[CAVO] Alan Dechert

Sat Aug 29 20:47:24 UTC 2015

I have worked with Alan Dechert since approximately 2004 and was the
communications director at Open Voting Consortium,the group that pioneered
a lot of the open source voting work as well as designed the paper ballot
printing system. Brian Fox was also involved and head up the tech team that
conducted the 2008 Linuxworld demo.

I don't know if Alan is a benefit to be directly involved with CAVO..  as
CAVO is enjoying a good run under the current working condition,. The
downside is his controlling nature ala Turing , the upside his obvious
standing and vision. I'm confident either way, just respectfully cautious
for the benefit of the working group. Sometimes a bit of space is healthy
and easier to manage, but I can be persuaded by the " big brains "

Best-  BT

On Sat, Aug 29, 2015 at 12:43 PM, Lawrence Rosen <lrosen at rosenlaw.com>
wrote:

> Juan Gilbert wrote:
>
> > I don't know Alan Dechert either, but I agree, he's someone we should
> know.
>
> > The work he describes, we have done with Prime III as well.
>
> I have met Alan Dechert several times by phone and email. While I found
> Alan sometimes difficult to work with, I also (and others in open source)
> have much the same fault. It is a dreadful reason to keep someone out of an
> open source community like CAVO.
>
>
>
> I suggest that we invite Alan Dechert to subscribe to the cavo@ mailing
> list.
>
>
>
> /Larry
>
>
>
> *From:* Juan E. Gilbert [mailto:juan at ufl.edu]
> *Sent:* Saturday, August 29, 2015 12:32 PM
> *To:* masson at opensource.org; CAVO <cavo at opensource.org>
> *Cc:* debbryant at opensource.org
> *Subject:* Re: [CAVO] Please give opinions and clarifying information on
> these responses
>
>
>
> Patrick, Prime III will be released, probably on GitHub, in September, see
> http://www.knightfoundation.org/grants/201551186/
>
> We received a grant to release it. New Hampshire is using it Statewide in
> 2016. So, it will be there. I'm working on the finishing touches to release
> it.
>
> All of your other comments, make sense to me. I don't know Alan Dechert
> either, but I agree, he's someone we should know. The work he describes, we
> have done with Prime III as well.
>
> Thanks,
>
> On 8/29/15 1:52 PM, Patrick Masson wrote:
>
> All,
>
> Here are some comments based on my initial review. I am particularly
> concerned with item eleven, OSET's response.
>
> 1. Clear Ballot (clearballot.com) is not distributed with an OSI Approved
> Open Source License.
> <
> http://sfgov2.org/ftp/uploadedfiles/elections/rfi/20150811_RCVBallotDesign.pdf>
>
> 2. International Voting Machines response states: "We are negotiable on
> certification and public review of software; not open source"
> <http://sfgov2.org/ftp/uploadedfiles/elections/rfi/20150818_IVM.pdf>
> 3. No documentation of open source claims (GPL3) for Prime III. Claims of
> open source license without access to code is meaningless.
> <http://sfgov2.org/ftp/uploadedfiles/elections/rfi/20150826_PrimeIII.pdf>
> 4. Statements like, "Designed so that all or part of the system’s software
> operates using open source software." and "Everyone Counts is based on
> open-source software while maintaining the security of a locked down
> system." are antithetical. Upon review, it could not be determined if the
> "eLect" software is actually distributed with an OSI Approved Open Source
> License.
> <http://sfgov2.org/ftp/uploadedfiles/elections/rfi/20150827_EC.pdf>
> 5, The only information provided in response to "Designed so that all or
> part of the system’s software operates using open source software." is "The
> database used by the Electionware election definition system is PostgreSQL,
> a scalable open source database." Obviously this does not apply to the
> actual election software.
> <http://sfgov2.org/ftp/uploadedfiles/elections/rfi/20150828_ES&S.pdf>
> 6. I do not know who Alan Dechert is but he sounds like someone CAVO
> should reach out to. He seems very committed.
> <http://sfgov2.org/ftp/uploadedfiles/elections/rfi/20150828_Dechert.pdf>
> 7. Digital Foundry's response seems to be a proposal to build a system.
> While they seem positively inclined toward open source, they do not state
> specifically that the work developed would be assigned an OSI Approved Open
> Source License.
> <
> http://sfgov2.org/ftp/uploadedfiles/elections/rfi/20150828_DigitalFoundryResponse.pdf
> >
> 8. In response to the RFI's statement, "Designed so that all or part of
> the system’s software operates using open source software." HartInterCivic
> states, "Yes. Verity is designed to use open source software." Using open
> source software (e.g. Linux OS, noSQL DB, etc.) is not the same as the
> elections/voting software being released with an OSI Approved Open Source
> License.
> <http://sfgov2.org/ftp/uploadedfiles/elections/rfi/20150828_Hart.pdf>
> 9. In response to the RFI's statement, "Designed so that all or part of
> the system’s software operates using open source software," Dominion Voting
> states, "Dominion’s Democracy Suite is designed so that parts of the
> system’s software operates using open source software, such as the use of
> Linux for the development of ImageCast optical scan tabulators. In
> addition, due to the fa ct that many COTS components form part of the
> voting system, additional system components operate on open source
> software, such as the Android platform used in conjunction with the
> ImageCast X voting terminal." Using open source software (e.g. Linux OS,
> Android, etc.) is not the same as the elections/voting software being
> released with an OSI Approved Open Source License.
> <http://sfgov2.org/ftp/uploadedfiles/elections/rfi/20150828_Dominion.pdf>
> 10. Galois appears to seek a contract to build a system. They make several
> claims, "Our products are all Open Source, customers can purchase
> fit-for-purpose versions, and we have a variety of support and service
> contracts." "We can provide evidence of these claims by simply referring
> evaluators to our Open Source product repositories." Looking at their prior
> work / GitHub repositories (<https://github.com/GaloisInc>), they appear
> to distribute work under the BSD license.
> <http://sfgov2.org/ftp/uploadedfiles/elections/rfi/20150828_Galois.pdf>
> 11. OSET has made two claims, that I am leery of: 1. that they have
> submitted the OSET Public License (OPL) or some other to the OSI. I am not
> aware of any submission for review, but have asked the OSI Board to
> confirm. The statement on page 9 that open source licenses "may not work
> for procurement regulations" and elections software requires "certain terms
> and conditions," seem dubious.
> <http://sfgov2.org/ftp/uploadedfiles/elections/rfi/20150828_OSET.pdf>
> 12. In response to the RFI's statement, "Designed so that all or part of
> the system’s software operates using open source software," Clear Ballot
> states, "Clear Ballot is built with modern software tools, allowing the
> integration of many open source pieces of software in its voting system.
> The main programming language is Python and many of the web utilities come
> from open source software." Using open source software in the development
> of a system (e.g. Python, etc.) is not the same as the elections/voting
> software itself being released with an OSI Approved Open Source License.
> <
> http://sfgov2.org/ftp/uploadedfiles/elections/rfi/20150828_ClearBallot.pdf
> >
>
> Hope this helps,
> Patrick
>
>
> On Fri, 2015-08-28 at 22:56 -0700, Brent Turner wrote:
>
> http://sfgov2.org/index.aspx?page=4892
>
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>
> --
>
> Juan E. Gilbert, Ph.D.
>
> Andrew Banks Family Preeminence Endowed Professor & Chair
>
> Computer & Information Science & Engineering Department
>
> University of Florida
>
> P.O. Box 116120
>
> Gainesville, FL 32611
>
> 352.562.0784 (V)
>
> 352.392.1220 (F)
>
> juan at ufl.edu
>
> Twitter: @DrJuanGilbert
>
> http://www.juangilbert.com/
>
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