Reader reaction to our coverage of new Defense Department guidance that puts open-source software on equal footing with proprietary software has ranged from cheers to questions about whether the move will change anything.

The Defense Department's guidance on the military use of open-source software has been a long time in coming, and should ease the widespread concerns in the military about open source-use.

Representatives of the open source Mozilla project where pleasantly surprised this week, discovering that the city of Munich is making far more use of their software.

The U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) has just released "Clarifying Guidance Regarding Open Source Software (OSS)", a new official memo about open source software (OSS). This 2009 memo is important for anyone who works with the DoD (including contractors) on software and systems that include software... and I suspect it will influence many other organizations as well.

A group working to produce an open and transparent voting system to replace current proprietary systems has published its first batches of code for public review.

Under the open-source model, thousands of people pick it apart simultaneously and increase security. It comes more cheaply than computer coding designed for a single client, such as the Executive Office of the President.

"Post tenebras lux" is the maxim of the republic and city of Geneva. It means something like "After the dark the light". Although it is related to the Reforme, coincidently (may be not) it applies nicely to the recent move of the Geneva's State Council and particularly the Department of Public Education to open format and free software.

Almost the entire public sector, 96 percent, is using open source, says a French market survey. The most used applications are database management systems and content management systems.