Free Software for Politics

kevin lyda writes "The Howard Dean campaign is releasing software for web-based communities under the GNU GPL. The project apparently is based on drupal. See here for more info, and here for the software. Regardless if you're for Dean, against Dean, or you're not an American, it's great to see an American politician on the national level using and promoting free software. I wonder if RMS thought he'd see a U.S. presidential candidate releasing stuff under the GPL when he founded GNU 20 years ago!"

More canidates should do this

[deanj]

More candidates should do this. Frankly, I'd be interesting in hearing more about General Clarke's ideas on time travel [wired.com]. (Follow the link... he actually talks about this. I kid you not).

Dean really needs to appear in Interviews on /.

[stevesliva]

There was a call for this before... Slashdot and Dean staff, are you listening?

The Great Thing About This

[techsoldaten]

The great thing about this software is that it could ultimately cut down on the cost of campaigns, lessening the need for big political donors and their influence on politics.

A former employer of mine was involved in developing Web communities for conservative clients, and the bill for his services is huge even by 1999 standards.

Brad About Dean (9/10/2003)

[Fedhax]

If you go to the Drupal [drupal.org] website, you'll see that Brad posted some brief comments from his interaction with the Dean campaign (9/10/2003).

(Taken from Drupal.org)

I met with a Presidential campaign yesterday. They asked me to advise in general on their web site, but when we got into our discussion, I learned they were doing the static html thing. So, I demoed three CMS' to them - Drupal, Typo3, and a fork of Backend my company developed. They were blown away by all of them,. But I steered them to Drupal for speed of setup, flexibility and features. As a matter of fact, if you compare the features to what Howard Dean has on his site, you are basically setup with everything he has.

Having managed campaigns for a living in a previous life, I realized that if a Presidential campaign is this far behind technologically, then there are likely hundreds of candidates running now and next year that will not have a system in place. Additionally, most do not have the budget of this campaign and are unable to hire developers, designers, and writers, but know it is necessary.

Regardless, it is quite impressive to see an open project get this kind of press (Presidential campaigns?), and the modifications given back to the community?! Ye gods! w00t!

Free Software Voting Machines

[jake_the_blue_spruce]

A group of computer scientist professors is creating . This is not the same as GNU's [gnosis.cx] Free Software Internet Voting [free-project.org]. Given the Diebold fiasco [salon.com] there's a greater need for these than for the software to discuss potential candidates.

Re:Dean really needs to appear in Interviews on /.

[syphax]

I had asked my good friend, who works on the campaign, about this last time; he said Dean's a busy dude, and after the Lessig blog had some other constituencies to cover before he'd have a chance to circle back.

And while it'd be cool if he did an interview, I don't think he exactly *needs* to...

/. Interview is the perfect way

[Phoenix666]

to directly communicate our views on technology policy to government. Most of our representatives couldn't even tell you what the DMCA is, much less give two shakes about why it's bad. They're in the pockets of special interests.

But it occurs to me that the Dean campaign is the best shot we have to turn the fight for online freedoms around. They're an organization that's volunteer-run, so it's not beholden to special interests. They use OSS to run their site and various tools, and now they're open-sourcing their stuff, so they're going to understand why free software is so important. Finally, as a tech-driven campaign they're predisposed to sympathize with our take on issues like privacy, frivolous patents, etc.

And as far as I know, they haven't yet expressed any kind of position on tech issues. So a /. interview would be the perfect opportunity to imprint their campaign and let them know we're out here.

Serious omission in the story

[almaw]

The real link to the site for the community behind this is deanspace.org [deanspace.org]. The deanspace software is based on drupal 4.2. It'd be nice if the developers over there contributed back to the Drupal codebase - it's dangerously close to a fork, and needn't be. The upcoming Drupal 4.3 has some features 4.2 is lacking, and is much more user-friendly. It'd be a pity to lose these when a fork isn't necessary.

Re:Previous open-source appeal flops...

[SLot]

Not according to netcraft:

Linux Apache/1.3.9 (Unix) secured_by_Raven/1.4.2 PHP/4.0b3 16-Jan-2000 216.35.210.246 Cable & Wireless

NT4/Windows 98 Microsoft-IIS/4.0 10-Jul-1999 208.206.40.209

So he did switch, but not until 2000. :)

Re:I am impressed

[TheCarp]

I dunno, as one of those geeks that has an income above the national median, I don't find my taxes are especially high. In fact, id be happy to have them take more if it would buy single payer health care to help alot of those non-geeks I know who struggle just to make a living and for whom carrying health insurance takes a signifigant portion of their meager wage.

However I might be kind of pissed if those extra dollars instead went to funding another game of "Bomb the brown people" or draping cloth to cover the supposed naughty bits on statues.

And I certainly would not be happy to see yet more checks go out to people that are too small to actually make any difference in their lives, aside from maybe helping them make a single car payment, just to have a purely symbpolic tax cut to helps someones aproval rating while the deficit goes up again.

Not that I am bitter or anything.

-Steve

Voting Software

[SlipJig]

I want to see the Dean campaign (or somebody!) release software implementing alternative voting methods. Everybody's talking about voting machines, but not many are talking about the software and algorithms, which make more of a difference IMHO. Dean has expressed support for Instant Runoff Voting (IRV), but there are better methods out there [electionmethods.org].

I've built an online poll demonstrating these methods (see my sig), but I wouldn't call my stuff release-worthy just yet (it's pretty slow, and I lost my source in a HD crash last week anyway)...

Re:Dean Gets It

[Hard_Code]

It helps that he has Lawrence Lessig on his internet advisory committee.

Dean's campaign manager is Linux savvy..

[cowmix]

Joe Trippi, Dean's campaign manager, used to be an advisor to Progeny
(a commercial version of Debian started by the Debian founders). Joe
is very tech and Linux savvy. He has stated that the way he has been running
the Dean campaign was inspired by how Open Source software works.
I have been pretty active with the Dean folks for a few months and
I think what he is saying is no BS, it really seems very open
and two way like Open Source software.

Re:Well he's a democrat

[wayward_son]

I'll also note that the truly rich have many ways to shelter their income from taxation, whereas those of us who are quite productive, but not exactly "rich" are hitting the top tax brackets without the benefits of the tax shelters used by the likes of The Donald, and good old Arianna "What Party Am I This Month" Huffington, pays virtually zero income tax to Sacramento OR Washington (Sorry about the FreeRepublic link: it's the best one Google found on the topic. . .)

My income tax plan: First $20,000 is tax free. $40,000 for married couples. Each dependent (child) is an additional $5,000 before taxes kick in. All income after that is taxed at 15%. No loopholes, no exceptions. Eliminate the Earned Income Tax Credit. You should have to pay taxes to get a tax refund. You can adjust the numbers as needed, but that would be a simple and fair tax code. The rich would pay their fair share, no more, no less. The poor would not pay anything.

Re:Well...

[rifter]

Meanwhile, it appears that Dean wisely changed from windows 2000 to freebsd [netcraft.com] whereas Clark is using Linux [netcraft.com]. Which will win? :)

And of course the Evil One is running Windows. [netcraft.com] Surprise surprise!

Let's hope the best free software candidate wins!

Re:Wait a sec....

[deanj]

But, it's not the staff that's doing it. It's the grass roots folks. When's the last time "grass roots" folks have been part of the staff making decisions after the election to an office that high? Hell, even city council people don't add "grass roots" folks to their staff once they're elected.

Re:Dean? He spamed me

[Anonymous Coward]

They contracted a company that sent out spam. When they realized that they had hired a company that has spammed, they discontinued the contract.

Re:Dean (sorta) Gets It

[sacrilicious]

I definitely think Dean's use of the internet is more deft than that of previous candidates, but he has a ways to go.

Hi blog page is a hyper exclamation mark festival which has compared him to a "rock star" of politics. I don't want to vote for a rock star, as that image does not connote accountability (or even talent, given todays RIAA-manufactured boy bands).

To participate in his meetups, you have to click through an agreement that binds you into arbitration and robs you of your right to a jury trial in the event of a related dispute. To me, this makes Dean sound more like a giant corporation out to squish hapless citizens than a man who is trying to elevate dialog.

I have written more than one email to the address listed as the official input for the campaign. Brief, easily digested, thoughtful messages that invite responses. I've heard nothing back. I don't take it personally, but it certainly raises the question: is Dean fundamentally using the internet as anything more than a broadcast medium? I am only one person so I can't state the aggregate, but it's all I have to base a judgement on regarding what Dean is doing with the net. I grant him major points for so clearly being aware of the internet; now I'd like some indication that he can use it as a two way medium and not just as a louder bullhorn.