A group of software professionals has called on the US government’s Federal Technology Service to consider evaluating Open Source software when it buys or upgrades computers. The petitioners say Open Source could lower the cost of buying and maintaining computers, reduce dependency on individual vendors, aid customization and increase access to future improvements, free of charge. The group is led by Clay Shirky, a professor of new media at Hunter College and VP of Technology at Eisnor Interactive. Those of us who rely on Open Source software, such as the Linux operating system, Apache web server and programming language Perl, are confident that Open Source software performs as well or better than its commercial competitors, Professor Shirky said. Open Source advocates are becoming more and more political in their efforts to sell the benefits of the software. In December 1998, Carl Malamud, the chief technology officer of Invisible Worlds Inc, proposed a tax concession for those engaged in the production of Open Source software.
