont think its possible But this in no way makes the use of Open Source and Free Software in the government any less important.

The goverment is a consumer.

The government is more of a corporation than a consumer. They can hire someone to do work for them, most consumers cant. That is one of the reasons they choose lower grade, but easier software.

Free Software and Open Source Software is good for the government and should in no way be banned.

 

[charrison]

Originally posted by: n0cmonkey

Originally posted by: charrison

Originally posted by: n0cmonkey

Originally posted by: charrison

Originally posted by: n0cmonkey

G++ works, but nothing compares to visual studio.

Compile an application for glibc 2.1 for linux on an alpha platform.

I was referring to dev tools, not just something to just compile with

So you can compile the program?

When Closed Source vendors are offered no competition they offer nothing new. Look at XP. There are no features that I saw that are worth $300 to upgrade from 2k. Upgrading from OpenBSD 3.1-stable to 3.2-release offers me a ton of features.


Win2k is a very feature complete OS for the consumer, and that is the reason MS is having problems selling XP and will likely extend win2k as a product.

You reaffirmed my point, is that what you meant to do?

OpenBSD is a nice OS, but as far as general consumers go, it is not a feature complete OS.

We are not talkinga bout consumers.

Also, why should our government be spending millions, if not billions, of dollars on lower quality software? Why setup a Windows firewall when they can setup Linux or OpenBSD for much much less? It baffles me.

Actually for the cost, they should be buying dedicated hardware for a firewall.

I agree, but I think we would disagree on what dedicated hardware means...

But like i said, it not just about initial cost. It is about cost over a lifetime of maintance. Not everyone can setup an openBSD firewall, but almost anyone can setup a firewall on windows and if they cant, they can pick upthe phone and be lead thru the process.

You can do the same with PF based firewalls. Not everyone can setup Checkpoint and have it working perfectly. In fact, I dont think its possible But this in no way makes the use of Open Source and Free Software in the government any less important.

The goverment is a consumer.

The government is more of a corporation than a consumer. They can hire someone to do work for them, most consumers cant. That is one of the reasons they choose lower grade, but easier software.

Free Software and Open Source Software is good for the government and should in no way be banned.

Well it is often cheaper to buy stuff off the shelf and hire people that use the off the shelf software. The goverment, even though it would be able to write its own OS and Office apps, it is better off buying them.

 

[n0cmonkey]

Originally posted by: charrison

Originally posted by: n0cmonkey

Originally posted by: charrison

Originally posted by: n0cmonkey

Originally posted by: charrison

Originally posted by: n0cmonkey

G++ works, but nothing compares to visual studio.

Compile an application for glibc 2.1 for linux on an alpha platform.

I was referring to dev tools, not just something to just compile with

So you can compile the program?

When Closed Source vendors are offered no competition they offer nothing new. Look at XP. There are no features that I saw that are worth $300 to upgrade from 2k. Upgrading from OpenBSD 3.1-stable to 3.2-release offers me a ton of features.


Win2k is a very feature complete OS for the consumer, and that is the reason MS is having problems selling XP and will likely extend win2k as a product.

You reaffirmed my point, is that what you meant to do?

OpenBSD is a nice OS, but as far as general consumers go, it is not a feature complete OS.

We are not talkinga bout consumers.

Also, why should our government be spending millions, if not billions, of dollars on lower quality software? Why setup a Windows firewall when they can setup Linux or OpenBSD for much much less? It baffles me.

Actually for the cost, they should be buying dedicated hardware for a firewall.

I agree, but I think we would disagree on what dedicated hardware means...

But like i said, it not just about initial cost. It is about cost over a lifetime of maintance. Not everyone can setup an openBSD firewall, but almost anyone can setup a firewall on windows and if they cant, they can pick upthe phone and be lead thru the process.

You can do the same with PF based firewalls. Not everyone can setup Checkpoint and have it working perfectly. In fact, I dont think its possible But this in no way makes the use of Open Source and Free Software in the government any less important.

The goverment is a consumer.

The government is more of a corporation than a consumer. They can hire someone to do work for them, most consumers cant. That is one of the reasons they choose lower grade, but easier software.

Free Software and Open Source Software is good for the government and should in no way be banned.

Well it is often cheaper to buy stuff off the shelf and hire people that use the off the shelf software. The goverment, even though it would be able to write its own OS and Office apps, it is better off buying them.

They have a graph on the costs of replacing all of the open source software with commercial software. Costs go up, capability and security go down.

The government has paid some high dollars to help the development of other OSes and applicatioons (I mentioned DARPA earlier, they have also given money to OpenBSD and I believe FreeBSD).

Forget Office for the moment. I will not argue about it because it is pointless. MS Office is the standard and I do not necessarily think it should be replaced. I would love for it to be replaced, but at this point there is no reason to.

I do think that free and open source applications have a place in the government. gcc may not be the best compiler, but I do not know of another compiler that has the support gcc does. Visual Studio was mentioned, but I do not believe you have the power in that application as you do in gcc. There is more to computers than x86.

OpenBSD is a great OS. It fits firewalling, IDS, mail, web, etc perfectly. Proactive security, with some very interresting features I have yet to see in any other OS are making it a better and better choice. It is already in use at the DoD. Why stop that? It would cost a bundle to move from that platform to a proprietary commercial platform.

I am in no way saying open source and free software should be the only things in use, I just do not agree with the idiots saying the government should only be using commercial software. That makes no sense what so ever.

 

[charrison]

Originally posted by: n0cmonkey
They have a graph on the costs of replacing all of the open source software with commercial software. Costs go up, capability and security go down.

The government has paid some high dollars to help the development of other OSes and applicatioons (I mentioned DARPA earlier, they have also given money to OpenBSD and I believe FreeBSD).

Forget Office for the moment. I will not argue about it because it is pointless. MS Office is the standard and I do not necessarily think it should be replaced. I would love for it to be replaced, but at this point there is no reason to.

I do think that free and open source applications have a place in the government. gcc may not be the best compiler, but I do not know of another compiler that has the support gcc does. Visual Studio was mentioned, but I do not believe you have the power in that application as you do in gcc. There is more to computers than x86.

OpenBSD is a great OS. It fits firewalling, IDS, mail, web, etc perfectly. Proactive security, with some very interresting features I have yet to see in any other OS are making it a better and better choice. It is already in use at the DoD. Why stop that? It would cost a bundle to move from that platform to a proprietary commercial platform.

I am in no way saying open source and free software should be the only things in use, I just do not agree with the idiots saying the government should only be using commercial software. That makes no sense what so ever.

I dont disagree with you. When opensource is available and makes sense, it should be used. But I will give you an interesting example. I do not know if this is still true or not, but it was few years back.


Microsoft was paying ibm for a software and hardware to do their backend accounting(or something similar). Microsoft at the time, had the time, money and skilled personal to make a new system. They chose not to because it was cheaper just to pay IBM than to do something from scratch.

Off the shelf tools can be cheaper than free ones.

 

[n0cmonkey]

Originally posted by: charrison

Originally posted by: n0cmonkey
They have a graph on the costs of replacing all of the open source software with commercial software. Costs go up, capability and security go down.

The government has paid some high dollars to help the development of other OSes and applicatioons (I mentioned DARPA earlier, they have also given money to OpenBSD and I believe FreeBSD).

Forget Office for the moment. I will not argue about it because it is pointless. MS Office is the standard and I do not necessarily think it should be replaced. I would love for it to be replaced, but at this point there is no reason to.

I do think that free and open source applications have a place in the government. gcc may not be the best compiler, but I do not know of another compiler that has the support gcc does. Visual Studio was mentioned, but I do not believe you have the power in that application as you do in gcc. There is more to computers than x86.

OpenBSD is a great OS. It fits firewalling, IDS, mail, web, etc perfectly. Proactive security, with some very interresting features I have yet to see in any other OS are making it a better and better choice. It is already in use at the DoD. Why stop that? It would cost a bundle to move from that platform to a proprietary commercial platform.

I am in no way saying open source and free software should be the only things in use, I just do not agree with the idiots saying the government should only be using commercial software. That makes no sense what so ever.

I dont disagree with you. When opensource is available and makes sense, it should be used. But I will give you an interesting example. I do not know if this is still true or not, but it was few years back.


Microsoft was paying ibm for a software and hardware to do their backend accounting(or something similar). Microsoft at the time, had the time, money and skilled personal to make a new system. They chose not to because it was cheaper just to pay IBM than to do something from scratch.

Off the shelf tools can be cheaper than free ones.

At this point, Linux, MySQL, Apache, PostgreSQL, etc are "off the shelf" softwares. Apache is basically the standard for webservers. IBM is promoting Linux, PostGreSQL and MySQL have support that can be paid for. The government already gives some of these groups money. They might as well use some of the software.

I agree that writing something from scratch is time consuming and expensive, but I have not yet said that they should. But why rip out something that is working just fine? Why stop using Open Source and Free Software just because some large corporations that have too much time on their hands to code something secure say they shouldnt?

 

[charrison]

Originally posted by: n0cmonkey

Originally posted by: charrison

Originally posted by: n0cmonkey
They have a graph on the costs of replacing all of the open source software with commercial software. Costs go up, capability and security go down.

The government has paid some high dollars to help the development of other OSes and applicatioons (I mentioned DARPA earlier, they have also given money to OpenBSD and I believe FreeBSD).

Forget Office for the moment. I will not argue about it because it is pointless. MS Office is the standard and I do not necessarily think it should be replaced. I would love for it to be replaced, but at this point there is no reason to.

I do think that free and open source applications have a place in the government. gcc may not be the best compiler, but I do not know of another compiler that has the support gcc does. Visual Studio was mentioned, but I do not believe you have the power in that application as you do in gcc. There is more to computers than x86.

OpenBSD is a great OS. It fits firewalling, IDS, mail, web, etc perfectly. Proactive security, with some very interresting features I have yet to see in any other OS are making it a better and better choice. It is already in use at the DoD. Why stop that? It would cost a bundle to move from that platform to a proprietary commercial platform.

I am in no way saying open source and free software should be the only things in use, I just do not agree with the idiots saying the government should only be using commercial software. That makes no sense what so ever.

I dont disagree with you. When opensource is available and makes sense, it should be used. But I will give you an interesting example. I do not know if this is still true or not, but it was few years back.


Microsoft was paying ibm for a software and hardware to do their backend accounting(or something similar). Microsoft at the time, had the time, money and skilled personal to make a new system. They chose not to because it was cheaper just to pay IBM than to do something from scratch.

Off the shelf tools can be cheaper than free ones.

At this point, Linux, MySQL, Apache, PostgreSQL, etc are "off the shelf" softwares. Apache is basically the standard for webservers. IBM is promoting Linux, PostGreSQL and MySQL have support that can be paid for. The government already gives some of these groups money. They might as well use some of the software.

I agree that writing something from scratch is time consuming and expensive, but I have not yet said that they should. But why rip out something that is working just fine? Why stop using Open Source and Free Software just because some large corporations that have too much time on their hands to code something secure say they shouldnt?

Linux could easily replace many unix machines the goverment has and redhat could provide resonable support for it as well. Apache is a standard in the industry. Access is probably a better solution from instances than postgres or mysql. MSDE is better than Mysql or Postgress and is still free.

 

[n0cmonkey]

Originally posted by: charrison

Originally posted by: n0cmonkey

Originally posted by: charrison

Originally posted by: n0cmonkey
They have a graph on the costs of replacing all of the open source software with commercial software. Costs go up, capability and security go down.

The government has paid some high dollars to help the development of other OSes and applicatioons (I mentioned DARPA earlier, they have also given money to OpenBSD and I believe FreeBSD).

Forget Office for the moment. I will not argue about it because it is pointless. MS Office is the standard and I do not necessarily think it should be replaced. I would love for it to be replaced, but at this point there is no reason to.

I do think that free and open source applications have a place in the government. gcc may not be the best compiler, but I do not know of another compiler that has the support gcc does. Visual Studio was mentioned, but I do not believe you have the power in that application as you do in gcc. There is more to computers than x86.

OpenBSD is a great OS. It fits firewalling, IDS, mail, web, etc perfectly. Proactive security, with some very interresting features I have yet to see in any other OS are making it a better and better choice. It is already in use at the DoD. Why stop that? It would cost a bundle to move from that platform to a proprietary commercial platform.

I am in no way saying open source and free software should be the only things in use, I just do not agree with the idiots saying the government should only be using commercial software. That makes no sense what so ever.

I dont disagree with you. When opensource is available and makes sense, it should be used. But I will give you an interesting example. I do not know if this is still true or not, but it was few years back.


Microsoft was paying ibm for a software and hardware to do their backend accounting(or something similar). Microsoft at the time, had the time, money and skilled personal to make a new system. They chose not to because it was cheaper just to pay IBM than to do something from scratch.

Off the shelf tools can be cheaper than free ones.

At this point, Linux, MySQL, Apache, PostgreSQL, etc are "off the shelf" softwares. Apache is basically the standard for webservers. IBM is promoting Linux, PostGreSQL and MySQL have support that can be paid for. The government already gives some of these groups money. They might as well use some of the software.

I agree that writing something from scratch is time consuming and expensive, but I have not yet said that they should. But why rip out something that is working just fine? Why stop using Open Source and Free Software just because some large corporations that have too much time on their hands to code something secure say they shouldnt?

Linux could easily replace many unix machines the goverment has and redhat could provide resonable support for it as well. Apache is a standard in the industry. Access is probably a better solution from instances than postgres or mysql. MSDE is better than Mysql or Postgress and is still free.

Access sucks. I have never heard of MSDE, but its probably just free as in beer.

I am pretty sure Linux and other open source/free OSes are already replacing other machines in the government. If it does not become illegal to use these wonderful technologies, we should see a lot more of them.

 

[charrison]

Originally posted by: n0cmonkey

Access sucks. I have never heard of MSDE, but its probably just free as in beer.

Access like anyother tool, is only as good as its user. Access is good tool in hands of good dba. Access sucks when an end users tries to create a database app.

MSDE is SQL server light. Last time I checked it was available for download.

I am pretty sure Linux and other open source/free OSes are already replacing other machines in the government. If it does not become illegal to use these wonderful technologies, we should see a lot more of them.

I dont see why open source would ever become illegal.

 

[n0cmonkey]

Originally posted by: charrison

Originally posted by: n0cmonkey

Access sucks. I have never heard of MSDE, but its probably just free as in beer.

Access like anyother tool, is only as good as its user. Access is good tool in hands of good dba. Access sucks when an end users tries to create a database app.

MSDE is SQL server light. Last time I checked it was available for download.

I am pretty sure Linux and other open source/free OSes are already replacing other machines in the government. If it does not become illegal to use these wonderful technologies, we should see a lot more of them.

I dont see why open source would ever become illegal.

First, some large corporations want to ban the government from using Free and Open Source Software. There are also bills proposed that will ban the use of software that does not follow some certain rules, which includes the inability of the user to change certain things. This goes against what Free Software and Open Source movements are all about.

 

[charrison]

Originally posted by: n0cmonkey

Originally posted by: charrison

Originally posted by: n0cmonkey

Access sucks. I have never heard of MSDE, but its probably just free as in beer.

Access like anyother tool, is only as good as its user. Access is good tool in hands of good dba. Access sucks when an end users tries to create a database app.

MSDE is SQL server light. Last time I checked it was available for download.

I am pretty sure Linux and other open source/free OSes are already replacing other machines in the government. If it does not become illegal to use these wonderful technologies, we should see a lot more of them.

I dont see why open source would ever become illegal.

First, some large corporations want to ban the government from using Free and Open Source Software. There are also bills proposed that will ban the use of software that does not follow some certain rules, which includes the inability of the user to change certain things. This goes against what Free Software and Open Source movements are all about.

I dont think there is anything to worry about there.

 

[n0cmonkey]

Originally posted by: charrison

Originally posted by: n0cmonkey

Originally posted by: charrison

Originally posted by: n0cmonkey

Access sucks. I have never heard of MSDE, but its probably just free as in beer.

Access like anyother tool, is only as good as its user. Access is good tool in hands of good dba. Access sucks when an end users tries to create a database app.

MSDE is SQL server light. Last time I checked it was available for download.

I am pretty sure Linux and other open source/free OSes are already replacing other machines in the government. If it does not become illegal to use these wonderful technologies, we should see a lot more of them.

I dont see why open source would ever become illegal.

First, some large corporations want to ban the government from using Free and Open Source Software. There are also bills proposed that will ban the use of software that does not follow some certain rules, which includes the inability of the user to change certain things. This goes against what Free Software and Open Source movements are all about.

I dont think there is anything to worry about there.

The DMCA got through...

 

[Martin]

Originally posted by: n0cmonkey

Originally posted by: MartyTheManiak
won't happen. MS has very very deep pockets and they can easily buy politicians.

I know you arent a total idiot, Ive read some interresting posts from you before. But I have to say it: IT IS ALREADY HAPPENING. To make a small quote from the pdf:

Firstly, it has produced infrastructure software such as OpenBSD with low rates of software failure combined with early and rapid closure of security holes...

DoD is using OpenBSD. The paper also mentions SARA and Snort, two great FOSS products in the security industry.

Should I get into the fact that DARPA has sponsored more FOSS software than most people care to think about? The internet was born on DARPA money on a BSD system

EDIT: forgot to close quotes.

I'm not an idiot, just a skeptic. When I see the effort MS puts into maintaining their monopoly (the case in Peru would be a good example) I just don't think they'll let the US gov use lots of FOSS.

I hope I'm wrong, but I can't help being pessimistic

 

[n0cmonkey]

Originally posted by: MartyTheManiak

Originally posted by: n0cmonkey

Originally posted by: MartyTheManiak
won't happen. MS has very very deep pockets and they can easily buy politicians.

I know you arent a total idiot, Ive read some interresting posts from you before. But I have to say it: IT IS ALREADY HAPPENING. To make a small quote from the pdf:

Firstly, it has produced infrastructure software such as OpenBSD with low rates of software failure combined with early and rapid closure of security holes...

DoD is using OpenBSD. The paper also mentions SARA and Snort, two great FOSS products in the security industry.

Should I get into the fact that DARPA has sponsored more FOSS software than most people care to think about? The internet was born on DARPA money on a BSD system

EDIT: forgot to close quotes.

I'm not an idiot, just a skeptic. When I see the effort MS puts into maintaining their monopoly (the case in Peru would be a good example) I just don't think they'll let the US gov use lots of FOSS.

I hope I'm wrong, but I can't help being pessimistic

The government has funded plenty of research and development of FOSS. It appears that it is using a bit of it also. I dont want them to replace all Microsoft machines (although it would be nice ), just that they continue to use it.

 

[manly]

Originally posted by: charrison

Open Source is far from a perfect solution. But open source should be used when it makes sense.

Open source apps are initially cheaper than commercial software, but they are also tend to be lacking features and much needed support. There are office suites out there, but MS Office is the standard for the time being. I am sure the govt would save a bundle if it used corel office instead of ms office.

G++ works, but nothing compares to visual studio.

Nobody said OSS is perfect, although some zealots do try to promote OSS unconditionally for various reasons.

Your comment about features is absolute FUD though. Sure, there are numerous half-baked OSS projects out there, but all the successful ones compete strongly in features. As for support, you have to pay for support whether the software is OSS or proprietary. You can't compare unpaid newsgroup-only support to that provided with a commercial license (and in many cases you still have to pony up more money for paid support). And if you really want to talk about TCO, how many billions of dollars have businesses lost in employee time due to Exchange/Outlook/IIS vulnerabilities?

It's absurd to compare GCC to VStudio. You can compare GCC only to cl.exe or the new .NET compiler. VStudio is pretty well regarded in its latest incarnation, but the tools market overall is pretty healthy with a lot of commercial competition. KDevelop is probably the closest free software alternative out there at this time, although there are numerous open-source end-to-end Java IDEs out there as well. VStudio is hardly a slam dunk; it just happens to be the de facto standard for Windows platform development. That has as much to do with platform control as anything else. Everybody knows Borland has stronger toolchains but they lost the C++ class library war (OWL vs MFC) and subsequently developer enthusiasm.

Win2k is a very feature complete OS for the consumer, and that is the reason MS is having problems selling XP and will likely extend win2k as a product.

I'm not sure how this quote relates to the discussion, but it's pretty much false. WXP is now the standard consumer OS and thus has shipped tens of millions of seats. W2K was sold overwhelmingly to corporations, and with PC systems lifecycles as short as they now are (say 2-3 years), it's discouraged to upgrade NT 4.0 and W2K boxes. In no way does that mean WXP isn't being adopted by businesses; by nature, corporate IT directors are always risk-averse, slow and skeptical. I don't have any statistics available, but I don't see any particular "problems" selling WXP preloaded on new business PCs.

As far as Marty's comment, there was recent flap over Washington congressman Adam Smith. His office surrepticiously modified a letter being distributed for signing by other congressman, adding to it anti-GPL language. Once it was exposed, all his colleagues basically ignored the letter. I don't have a reference handy but this was in recent weeks.