Linux news

2007 07 03

DARPA, GSA, NIST, NSA, Armed Forces Choose FOSS Because It's Better

Snort: IDS Done Well (and Good)

There are many reasons why open source software is finding a home in this country's most security-conscious departments of government. Payton is inspired by an oft-quoted truism in the open source community known as Linus' Law: "Given enough eyeballs, all bugs are shallow." This truism has been proven to the satisfaction of decision makers at DARPA, GSA, NIST, NSA as well as the Armed Forces, all of whom are implementing open source solutions for their software needs--Snort among them.

http://s5h.net/u?z4360d
Another good explanation: Conversations: On-Demand Collaboration

The open-source community kind of stumbled upon this model of collaboration. They had some challenges in common with all software development (like rapid production of quality code), some challenges that were new to us all a decade ago (like the ubiquitous Internet), and some challenges that remain unique to the open-source situation (like the casual join-and-disappear contributor). They worked out, sometimes consciously and sometimes by accident, a collection of solutions to these problems. Some are contained in the tools, some in the process, and some in the culture. In the end, the open-source community has managed to accomplish some truly amazing things, occasionally even things that the enterprise community has tried and failed.

http://s5h.net/u?z1594
Related and recent: Navy CIO 'recognizes the importance of OSS to the warfighter'

John Weathersby, executive director of the Open Source Software Institute, told Linux.com today that, effective immediately, the Department of the Navy has adopted a new policy which requires that open source software must be considered in every software acquisition the Navy makes.

http://s5h.net/u?z57c3