OSCON 2009: Opening keynote focuses on open government
On July 22, O'Reilly founder and CEO Tim O'Reilly launched this year's OSCON conference with a challenge for open source advocates to get involved in the quest for open government.
O'Reilly expressed excitement about recent efforts of the Obama administration to promote open records and open source software as a means for ensuring equal access to information. In his opening keynote address, he briefed the OSCON crowd on the new Open Source for America advocacy group.
O'Reilly highlighted the need to think of government “...as a means for collective action.” He added that the recent push for more openness in government has led to a big demand for experienced open source developers to volunteer their time and expertise. “Collective action means more than collective complaint....If you're interested, don't just lend your voices—lend your hands.”
The open source in government theme continued through the first day, with presentations on election audits, “Hacking the Open Government,” and “Bureaucrats, Technocrats, and Policy Cats: How the Government is Turning to Open Source and Why.”
The open government theme reflects a growing interest throughout the US in finding ways to ensure that information compiled at government expense (and therefore owned by the people) is easily available to everyday citizens without usage fees, vendor lock-in issues, or license constraints.
Subscribe to our Linux Newsletters
Find Linux and Open Source Jobs
Subscribe to our ADMIN Newsletters
Support Our Work
Linux Magazine content is made possible with support from readers like you. Please consider contributing when you’ve found an article to be beneficial.
News
-
Linux Kernel 6.17 Drops bcachefs
After a clash over some late fixes and disagreements between bcachefs's lead developer and Linus Torvalds, bachefs is out.
-
ONLYOFFICE v9 Embraces AI
Like nearly all office suites on the market (except LibreOffice), ONLYOFFICE has decided to go the AI route.
-
Two Local Privilege Escalation Flaws Discovered in Linux
Qualys researchers have discovered two local privilege escalation vulnerabilities that allow hackers to gain root privileges on major Linux distributions.
-
New TUXEDO InfinityBook Pro Powered by AMD Ryzen AI 300
The TUXEDO InfinityBook Pro 14 Gen10 offers serious power that is ready for your business, development, or entertainment needs.
-
Danish Ministry of Digital Affairs Transitions to Linux
Another major organization has decided to kick Microsoft Windows and Office to the curb in favor of Linux.
-
Linux Mint 20 Reaches EOL
With Linux Mint 20 at its end of life, the time has arrived to upgrade to Linux Mint 22.
-
TuxCare Announces Support for AlmaLinux 9.2
Thanks to TuxCare, AlmaLinux 9.2 (and soon version 9.6) now enjoys years of ongoing patching and compliance.
-
Go-Based Botnet Attacking IoT Devices
Using an SSH credential brute-force attack, the Go-based PumaBot is exploiting IoT devices everywhere.
-
Plasma 6.5 Promises Better Memory Optimization
With the stable Plasma 6.4 on the horizon, KDE has a few new tricks up its sleeve for Plasma 6.5.
-
KaOS 2025.05 Officially Qt5 Free
If you're a fan of independent Linux distributions, the team behind KaOS is proud to announce the latest iteration that includes kernel 6.14 and KDE's Plasma 6.3.5.