Washington Post: Open-Source Fight Flares At Pentagon

[ Thanks to is for this
link. ]

Microsoft Corp. is aggressively lobbying the Pentagon to squelch
its growing use of freely distributed computer software and switch
to proprietary systems such as those sold by the software giant,
according to officials familiar with the campaign.

“In what one military source called a ‘barrage’ of contacts with
officials at the Defense Information Systems Agency and the office
of Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld over the past few months,
the company said ‘open source’ software threatens security and its
intellectual property.

“But the effort may have backfired. A May 10 report prepared for
the Defense Department concluded that open source often results in
more secure, less expensive applications and that, if anything, its
use should be expanded…”

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