Screaming Penguin - Source Does Matter

You know, this seems like an interesting aside more than anything, but this really goes back to my longstanding rant. Whether it is Diebold's voting machines or the IRS's 1040 processors, any software the government pays for, if not uses, should be open source simply because it goes to the fundamental nature of transparency in our governmnet:

Lawyers for 150 Floridians accused of drunk driving have asked a court to order the disclosure of the source code for software running in the breathalyzer machines used by police to analyze their blood alcohol level, according to a Tom Sanders story on vunet.

The defendants say they have the right to examine the machines that accused them, and that a meaningful examination requires access to the machines’ software. Prosecutors say the code is a trade secret.

The accused are right that one needs the code to understand fully how the machines work. The machines consist of sensors, a user interface, and control software. The software is the “brain� of the machine, and it is almost certainly involved in the calculations that derive a blood alcohol value from the sensor readings, as well as the display of the calculated value. If the accused have the right to fully examine the machines — and the article says that they do under Florida law[ed: em mine] — then they should see the source code.

Contrary to the article and some other commentators, this is not a dispute over whether the software should be open source. The accused aren’t seeking to open the software to everybody; they only want it opened to their legal teams.

F-T-T