[ale] Pentagon and Microsoft

[Charles Shapiro]

This is a Washington Post article on Microsoft's wrangles w/ the
Pentagon re that evil cancerous commie 'free' software thing.
Interesting to watch the brouhaha on this. I reckon M$ wants more USS
Yorktowns...

-- CHS


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To: "nuBridges Develop" <Develop at nubridges.com>
Subject: FW: A washingtonpost.com article from ctycho at bellsouth.net
From: "Kipp Jones" <kjones at nubridges.com>
To: ale at ale.org
Date: Thu, 23 May 2002 09:25:58 -0400
Thread-Index: AcICTwsIU8JXDD1LTkmRe8zIkNdHAAACpiNaAADduiA=
Thread-Topic: A washingtonpost.com article from ctycho at bellsouth.net
Title: A washingtonpost.com article from ctycho at bellsouth.net



 
Thought this was interesting.

  -----Original Message----- From: 
  register at washingtonpost.com Sent: Thu 5/23/2002 7:35 AM 
  To: Tycho Howle Cc: Subject: A 
  washingtonpost.com article from ctycho at bellsouth.net
  You have been sent this message from ctycho at bellsouth.net as a 
  courtesy of the Washington Post (<A 
  href="http://www.washingtonpost.com">http://www.washingtonpost.com).To 
  view the entire article, go to <A 
  href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A60050-2002May22.html">http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A60050-2002May22.htmlOpen-Source 
  Fight Flares At PentagonBy Jonathan 
  Krim Microsoft Corp. is aggressively lobbying the 
  Pentagon to squelch its growing use of freely distributed computer software 
  and switch to proprietary systems such as those sold by the software giant, 
  according to officials familiar with the campaign. In what one 
  military source called a "barrage" of contacts with officials at the Defense 
  Information Systems Agency and the office of Defense Secretary Donald H. 
  Rumsfeld over the past few months, the company said "open source" software 
  threatens  security and its intellectual property. But the 
  effort may have backfired. A May 10 report prepared for the Defense Department 
  concluded that open source often results in more secure, less expensive 
  applications and that, if anything, its use should be 
  expanded. "Banning open source would have immediate, broad, and 
  strongly negative impacts on the ability of many sensitive and 
  security-focused DOD groups to protect themselves against cyberattacks," said 
  the report, by Mitre Corp. A Microsoft Corp. spokesman 
  acknowledged discussions between the company and the Pentagon but denied 
  urging a ban on open-source software. He also said Microsoft did not focus on 
  potential security flaws. Spokesman Jon Murchinson said Microsoft 
  has been talking about how to allow open-source and proprietary software to 
  coexist. "Our goal is to resolve difficult issues that are driving a wedge 
  between the commercial and free software models," he said. John 
  Stenbit, an assistant secretary of defense and the Defense Department's chief 
  information officer, said that Microsoft has said using free software with 
  commercial software might violate companies' intellectual-property rights. 
  Stenbit said the issue is legally "murky."Â The company also 
  complained that the Pentagon is funding research on making free software more 
  secure, which in effect subsidizes Microsoft's open-source competitors, 
  Stenbit said. Microsoft's push is a new front in a long-running 
  company assault on the open-source movement, which company officials have 
  called "a cancer" and un-American. Software is designated open 
  source when its underlying computer code is available for anyone to license, 
  enhance or customize, often at no cost. The theory is that by putting source 
  code in the public domain, programmers worldwide can improve software by 
  sharing one another's work. Vendors of the proprietary systems, 
  such as Microsoft and Oracle Corp.,  keep their source codes secret, 
  control changes to programs and collect all licensing fees for their 
  use. Government agencies use a patchwork of systems and 
  software,  and proprietary software is still the most widely used. But 
  open source has become more popular with businesses and 
  government. The Mitre report said open-source software "plays a 
  more critical role in the DOD than has been generally 
  recognized."Â The report identified 249 uses of open-source 
  systems and tools, including running a Web portal for the Defense Intelligence 
  Agency, running network security for the Army command in Europe and support 
  for numerous Air Force Computer Network Defense tools. Among the 
  most high-profile efforts is research funded by the National Security Agency 
  to develop a more secure version of the open-source Linux operating system, 
  which competes with Microsoft's Windows. The report said banning 
  open-source software would drive up costs, though it offered no specifics. 
  Some government agencies have saved significantly by using open 
  source. At the Census Bureau, programmers used open-source 
  software to launch  a Web site for obtaining federal statistics for 
  $47,000, bureau officials said. It would have cost $358,000 if proprietary 
  software were used, they said. Microsoft has argued that some 
  free-licensing regimes are antithetical to the government's stated policy that 
  moneymaking applications should develop from government-funded research and 
  that intellectual property should be protected. Microsoft also 
  said open-source software is inherently less secure because the code is 
  available for the world to examine for flaws, making it possible for hackers 
  or criminals to exploit them. Proprietary software, the company argued, is 
  more secure because of its closed nature. "I've never seen a 
  systematic study that showed open source to be more secure," said Dorothy 
  Denning, a professor of computer science at Georgetown University who 
  specializes in information warfare. Others argue that the 
  flexibility provided by open-source software is essential, enabling users to 
  respond quickly to flaws that are found. "With open source, there 
  is no need to wait for a large software firm to decide if a set of changes is 
  in its best interests," said Eugene Spafford, a computer-science professor at 
  Purdue University who specializes in security. Jonathan Shapiro, 
  who teaches computer science at Johns Hopkins University, said: "There is data 
  that when the customer can inspect the code the vendor is more responsive. . . 
  . Microsoft is in a very weak position to make this argument. Whose software 
  is the largest, most consistent source of security flaws? It's 
  Microsoft."Â Stenbit said that the debate is academic and that 
  what matters is how secure a given piece of software is. To that end, the 
  Defense Department is now prohibited from purchasing any software that has not 
  undergone security testing by the NSA. Stenbit said he is unaware of any 
  open-source software that has been 
  tested. 

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