Senator Barack Obama and the Democractic National Convention Committee,

In his campaign speeches, Senator Obama often evokes images of citizen participation in the governmental process. He proclaims that his message of hope is built on the foundation of mutual respect, and the prospect of working together to return the government to the hands of the people.

Barack Obama's campaign built a powerful synergy between grass-roots politics and grass-roots technology, while presenting what many consider to be the most disciplined campaign of any candidate in modern history.

There are number of factors coming together that lead me to believe that open source's moment is right now, today, this year.

Politicians in general are not terribly tech-savvy, let alone conscious of the most important intellectual freedom issues, but President Barack Obama does have a reputation of being more aware than most of the new media and new possibilities of the internet. The new US presidential website shows some promise that indeed, we now have a US president who isn't afraid of the future.

Much noise has been made in the past week or so about President-elect Barack Obama's creation of a governmental chief tech officer position. My question is: What will be their stance on open source? Will they lean towards it, mandate it, forbid it ... or ignore it entirely? I looked into it, and came away feeling we had much bigger problems looming.

Linux users rejoice. It is now possible to watch the Barack Obama Official Inauguration live via video stream. Thanks to Moonlight, the open source implementation of Microsoft Silverlight, we will finally be able to see the much-awaited presidential inauguration from the comfort of our own Linux desktop.

Red Hat CEO Jim Whitehurst has issued a statement praising President Obama for bringing a culture of inclusion and transparency to the United States government. Whitehurst also takes the opportunity to encourage broader open source adoption.

Barack Obama promises to be the most technologically attuned U.S. president ever.

When I heard U.S. president-elect Barack Obama make his "lipstick on a pig" remark while running as a candidate back in September, it got me thinking about language, and how it can be used to deceive as easily as to explain.