sniggly's Journal: About mandating open source in Government

Mandating open source is like mandating tax paying people and entities to open their books so that the government can check it transparently. Even if MS has shared source how can that assuage the fears of a country like China if they can't compile that source themselves. The map is not the land, neither is the source necessarily the same source as what was compiled to create that particular application.

I believe that it's the duty of democratic governments to mandate open source and open standards on its own hardware and in its own publications. This so that the government process can be audited by parliament instruments (meaning it's essential to the seperation of powers in the digital age) and so that all citizens and companies can interface with government without having to buy support for closed standards.

Quote from the economist: Modern governments generate a vast number of digital files. From birth certificates and tax returns to criminal DNA records, the documents must be retrievable in perpetuity. So governments are reluctant to store official records in the proprietary formats of commercial-software vendors. This concern will only increase as e-government services, such as filing a tax return or applying for a driving licence online, gain momentum. End quote