[CAVO] [VVSG-interoperability] [VVSG-election] Single Point of Failure

Sat Jul 30 20:06:20 UTC 2016

Joe Kiniry wrote:

> Brent, it is clear that you do not understand Open Source licensing, despite your trolling on the topic for years.

But I do understand, and you won't accuse me of trolling, so I will respond to you.

We described a rational basis for choosing the GPLv3 license for open elections software. Regardless of some commercial views of that license, I can guarantee that there are far more people in the world who trust that license for free elections software than who don't. Trust for an open source election system is critical. The OSET license that was approved is also open source. The reason I supported its approval is that the OSET license expressly allows that software to be included in GPLv3 distributions. :-) But OSET has never earned the same trust as the GPLv3 to keep election software always free.

Arthur Keller wrote:
> No, the key is to have a license where the software is disclosed and people are free to experiment with it. Those were the principles of the OVC Disclosed license we created years ago.

"Software disclosure" and "freedom to experiment with it" are important. But that isn't the sole definition of open source. If you want a more comprehensive explanation, my book on "Open Source Licensing" is available from Prentice Hall at Amazon, or for free on my website. 

/Larry

Lawrence Rosen

Rosenlaw ( <http://www.rosenlaw.com/> www.rosenlaw.com) 

3001 King Ranch Rd., Ukiah, CA 95482

Cell: 707-478-8932 

From: Joe Kiniry [mailto:kiniry at freeandfair.us] 
Sent: Saturday, July 30, 2016 11:39 AM
To: Brent Turner <turnerbrentm at gmail.com>
Cc: vvsg-pre-election <vvsg-pre-election at nist.gov>; Arthur Keller <ark at soe.ucsc.edu>; Alec Bash <alec.bash at gmail.com>; vvsg-election <vvsg-election at nist.gov>; vvsg-interoperability <vvsg-interoperability at nist.gov>; Alan Dechert <dechert at gmail.com>; CAVO <CAVO at opensource.org>; Brigette Hunley <brigette.hunley at gmail.com>; vvsg-post-election <vvsg-post-election at nist.gov>; Greg Miller <gmiller at osetfoundation.org>
Subject: Re: [CAVO] [VVSG-interoperability] [VVSG-election] Single Point of Failure - the Scan Head - RE: By November, Russian hackers could target voting machines

Brent,

It is clear that you do not understand Open Source licensing, despite your trolling on the topic for years.

Your implicit claims that San Francisco has both chosen GPL as a license and somehow chosen your pseudo-organization as a vendor are an invention.

Finally, your public behavior and continued slandering of OSET and similar organizations bears witness to this community of your nature.  I hope that those listed as being associated with CAVO <http://www.cavo-us.org/staff.html> —as I know in the past that individuals listed on your website were unaware and disavowed any connection to CAVO—realize the potential impact to their reputations.

Now let’s get back to discussing substantial issues with future certification of election systems.

Joe Kiniry

On Jul 30, 2016, at 09:38, Brent Turner <turnerbrentm at gmail.com <mailto:turnerbrentm at gmail.com> > wrote:

Arthur--

No. 

Disclosed code is a ruse.  E S & S was busted and fined in CA but I'm sure you don't need that example.  This is elementary so I am curious as to your message. 

 The OVC ( Alan Dechert )  position has been strictly GPL since at least 2008. I know your association with that group started fading around that time.  Brian Fox( first employee of Free Software Foundation / Bash shell creator ) '   did the OVC 2008 Linuxworld demo with GPL-- and Kai Ping Yee followed suit with his  GPL based OVC work..  

CAVO now recommends -- per Larry Rosen and a host of others.. GPL v3

Best-

BT 

On Sat, Jul 30, 2016 at 9:12 AM, Arthur Keller <ark at soe.ucsc.edu <mailto:ark at soe.ucsc.edu> > wrote:

No, the key is to have a license where the software is disclosed and people are free to experiment with it. Those were the principles of the OVC Disclosed license we created years ago. 

Best regards,

Arthur 

On Jul 30, 2016, at 1:19 AM, Brent Turner <turnerbrentm at gmail.com <mailto:turnerbrentm at gmail.com> > wrote:

All--   My apologies for not realizing Kapor had backed away from his association with OSET.  Through the succession of name changes it is hard to track principals.  The main thing to recognize here is that even though an " open source " group may technically obtain Open Source Initiative licensing..  OSI recommends the group attempting to peddle services or products under the open source flag should be scrutinized for open source history and their participation with the open source community.  A group that does not reach out to the said open source community - is founded by proprietary purveyors- and invents new licenses and licensing schemes is obviously going to raise eyebrows. The open source community is very protective of reputation  as it is now understood the proprietary code  businessmen are discovering the traction of open source.. and the traction coming available in the election system arena. Obviously there is not only a money grab issue inherent .. but also a power grab issue due to the outflow of elections

Groups that do not advocate the ubiquitous General Public License continue to raise hackles  (even though we have managed to curtail most efforts to pass through offending aspects of ill conceived license attempts.) Furthermore,  misdirection statements  such as " The government purchasers say they want a new open source license " are flags as well.  The idea is to utilize a license that will encourage participation from the community. 

Billionaires like Kelly - Kapor and Paul Allen are coming into the space of elections with a fury, but this issue is not simply solved by throwing money toward politicians or large designs. The best design is so simple it's almost evasive. By keeping it simple with GPL and COTS  .. the jurisdictions will be economically empowered.. and removed from the current " vendor trap " 

BT 

On Fri, Jul 29, 2016 at 7:52 PM, Gregory Miller <gmiller at osetfoundation.org <mailto:gmiller at osetfoundation.org> > wrote:

Apologies folks,

But my Legal Department has me under an obligation whenever this comes up, to clarify that Mitch Kapor is no longer involved with the OSET Institute (Foundation) or its TrustTheVote Project, and has not been since 2011.  

The OSET Institute is funded by several private philanthropists, led by former Facebook general counsel Chris Kelly, the Democracy Fund, and the Knight Foundation.  Moreover, we receive no funding whatsoever from Microsoft Corporation nor any commercial vendor of election technology.

Sorry, but I am obligated by agreement to make this clarification due to continued misstatements by others.

Thank you and respectfully,

Gregory Miller

OSET Institute

On Thu, Jul 28, 2016 at 9:49 AM, Brent Turner <turnerbrentm at gmail.com <mailto:turnerbrentm at gmail.com> > wrote in relevant part

..... we need to watchdog anything that has Microsoft's involvement as it might in fact be an in-road for Mitch Kapor's OSET effort to nuance the open source voting effort--  

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