____/ Linonut on Monday 07 January 2008 13:04 : \____
> * Roy Schestowitz fired off this tart reply:
>
>> Microsoft Muscles the NYS Legislature
>>
>> ,----[ Quote ]
>>| Microsoft?s proposed change to state law would effectively render
>>| our current requirements for escrow and the ability for independent
>>| review of source code in the event of disputes completely meaningless
>>| - and with it the protections the public fought so hard for.
>> `----
>>
>> http://nyvv.org/blog/bolipariblog.html [moved to a different URL]
>
> In his message Mr. Gleim writes: "It is not possible to design
> new equipment with new operating systems, new EMS and new hardware
> all with vendor developed software and source code in less than a
> couple of years. And that is, if the vendors wanted to do this."
>
> Mr. Gleim fails to note that voting system vendors have already had 2
> years to produce equipment which complies with New York State
> election law. Section 7-208 of Election law has been in force since
> June 2005 and states in part, "...shall place into escrow
> with the state board of elections a complete copy of all programming,
> source coding and software employed by the voting machine..."
> It should not be news to anyone in the software industry that
> Microsoft would never allow their source code to be escrowed -- they
> have rigorously defended this for many years. . . . In the two-year
> period between passage of the law and Mr. Gleim's message, it would
> have been fully possible to develop systems using open source code
> systems like Linux. Mr. Gleim acknowledges as much in his statement
> above. But they chose not to. Why?
>
> I spent 20 years as a software developer, with the latter half of my
> career spent as a project manager leading world class software
> development teams. If my boss had come to me in July of 2005 and
> said, "There is a potential $300 million contract at stake in
> New York State, and we have to develop products that comply with
> their laws so we can compete in that market. Your job is to get it
> done in a year." I could have done it. Give me a team of five
> experienced programmers and we could have easily developed such a
> compliant system.
>
> Gliem is a VP of Avante Int'l Technology.
>
> But, rather than develop a system that complied with New York State
> law, voting machine vendors chose to use Microsoft Windows as the
> operating system for their PC based Election Management Systems, and
> in some cases for their touch screen DREs. As noted above, Microsoft
> has always made it crystal clear that they would never, ever
> surrender their source code - they never have and they never will.
> Microsoft has rigorously defended this for years. However, voting
> machine vendors, knowing full well that using the Windows operating
> system could not possibly comply with New York State law chose to
> market their existing Windows-based products anyway.
It is not ironic that, based on the latest article, patching of the voting
machine code (top application layer) is very slow because it needs federal
approval? Do the feds also have the capacity to review all that junk that lies
underneath? Should they not rely on something like Linux, which is watched
constantly but just about every company that develops Linux products? That's
peer review.
As the above shows, Microsoft does gymnastics with logic. That won't last for
long. Several countries choose an open and free (as in beer! *gasp*) operating
system to make a better election whose outcome can be trusted.
Microsoft is playing a losing game. It's losing and it knows it, so in recent
years it resorted to lobbying (legalised form of arm bending and at times also
some gentle bribery).
--
~~ Best of wishes
Roy S. Schestowitz | $> apt-get -not windows
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