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April 8, 2009

Red Hat CEO Jim Whitehurst would like to encourage broader government adoption of Linux and OSS (open source software). He contends that the U.S. federal government has already saved a considerable amount of money by using OSS technology and suggests that millions more could be saved by expanding the government's open source program.

Whitehurst was quoted as saying "Red Hat is excited that the Obama Administration recognizes the value of open source beyond software. Open source initiatives are now changing the way we learn, how we share information, how developers build and how companies do business. It has the opportunity to change our government."

"Furthermore, Linux and open source can provide an effective way for government to reduce costs and ensure open access to information. Lowering the costs of infrastructure will help provide resources for our government to focus on other issues that lie ahead for our nation," he added.

But Whitehurst's idealistic thinking fails to make it. It looks like little more than a disingenuous attempt to suggest tenuous associations between his company's business model and the Obama Administration.

Whitehurst's highly ambiguous use of the word open-source dilutes its meaning and undermines his core message of open source software advocacy.

He also broadly draws an analogy between Linux, open source software and user-contributed content sites such as YouTube, Wikipedia and Facebook. He suggests that all of these things are a representation of open source principles and further demonstrate how open source can impact society and empower individuals.

Whitehurst also lauds the Obama administration for making itself accessible to citizens through the Change.gov and new Whitehouse.gov websites.

Also, Whitehurst's references to Twitter and Facebook seem similarly misguided. These popular websites do leverage open source software at various layers of their sophisticated technical infrastructure, but the services that they provide do not serve as an example of open source principles in action.

Contrary to Whitehurst's contention that these sites allow us to exchange information freely, prominent figures in the free and open source software community have expressed concern about the fundamental lack of interoperability inherent in their design.

Open Web advocates favor competing services like Identi.ca, which use open protocols to facilitate interoperability and federated communication.

His effort to connect "open source principles" with Whitehouse.gov and popular sites like Facebook and Twitter is misleading. He wants readers to think that the transparency and openness embodied by the Whitehouse.gov website is somehow an endorsement of the efficiency of the open source software development model.

The site's own HTTP headers tell a slightly different story. Whitehouse.gov runs on Microsoft's proprietary IIS Web server and is built with Microsoft's ASP.NET development framework.

Clearly, the Obama administration's IT staff doesn't need open source software to build a website that encourages governmental transparency.

Source: Tech Blog.

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