One of the most controversial devices in recent times have been Voting Machines. They run open source software and when they are compromised, change history. The Election Technology Council (ETC), a group of mostly voting machine vendors, recently released a paper that tries to argue that releasing the (open) source code would only aid the bad guys in hacking into the operating system.
Regardless of the right or wrong of releasing the source code to the operating system I have a bigger question: Why did you use open source code if you never intended to follow the rules of it? If they do not even understand the licensing behind open source software how is it that they have been trusted to create something so critical as voting machines?
If they can’t abide by the rules for something like open source software how is it that we are trusting them to create machines that decide our future? Many things such as this come down to basic morals and they appear to be found lacking. Don’t want to follow the rules associated with open source software? THEN MAKE YOUR OWN SOFTWARE! Personally I feel that this should be the only option to begin with when it comes to voting machines.
Check It Out> ETC via Ars Technica
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