niiler's Journal: The bottom line: Linux in Government

Recently, I read the book "The Best Democracy Money Can Buy" by Greg Palast. While I'm not a great fan of his writing style (he could easily out-do Geraldo Rivera in sensationalism), he does bring up some interesting points. Among the most interesting to me is the idea behind privatization. Privatization, as touted by the IMF, WTO, and most recently, Bush administration, is an attempt to minimize government by contracting out the functions of government to private companies. In addition to contracting out the actual jobs (defense, research, etc), privatization advocates also want to privatize oversight of contractors. These ideas are mirrored on CommonDreams.org and MotherJones.com and other sites.

You might be wondering what all this has to do with the Linux adaptation in government. We always argue that Linux is cheaper, it's open source, and in many cases better than the proprietary alternatives and thus should be automatically adapted. But the problem is that government in many countries is no longer of the people, by the people and for the people. Palast, Mother Jones and others have pointed out with increasing desperation that governmnent is setup and run by corporations with no oversight. Witness the Halliburton debacle in Iraq. Halliburton was chosen with no bidding to reward friends of the VP. So long as the trend towards no-bid contracts with no oversight continues, there is little or no hope of getting Linux in the door.

Linux and Open Source Software espouse the philosophy of empowerment of the masses. Linux and the internet as it has been allow for the free flow of information upstream AND downstream. This is problematic for the corporate world which has increasingly sought to control the information we consume and how we consume it. By and large, an informed and educated public is not swayed by marketing and is harder to manipulate. Thus, Open Source software is coming under increasing fire as it gains prominence because it threatens the bottom line. To see more connections between geopolitics and Open Source Software adaptation, see Willy Smith's A42.com.