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40hz:
From our friends over at ArsTechnica:

http://arstechnica.com/open-source/news/2009/02/department-of-defense-launches-open-source-site-forgemil.ars


Department of Defense launches open source site Forge.mil

The Department of Defense has launched a new site to host its open source software projects. This move demonstrates the military's growing commitment to open development.
By Ryan Paul | Last updated February 3, 2009 12:04
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The Department of Defense (DoD) has launched Forge.mil, a software project management site that will host the military's public open source software projects. Inspired by SourceForge, the new site was created to accelerate development by facilitating broader collaboration between government agencies.

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But it gets better (my emphasis added ;))


Defense Information Systems Agency CTO David Mihelcic announced the new site last week at a meeting of the Armed Forces Communications and Electronics Association. Development on the site began in October and the process of bringing it online began last month. The site is currently down due to an unanticipated traffic overload that has followed the launch announcement. The open source software community is clearly a lot more interested in the Web site than the DoD initially expected.

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Well duh!

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OMG! Imagine. Tux in the Army! :tellme:

(Will Mouser be next?)



 8)

bgd77:
Do you think that it is a good idea for the government/military to use open-source software? Isn't it a serious security risk?

Anyhow, I can hardly wait to see what projects they have.  :)

zridling:
Do you think that it is a good idea for the government/military to use open-source software? Isn't it a serious security risk?-bgd77 (February 05, 2009, 04:22 AM)
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Quite the contrary. Collaboration, openness, and open standards sniff out weaknesses; look no further than browsers as an example. Well-formed data, universal, standards-based transforms, ubiquitous communications protocols will prevent costly, insecure code from being written over time. And specific code for weapons wouldn't be shared with the public, of course, but you can bet Great Britain is at the table, as may be other allies.

Much of the US Military uses Red Hat Linux right now in places like the Army’s Blue Force Tracking systems. And outside the DoD, but closely related, the NSA has been a part of the development of SE Linux. (Intellipedia offers more stories.)

*Also, check out Matthew Burton's essay, Why I Help “The Man”, and Why You Should Too.

bgd77:
Yes, you are right, in general. Thanks for the the links, I'll do some research.

But one scenario that keeps coming to my mind is that, being open source, some enemy of the US could try, and succeed, to find a vulnerability in the application, before it is discovered by the community or by the developers, by allocating some huge resources into analyzing the code (or just by chance). They would be afterwards be able to use the bug for their own purpose, for a certain amount of time.

Anyway, I'm sure somebody has thought about this.

40hz:
It's true...

They do that already. :tellme:

But so do we. 8)

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