[ILUG] E-voting in India

[Bryan O'Donoghue]

> In the context of Evoting, I think you have it the wrong way around. A
> good compromise at this juncture would be for the company to accept
> that the code must be published, but they can keep it licensed
> propeitarily. The state isnt in a position to modify code, it doesn't
> have the experience - the only people who can do it under the existing
> contract are the vendors, and that isnt going to change. Though the
> Dept did insist on an escrow clause so the source is kept in escrow
> with a third party and should the vendors fold - they won't be totally
> screwed.

I accept that, that is a compromise which, protects our interests somewhat.

The ideal is that while the State has the ability and legal right to maintain 
the codebase for it's own purposes as it sees fit, for security and self 
preservation purposes, it doesn't necessarily do so, it's just an ability to do 
so, which I think would endemnify the State and protect it.

> But we can trust changes made by the state no more than we can the
> vendor, either way they need to be published such that errors have a
> better chance of being found.

The State as an entity *must* have the trust of it's Citizens. We trust the 
State to administer justice, maintain the health service and an entire lexicon 
of other things. The State isn't the issue here, it's the fallable and 
sometimes vindictive people who might introduce obstacles to the working of the 
State, in this case Democracy, who must be guarded against.
Implicity the State must have the trust of it's citizens, since they are 
interdependant entities.

Philosophy aside, the citzen can audit in totality *all* aspects of the State's 
workings, except that which is deemed to be State-sensitive information.

Is the source code of the voting machines State sensitive information?
No.
Is it company sensitive information?
Yes.

The company in this case has no rights. It is providing a public service of a 
highly sensitive nature and it's IP cannot be allowed, to impede the 
functioning of the State or the State's accountability to it's citizens.

> Btw, in the context of all of this it is interesting to note that the
> Commission actually found that;
> 
> 	 "the need for all software to be open source, to allow the 
> 	 community to check that it can generate accurate results" 
> 
> 	...
> 
> 	"concur broadly with the main themes of the Commission's work"
> 
> 
> (pages 17/18 of the Interim report). So they seem to have a moderately 
> more pro-Open Source position.
> 
> 



-- 
Bryan O'Donoghue
Embedded Software Engineer

Europlex Technologies Ltd
Clonshaugh Business & Technology Park
Dublin 17
Ireland

T:+353 (0) 1 2500500
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E:bryano at euoplex.ie
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