Andrew,
Your post exposes one of the great myths surrounding FOSS, so I of course am obliged to speak up and dispel your fear J Open Source means that everyone has the right to read and review the sourcecode. It DOESN’T mean that you have to give up control of your copy of the source code (e.g. the Linux kernel for example), or give write access to your repository to everyone under the sun (in fact, that would be a sure fire way to be sure your code was well and properly trashed in a heartbeat). FOSS only incorporates code contributions that the maintainers deem appropriate and high enough quality to be included. You only give write access to your repository to those whom you deem worthy. Further, the meritocracy created by open code review and access means that if the ‘community’ tires of your being too controlling, they can fork their own project off, give it a new name, and carry on in their own way. Remember PHPNuke? He released his project under the GPL, but then yelled and screamed if anyone took the PHPNuke branding off their website. Eventually, the community tired of his rants, the project was forked off and called PostNuke, and PHPNuke withered and died. By opening the sourcecode of your project, you are really only allowing free access to *read* the code. The contributions you receive (if any) only have to be reviewed. You have complete control over what is included and what is discarded. You aren’t giving up anything in the way of control (at least, unless you want to) by going Open Source. You are only allowing code review and potentially other projects to incorporate your code in new and creative ways. Cheers! It’s Friday night, and rbTech closed on our new office building today! Anyone need ~7500 square feet of warehouse in East Montpelier? We’ve got it for rent… The biggest (coldest) hackerspace, *ever*? Rubin Rubin Bennett rbTechnologies, LLC 80 Carleton Boulevard East Montpelier, VT 05651 (802)223-4448 http://thatitguy.com "Think for yourselves and let others enjoy the privilege to do so too." Voltaire, Essay on Tolerance French author, humanist, rationalist, & satirist (1694 - 1778) From: Andrew Tomczak ---- [mailto:ajwsur...@burlingtontelecom.net] Sent: Friday, January 15, 2010 4:31 PM To: VAGUE@LIST.UVM.EDU Subject: Re: Open Source Bill at the Legislator I would think that the bill has just been introduced. It will probably see a few amendments. I think that it is correct in saying that State owned software should be Open Source, however, it puts a burden on all programmers working for the state to put in place, and maintain, an Open Source project. For instance I am working on a project and partnering with the State of New Hampshire, but to open a repository that is accessible and editable by the public is something I am trying to avoid, because I am affraid it will become unwieldy and hard to control. If anybody has any tips on how to get this accomplished effectivly I am all ears. As far as cfm goes it is ColdFusion. At the Agency of Natural Resources most of our Web based content is written in ColdFusion, and our new boss decided to replace everything he can with $MS.Net. I am in the process of converting huge Web application from Coldfusion to $MS.ASP.VB.Net. I was very suprised that he did not go with Java, because ColdFusion is a comercialized/modified version of Java/JSP. Unfortunatly, it is my experience that everybody in ANR IT is locked into Microsoft, and anybody who tries to change that will deal with a lot of resistance. There are a couple of Open Source ColdFusion Servers. The most popular is Railo at: http://www.getrailo.com/. The Smith project is another one that is not nearly as effective and seems to be in a state of Pergatory: http://www.smithproject.org/. One more interesting tidbit is that MySpace is done in Coldfusion. They are probably the leaders in development and debuging of the ColdFusion Projects. Cheers, Andrew Tomczak System Developer II State of VT, ANR IT Department Old Laundry Building 103 South Main Street Waterbury, VT 05671 (802) 241-1043 https://anrnode.anr.state.vt.us/ssl/sga/index.cfm On Fri Jan 15 12:17 , Richard Lawrence sent: Wow! This is great news. Any idea where in the process this bill is? Richard On Fri, Jan 15, 2010 at 6:57 AM, Andrew Tomczak ---- Act Locally. Connect Globally. Burlington Telecom: It's Your Network. <ajwsur...@burlingtontelecom.net> wrote: > > > > > > > > > > > Check out what showed up in my email this morning: > > > > http://www.leg.state.vt.us/docs/2010/Bills/Intro/H-516.pdf > > > > > > Cheers, > > Andrew Tomczak > > System Developer II > > State of VT, ANR IT Department > > Old Laundry Building > > 103 South Main Street > > Waterbury, VT 05671 > > (802) 241-1043 > > https://anrnode.anr.state.vt.us/ssl/sga/ > > > > > > > > ---- Act Locally. Connect Globally. Burlington Telecom: It's Your Network. ---- Act Locally. Connect Globally. Burlington Telecom: It's Your Network.
