[ Thanks to Kevin
Reichard for this link. ]
“Silly ideas are presented to legislative bodies all the
time, but one of the silliest political movements is now brewing in
the software world, where some open-source advocates are
talking about a lobbying effort that would have legislative bodies
around the globe mandate that governments exclusively purchase and
implement open-source technologies, to the exclusion of commercial
software.”
“The movement is fueled by two disparate beliefs: 1) that
commercial software is the result of a corrupt and unredeemable
development process, leading to purchasing decisions based more on
under-the-table deals than purely technical merits (the paranoid
rationale), which would serve to level the playing field; and 2)
that government will save huge sums of money by adopting
open-source software, thereby leading to lower taxes (the
right-wing-bordering-on-libertarian rationale).”
“Of course, both of these rationales are fallacies….”