Last week provided a significant boost to open source software in the form of survey results suggesting that such technologies have now become a norm in the business world. Now, in what's perhaps an even bigger blow to proprietary vendors, none other than the Department of Defense has weighed in with its own support for open technology.

Specifically, the DoD last week released a 68-page guide entitled, "Open Technology Development: Lessons Learned and Best Practices for Military Software (PDF)," in which it seeks to "help U.S. government personnel and contractors implement open technology development (OTD) for software within government projects, particularly in defense."

I think they have a lot to gain if they do it right. Imagine all systems running the basic, fundamental OS that is only given access to what is needed. They could take care of all the security holes themselves as well as see a measureable upgrade to efficiency. It would have substantial startup and upkeep costs but the benefits should save money in the long run.

The 3rd party PDF readers/writers are often of the reverse-engineered variety. They came about through necessity. Most people that know anything about computers would be thrilled if PDF was replaced with an open standard that any document editing program can work with. Fat chance of that happening though without a major push from many major corporations (Google, Microsoft, and Apple combined, probably).

Besides that, OOXML (.docx etc) still gives minor problems in LibreOffice and OpenOffice, if the document is made in MS Office 2007 (or in later MS Office versions with compatibility mode enabled). And the open source ODF (.odt etc.) still doesn't work flawlessly in the Windows World, because all MS Office versions before v. 2010 don't read it.
PDF is still the best to use file format if editing by the receiver isn't necessary, because that way the lay-out won't be screwed and everybody can open it. And let's not forget that PDF at least is an ISO standard (AFAIK).

Thatguy, that is just retarded BS you are saying there. Do you actually realise that a majority of the servers in the world run on Linux? And yes, that is open source software.
Firefox is open source and not a bad program at all.
Rythmbox (not for Windows, sorry) is a very nice OS music player and better IMO than Windpws Media Player.
VLC player let's you play all your vids without having to install a sh*tload of codecs and therefore without risking codec conflicts.
Audacity is an excellent audio editing program that lets you do free what others ask money for.
Clonezilla Is one of the best disk imaging programs available (mainly because of the wide file system support, and because you are free to make as many copies of the bootable cd as you want)

Your statement is making clear that you don't know what you are talking about.

Thatguy, that is just retarded BS you are saying there. Do you actually realise that a majority of the servers in the world run on Linux? And yes, that is open source software.
Firefox is open source and not a bad program at all.
Rythmbox (not for Windows, sorry) is a very nice OS music player and better IMO than Windpws Media Player.
VLC player let's you play all your vids without having to install a sh*tload of codecs and therefore without risking codec conflicts.
Audacity is an excellent audio editing program that lets you do free what others ask money for.
Clonezilla Is one of the best disk imaging programs available (mainly because of the wide file system support, and because you are free to make as many copies of the bootable cd as you want)

Your statement is making clear that you don't know what you are talking about.

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to be honest, its the truth, if you can't bear to hear it, lifes tough. In the ways that open source apps are often low quality

Incomplete features, features are often never implemented or fully finished

Bugs, most open source software is very buggy

Compatability breakage, very common in open source becuase instead of adressing my first 2 points, reinvent the wheel instead becuase they can. Not beucase it is needed.

Server deployment is a so what proposition, server are handing up data most of the time. They aren't being tasked with actually rendering the web page, just dish it up. to be honest MAC OSX andMS have higher quality applications.

Certainly there are exceptions to what I am saying, VLC certainly being one of them. but by far alot of the open source software out there is more of a tech demo then a finished product.

you might not like it, but most of th ebest software for linux is paid for software.

Lets talk about audacity for a moment. compare it to ProTools,Cubase or Presonus studio one.

I have used audacity, flatly, the ui is horrific., the console is poorly laid out and routing is a fustrating distraction most of the time, not to mention the VST hosting bugs.

Windows media players everything under the sun, flawlessly, with minimal exceptions and very very few unsupported codecs.

Well thats great for firefox, its heavily funded, unlike most open source software.

BTW when did audacity go open source exactly ?

but lets talk about a practical problem. I recently got submarined "in fact several times" on linux hardware drivers, not to mention the fact that the drivers were not complete, offered hardly minimal features to the device, generally didn't work or cuased system instability.

Then you have the linux audio system disaster. there was nothing wrong with opensound at all. It worked fine. Nows theres pulse,alsa etc. Why ? becuase most linux developers are tinkerers, not paid professionals. the high quality programmers go on the mission critical paying jobs. they stick the new guys in the linux pool to get there feet wet.

so while it would be nice to sit back and lay acclaim for open source, it just doesn;t have the orginization of discipline to build quality software, for the most part.

Hell just look at all the coding style variations on the linux kernel, its messy.

Not that the tech itself is bad, it comes up short on implemntation.

I'd rather pay for working software, over wasting my time "which is worth $150hrly" dicking around with free software.

to be honest, its the truth, if you can't bear to hear it, lifes tough. In the ways that open source apps are often low quality

Incomplete features, features are often never implemented or fully finished

Bugs, most open source software is very buggy

Compatability breakage, very common in open source becuase instead of adressing my first 2 points, reinvent the wheel instead becuase they can. Not beucase it is needed.

Server deployment is a so what proposition, server are handing up data most of the time. They aren't being tasked with actually rendering the web page, just dish it up. to be honest MAC OSX andMS have higher quality applications.

Certainly there are exceptions to what I am saying, VLC certainly being one of them. but by far alot of the open source software out there is more of a tech demo then a finished product.

you might not like it, but most of th ebest software for linux is paid for software.

Lets talk about audacity for a moment. compare it to ProTools,Cubase or Presonus studio one.

I have used audacity, flatly, the ui is horrific., the console is poorly laid out and routing is a fustrating distraction most of the time, not to mention the VST hosting bugs.

Windows media players everything under the sun, flawlessly, with minimal exceptions and very very few unsupported codecs.

Well thats great for firefox, its heavily funded, unlike most open source software.

BTW when did audacity go open source exactly ?

but lets talk about a practical problem. I recently got submarined "in fact several times" on linux hardware drivers, not to mention the fact that the drivers were not complete, offered hardly minimal features to the device, generally didn't work or cuased system instability.

Then you have the linux audio system disaster. there was nothing wrong with opensound at all. It worked fine. Nows theres pulse,alsa etc. Why ? becuase most linux developers are tinkerers, not paid professionals. the high quality programmers go on the mission critical paying jobs. they stick the new guys in the linux pool to get there feet wet.

so while it would be nice to sit back and lay acclaim for open source, it just doesn;t have the orginization of discipline to build quality software, for the most part.

Hell just look at all the coding style variations on the linux kernel, its messy.

Not that the tech itself is bad, it comes up short on implemntation.

I'd rather pay for working software, over wasting my time "which is worth $150hrly" dicking around with free software.

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You do realize that those very same problems plague countless paid programs across every platform as well, don't you? I cannot recall the last time my Office, Photoshop, Logic or Reason didn't have some sort of bugs. Pretty sad when you take into account the amount of money we had to spend on the software.

And, for the record, Windows Media Player is a piece of shit. If it was so compatible, we wouldn't need things like codec packs or alternative players like VLC.

No friend, closed source isn't all that great either. All devs feel satisfied putting out beta quality software labeled as final these days.

You do realize that those very same problems plague countless paid programs across every platform as well, don't you? I cannot recall the last time my Office, Photoshop, Logic or Reason didn't have some sort of bugs. Pretty sad when you take into account the amount of money we had to spend on the software.

And, for the record, Windows Media Player is a piece of shit. If it was so compatible, we wouldn't need things like codec packs or alternative players like VLC.

No friend, closed source isn't all that great either. All devs feel satisfied putting out beta quality software labeled as final these days.

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At least office2007 works and does what I want, it prints,collates,presents and just works. Granted I was very happy with office2000. Not to mention that even today right now, openoffice cannot compete with office2000 in basic useable features or speed.

Look I want opensource to succeed. Theres alot of really out of the box thinkers, but the problem is that they don't know when to stop thinking out of the box and to start putting that knowledge into it. Sure theres lot of brilliant coders in the open source world, just get them to fix a bug.

there are tickets in the linux kernel that are 5+ years old. With no fix in site either.

the only reason linux looks safe, is becuase it isn't a target yet. Mac is finding this out right now.

So your not going to sell me on quality on the average, and while there are a few OS's and some apps out there that really are very good, the bulk of them are shit and pretending they aren't is a logically falacy.

At least office2007 works and does what I want, it prints,collates,presents and just works. Granted I was very happy with office2000. Not to mention that even today right now, openoffice cannot compete with office2000 in basic useable features or speed.

Look I want opensource to succeed. Theres alot of really out of the box thinkers, but the problem is that they don't know when to stop thinking out of the box and to start putting that knowledge into it. Sure theres lot of brilliant coders in the open source world, just get them to fix a bug.

there are tickets in the linux kernel that are 5+ years old. With no fix in site either.

the only reason linux looks safe, is becuase it isn't a target yet. Mac is finding this out right now.

So your not going to sell me on quality on the average, and while there are a few OS's and some apps out there that really are very good, the bulk of them are shit and pretending they aren't is a logically falacy.

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Pretending that closed source is better on the average is also a logical fallacy. I'm just saying that door swings both ways.

At least office2007 works and does what I want, it prints,collates,presents and just works. Granted I was very happy with office2000. Not to mention that even today right now, openoffice cannot compete with office2000 in basic useable features or speed.

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Office 2010 doesn't even have decent PDF export (yes, it's readable but the document looks like it's too compressed) and reverse-order printing (thus letting page 1 end on the top of the pile instead of the bottom).
And office 2000? Come on, don't you remember it crashing more than ocassionally on furthermore perfectly stable computers? Garbage if one is having lots of work to do...
And no way that PDF export was there with office 2000, so that's already one tool more for OpenOffice.

On a sidenote, OpenOffice as a project has been struggling with crappy corporate politics for quite a while, being like a American Football ball being tossed all over the place by some folks I wouldn't dare to mess with (i.e. some big players on the IT market). Hence the fact that some folks said "Screw you Oracle" (the latter having bought Sun) and forked the project. So while MS could almost sit back & relax (relatively speaking) OpenOffice/LibreOffice were in the middle of a storm.

And btw, Linux servers are likely to be under attack so they are a target. And you should try to understand that security relates to more than just the kernel, the security in Linux goes a bit further than UAC (which basically is the same old "R U sure?" thing).

Office 2010 doesn't even have decent PDF export (yes, it's readable but the document looks like it's too compressed) and reverse-order printing (thus letting page 1 end on the top of the pile instead of the bottom).
And office 2000? Come on, don't you remember it crashing more than ocassionally on furthermore perfectly stable computers? Garbage if one is having lots of work to do...
And no way that PDF export was there with office 2000, so that's already one tool more for OpenOffice.

On a sidenote, OpenOffice as a project has been struggling with crappy corporate politics for quite a while, being like a American Football ball being tossed all over the place by some folks I wouldn't dare to mess with (i.e. some big players on the IT market). Hence the fact that some folks said "Screw you Oracle" (the latter having bought Sun) and forked the project. So while MS could almost sit back & relax (relatively speaking) OpenOffice/LibreOffice were in the middle of a storm.

And btw, Linux servers are likely to be under attack so they are a target. And you should try to understand that security relates to more than just the kernel, the security in Linux goes a bit further than UAC (which basically is the same old "R U sure?" thing).

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While that may be, you do realize that Windows 7 thus far has been the hardest to hack in all the hacking contests thus far.

UAC is less about user security and more about forcing devs to use proper user space credentials in their apps, making them more secure, and thus the entire platform more secure.

Office 2010 doesn't even have decent PDF export (yes, it's readable but the document looks like it's too compressed) and reverse-order printing (thus letting page 1 end on the top of the pile instead of the bottom).
And office 2000? Come on, don't you remember it crashing more than ocassionally on furthermore perfectly stable computers? Garbage if one is having lots of work to do...
And no way that PDF export was there with office 2000, so that's already one tool more for OpenOffice.

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I have never crashed office 2000. Not once. Who cares about PDF exporting ? Seriously ?Abode PDF creator works fine in this sense. Openoffice is a mess.

On a sidenote, OpenOffice as a project has been struggling with crappy corporate politics for quite a while, being like a American Football ball being tossed all over the place by some folks I wouldn't dare to mess with (i.e. some big players on the IT market). Hence the fact that some folks said "Screw you Oracle" (the latter having bought Sun) and forked the project. So while MS could almost sit back & relax (relatively speaking) OpenOffice/LibreOffice were in the middle of a storm.

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Yes the solution is always to fork, never mind the fact that after relentlessly bitching about microsoft and the ODF, it turns out that the problem was Openoffice and not MSoffice. the politics are the developers.

And btw, Linux servers are likely to be under attack so they are a target. And you should try to understand that security relates to more than just the kernel, the security in Linux goes a bit further than UAC (which basically is the same old "R U sure?" thing).

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Linux and its permission scheme are actually really fucking annoying. first off, its really not that secure. Its like a warm blanket. It makes you feel better but its not the best way to secure the computer. I really don't give a crap about servers either. I am a desktop/workstation user.

Who cares about PDF exporting ? Seriously ?Abode PDF creator works fine in this sense.

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Some would care. For example because everyone can read PDF files on his or her pc, without the need for an office suite (MS Office viewer is not available for every platform).

For companies it can be a cost saver, and I have heard once from someone doing PDF exports at his job, that exporting multi-tab spreadsheets into PDF still goes the most flawlessly with OpenOffice, not with the Adobe software. Guess what the company he works for did? Exactly, ditch the Adobe license for most people, except the very few employees that might still need it.

Yes the solution is always to fork, never mind the fact that after relentlessly bitching about microsoft and the ODF, it turns out that the problem was Openoffice and not MSoffice. the politics are the developers.

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Actually a lot of major Linux distros ditched OpenOffice and install LibreOffice by default: