From Part One:
“Open source software has intensified the ideological debate
over what technology to deploy in a given circumstance. The public
sector, always price sensitive to any technology solution, has
embraced the idea of open source as a cheaper alternative to
commercial applications. Open Source refers to a program in which
the source code is available to the general public for use and/or
modification from its original design free of charge. It is
typically created as a collaborative effort in which programmers
improve upon the code and share the changes within the community.
There is also a strong ideological lobby that sees it as the
alternative to commercial dominance by any one player in the
software industry and as an equalizer with the potential of
wresting control away from US software predominance.“I wonder however, if we aren’t having the wrong debate about
technology and ideology, particularly in these troubling times.
Ideology and technology cohabit the same plane of existence, but on
three distinct levels…”