A group of leading US software development professionals and executives have written an open letter to President Obama asking him 'to make it mandatory to consider the source of an application solution (open or closed) as part of the government’s technology acquisition process.'
Here's a highlight from the letter, which you can read in full at http://consideropensource.blogspot.com:
'Open-source software brings transparency to software development. There are no “black boxes” in open-source software and therefore no need to guess what is going on “behind the scenes.” Ultimately, this means a better product for everyone, because there is visibility at every level of the application, from the user interface to the data implementation. Furthermore, open-source software provides for platform independence, which makes quick deployments that benefit our citizens much easier and realistic.'
The Stimulus Plan bill passed by the US Senate on Friday includes the following:
The Secretary of Health and Human Services shall ... conduct a study on—
(i) the current availability of open source health information technology systems to Federal safety net providers (including small, rural providers);
(ii) the total cost of ownership of such systems in comparison to the cost of proprietary commercial products available;
(iii) the ability of such systems to re- spond to the needs of, and be applied to, various populations (including children and disabled individuals); and
(iv) the capacity of such systems to facilitate interoperability.
With a report due by October 2010.
There's plenty of comment on this over at Slashdot.
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More details at http://www.techpresident.com/blog/entry/33764/why_the_white_house_s_embr...