Two pieces of news caught my eye this week regarding open source. The
first is how the Homeland Security is investing in evaluating open
source and how it might be "hardened."

U.S. taxpayers are now helping to improve open source software code and
security thanks to a grant [The grant will pay $1.24 million over three
years] issued by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS). More than 40
open source software projects, including Linux, Apache, FreeBSD, MySQL,
PostgreSQL and Mozilla, are expected to benefit from the effort…The
open source MySQL database has also been a client of Coverity. As with
Linux, the study found that MySQL had comparatively fewer defects that
other similar software.
Source: internetnews.com

The second is this announcement that MySQL has been awarded a five year
contract by the General Services Commission.

MySQL already hums under thousands of federal, state and local
government entities, including Los Alamos National Labs, the U.S. Census
Bureau, the U.S. Geological Survey, NASA and the Department of Defense.
The goal of all these government moves is manifold, but access to open
formats and cost savings are the common threads.
Source: eweek.com

It’s clear that open source is making inroads in some places, and this
might be enough to make education skeptics of open source take another
hard look. Finally, I’d like to share a quote from an email regarding
open source in K-12. It’s fascinating to read and I’m sharing it here
simply because it describes the conversion of another person–a
technology director–to using open source software in K-12. What’s
fascinating is this idea that America will not realize the benefit of
open source technology. As I reflect on my own blog entries, I have to
be careful to step back and resist–often, unsuccessfully–the desire
write off open source as a viable alternative to proprietary systems.
Don’t get me wrong, based on the facts, open source software is
viable…what I’m referring to is the politics and the money invested in
proprietary systems. Do you know, I had one person tell me, "Miguel,
we’re worried about what you might say regarding open source.
Administrators might go back to their technology directors and ask, ‘Why
did we spend all this money when the software was there for free?’"

With this in mind, consider the testimony of a technology director. A
short year and a half ago, it could have been me writing this.

OSS can be a viable option for many schools. It has come a long way.
Just in the past few months I have began using Firefox, Thunderbird, and
Open Office. I have installed MYSQL for database use, Moodle for online
classes, online survey software, and several Linux Distros. Including
Edubuntu (http://www.edubuntu.org/) mentioned earlier. The products are
free except for my time invested in learning how to install and use
them. The amount of online documentation has made installing and
learning OOS comparatively easy to most commercial products.

I would like to stress that I still do not fully understand the Edubuntu
to install but it is just as installing Windows and it detects hardware
just as well. Ubuntu also has a Mac version which I just finished
installing on old Ibook that we were about to discard. It now has new
life.

In high school I lost a chemistry book valued at $103. I could not
graduate until I paid for it. At the time there were ten more books just
like it in the book room not being used. If all text books could be
digitized in an open source fashion and added to the $100 dollar laptop,
then all text book funds could go to the purchasing of the laptops. This
would help pay for them as well as allow districts to buy extras to
serve as replacements.

I fear this will never happen in America. There are many factors to take
into account such as Microsoft, textbook companies, lobbyist, etc. that
will fight such an initiative. Unfortunately, Americans are set in their
way and many believe we do not need to change to compete in a global
society, just look what is currently happing with our domestic auto
manufactures.

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Everything posted on Miguel Guhlin’s blogs/wikis are his personal opinion and do not necessarily represent the views of his employer(s) or its clients. Read Full Disclosure