Open source for president? Get real
I've seen a lot of noise over the past year about which presidential candidate would be best for open source, most recently this blog post in TechRepublic suggesting that Barack Obama would be better for open source.
I don't mean to burst anyone's bubble, but anyone looking to the U.S. presidency to make any material difference for open source needs to pass the bong around one more time. It's not going to happen.
Yes, there are things that a president can do to create an atmosphere accommodating to open source, or other technology choices like Net neutrality. But let's be clear: there are far bigger issues in front of the U.S. president than whether the government adopts open source (and, regardless, the U.S. government is already adopting open source at a rapid pace, so who needs a presidential preference for open source?).
I personally could not possibly care less whether John McCain or Obama use Linux. It has never entered my mind. I'm much more concerned with their policies on domestic and international issues, like health care, Iraq, etc.--you know, things that have the potential to help or hurt lots of people.
If a U.S. president has limited impact on the economy--you and I impact the economy more than a presidential speech because we're the ones working, saving, and starting new businesses--then why would we expect them to make much of a dent on technology policy? Would I like McCain and Obama to use open source? Sure. I'm just not going to think about that when I vote.
Matt Asay is general manager of the Americas and vice president of business development at Alfresco, and has nearly a decade of operational experience with commercial open source and regularly speaks and publishes on open-source business strategy. He is a member of the CNET Blog Network and is not an employee of CNET. Disclosure.
http://freakonomics.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/09/17/economists-speak-about-the-election/#more-3089
Brief summary - only 10% of the economists surveyed thought it wouldn't matter if Obama or McCain would become president. I don't think it is unfair to draw the following conclusion -- 90% of the economists surveyed think the president can impact the economy.
Don't get me wrong, Cutter (http://spauldingcutter.multiply.com/ -- the guy who 'won' on yahoo answers) might be a professor at the university of chicago and he might even be right, however, this citation shows a momentary lapse of reason on your part. I expect better.
I would not like to see an ideological adherence to either open source or proprietary systems. The test for president is to demonstrate the leadership and empowerment of the campaign "administration" to use best in class solutions to do the job that needs to be done.
It's not about the technology, it's about the job the technology is doing.