

Obama wants to know the benefits of open source - vaksel
http://news.cnet.com/8301-13505_3-10147920-16.html

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bayareaguy
It's unfortunate McNealy failed to immediately raise the obvious benefit of
transparency. Open source allows the government and its citizens to more
easily verify that mechanisms follow policy and law. This is particularly
important for things like voting, surveying, validation and compliance testing
where even small faults can cause serious problems and/or compromise the
security of the system (e.g. <http://www.mail-
archive.com/hydro@topica.com/msg00406.html> )

David A. Wheeler has a good collection of other reasons here as well:
<http://www.dwheeler.com/oss_fs_why.html>

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johngunderman
"I'm not a supporter of mandates. I wouldn't want the government mandating
Microsoft software--why would I therefore seek an open-source mandate?" (from
the article)

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LogicHoleFlaw
Open source or not, if we can just get open standards and formats in place I
will be very happy.

