I received quite a few comments this past week following the publishing of California IT Policy Letter 10-01 which formally establishes "the use of Open Source Software (OSS) in California state government as an acceptable practice." While many of my security colleagues offered words of caution following the announcement (and even a couple of "are you crazy" comments), most were pretty enthusiastic with remarks like, "Finally, enlightenment" and "It's about time government joined the 21st century." As a security guy, I've been on both sides of the OSS fence at different times but I've come to the conclusion that anyone who doesn't think OSS has a place in today's business or government simply hasn't been paying attention.