The other benefit of the military using open source software is that is can save the taxpayers money over the short and long term. For some projects it is a small percentage of the total cost. However, for others it can be significant portion of the cost, so don't discount its use or its benefit. Saving time and money is a good thing.
Cheers, Paul On Fri, Jun 12, 2009 at 9:30 PM, Nick Coghlan<ncogh...@gmail.com> wrote: > Raymond Hettinger wrote: >> >> [Matthew Wilkes] >>> Oh, I didn't mean they should use proprietary software, just that in >>> my experience the kind of people who are active in open source are >>> quite anti-war, green, etc. There are notable exceptions, but I know >>> people who worry that their work will have military applications, and >>> who turn down projects because of it. >> >> I question the whole notion of using open source in military weapons. >> It seems like a rather basic violation of operational security. Perhaps >> your enemies will exploit your bugs instead of nicely reporting them >> and submitting patches on SourceForge ;-) > > As Guido said, even the military are aware that there are major problems > with the idea of security through obscurity. Plus most defence forces > around the world are just as interested in saving a few bucks on > software costs as any other organisation, particularly if they can > reduce their reliance on a foreign software vendor in the process. > > As to the existence of open source developers that are willing to work > with the military... as Matthew said, while they may not be particularly > common, I can definitely say that they're around ;) > > Cheers, > Nick. > > -- > Nick Coghlan | ncogh...@gmail.com | Brisbane, Australia > --------------------------------------------------------------- > _______________________________________________ > Python-Dev mailing list > Python-Dev@python.org > http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-dev > Unsubscribe: > http://mail.python.org/mailman/options/python-dev/pebarrett%40gmail.com > _______________________________________________ Python-Dev mailing list Python-Dev@python.org http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-dev Unsubscribe: http://mail.python.org/mailman/options/python-dev/archive%40mail-archive.com
