FOSS and the election

[phiscock-g851W1bGYuGnS0EtXVNi6w at public.gmane.org]

> Most of the above criteria can indeed be researched and measured, but
> not all. While "reliability" and "quality" can be measured,
> "trustworthiness" is by nature more subjective because trust is an
> emotion, not a measurable attribute.
>
Trustworthiness may refer to the ability to detect 'back doors' and
'trojan horses' in the code. With Open Software, that's relatively easy to
do. One of the many reasons I don't use Microsoft software is that I have
no idea what the damn stuff is communicating to Redmond. That's completely
unacceptable for  software used in a government environment. I believe
this was a major factor in the acceptance of Open Software in Europe and
Brazil.

So in this context I would say that trustworthiness is measurable.

Peter

-- 
Peter Hiscocks
Professor Emeritus,
Electrical and Computer Engineering,
Ryerson University
416-465-3007
www.ee.ryerson.ca/~phiscock

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