CA State Senator Bowen's Open Source Software Hearing -- this Wednesday!

[nicknameless]

From Senator Bowen's office:

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
CONTACT: Jennie Bretschneider
February 6, 2006
[phone] / [phone]

DOES OPEN SOURCE SOFTWARE HAVE A PLACE IN CALIFORNIA’S ELECTORAL SYSTEM?

WHO: Senator Debra Bowen (D-Redondo Beach), Chairwoman of the Senate Elections, Reapportionment & Constitutional Amendments Committee

WHAT: The Senate Elections, Reapportionment & Constitutional Amendments Committee will hold a hearing to look at how private companies, as well as state and federal agencies, have begun using “open source software” and where it can or should be used in California’s electoral system.

WHEN: Wednesday, February 8, 2006, at 9:00 a.m.

WHERE: State Capitol, Room 4202 (this is a change from Room 112)

WHY: “Open source software” has been around for several decades, but it’s become more popular in recent years. Some of the more well-known names in the open source software world are Firefox (an Internet browser), Linux (an operating system), and Red Hat (which sells and supports a version of Linux for businesses). A number of private businesses, including Bank of America, Amazon.com, America Online (AOL), DreamWorks, Charles Schwab, IBM, and Merrill Lynch, have begun using open source software for some applications. Furthermore, the Department of Defense, the State of Massachusetts, and the California Air Resources Board have begun to migrate some of their computer systems from proprietary to open source software.

“We’ve worked hard to make elections more transparent over the years by, for example, making it easier for voters to track campaign contributions, but when it comes to the fundamental issue of how the accuracy of the election results are ensured, voters are left completely in the dark,” noted Bowen. “We’re in the middle of an intense discussion over whether voting systems that rely on proprietary software, such as Diebold, should be certified or re-certified for use here in California for the 2006 elections. I want to look further ahead at what alternatives we have to trusting the vote-recording and vote-tallying processes to closed, proprietary software systems that have turned out to be fatally flawed.”


Witnesses scheduled to testify before the committee include:

o Andrew Aitken, Founder and Managing Partner, Olliance Group

o Michael Evans, Vice President, Corporate Development, Red Hat

o Bill Welty, Chief Information Officer, California Air Resources Board Invited.

o Deirdre Mulligan, Director, Samuelson Law, Technology & Public Policy Clinic, Boalt Hall, University of California, Berkeley

o Peter G. Neumann, Principal Scientist, Computer Science Laboratory SRI International

o Joe Hall, PhD Student, School of Information Management and Systems, University of California, Berkeley

o Election Systems and Software, Inc. (ES&S) Invited.

o Diebold Election Systems Invited.

o Hart InterCivic Declined to attend.

o Sequoia Voting Systems Invited.

Members of the public may testify once the scheduled witnesses have finished their remarks.

[Wilms]

1. This ought to be interesting.

I wonder how many of the invited vendors will show.

[snowbear]

2. No one from Blackbox Voting invited?

Or can they just show up?

[nicknameless]

3. They'll probably show up and provide some testimony.

Senator Bowen is great. She welcomes public input.

Hopefully she'll be our next Secretary of State! :)