RE: "Owning" software; HAVA myths

["Paul Tiger - LPBC - Outreach" <outreach@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Can't modify the OS. MS OS is licensed.

Before you (or anyone here) goes off in nine different directions with false
and un-researched ASSUMPTIONS about the Hart software, it might be wise to
read the contract between Hart and the county. I'm the only person in CVV
that has. I don't mean the marketing crapola or the proposed contract
published in two places on the internet, but real McCoy.

Wanna know something hilarious? Hart thinks that they must keep that
contract a secret. The county clerk thinks that she must also. Hallo - paid
for by public funds and keep it a secret? Bet not!

It took quite a bit of time to get the clerk to produce the contract. And I
heard about its proprietary nature all along. Wanna have some fun? Demand an
open records release to the contract.

Read it carefully and set it down every few minutes so you can run around in
your yard and SCREAM. Boulder county taxpayers have been screwed. But Hart
was just a party to the bizarre sex. BC elected official were too.

Hand counting is perfectly legal. I haven't read anywhere that hand counting
is illegal. It just takes forever. I hardly care, as long as it is accurate.
I haven't heard any comments to the effect that hand counting is illegal.
Why do we keep going back to this topic?

Pay close attention to these words: when there is a demand for a RECOUNT in
any election, it must be recounted in the same method that it was originally
counted. End of Story.

paul

-----Original Message-----
From: lpuls@xxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:lpuls@xxxxxxxxxxxxx]
Sent: Sunday, April 24, 2005 12:20 PM
To: cvv-discuss@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: "Owning" software; HAVA myths

On Apr 21, 2005, at 3:37 PM, Paul E Condon wrote:

> BoCo owns the equipment, and it seems to me politically unrealistic
> to advocate junking it, at least in the next two or three decades.

On Thu, 21 Apr 2005 Paul Tiger <outreach@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
in a reply to Ivan C Meek <ivan.meek@xxxxxxxxx>
wrote:

>One thing that we can do is to modify the software ourselves. It is not as
>closed as some of the open source advocates have imagined. We own the
>software and the source. The question is if the county is willing to deal
>directly with the systems and ignore threats from Hart concerning
>non-support, which were not getting anyway.

Boulder County may own the "off-the-shelf" HARDware of the Hart system, but
I find it hard to grasp that anyone still believes that "...We own the
software and the source."  The only software that is "owned" is that which
one writes oneself that doesn't infringe others or is received under no
licensing restrictions WHATSOEVER.  Even open source software is often
available (usually cost-free) only under a  license restriction that
strictly limits what you can do with it, e.g. software under the GNU
licensing system.  Try selling a system named Linux that is not licensed
and approved by Linus Torwald (who "owns" only the trademarked name, NOT
the open-source software) and you will hear from his attorneys.

That part of the Hart system software which was written by Hart-Intercivic
is owned by Hart - it is LICENSED to Boulder County and cannot be modified
in any way without Hart's permission.  What Paul Tiger advocates above -
"to modify the software ourselves" and "deal directly with the systems and
ignore threats from Hart" - is blatantly against Federal copyright and
patent law and Colorado contract law and would cost the county far more in
lawsuits than the $1.5 million already wasted on the massively flawed
system.

The Hart system software that is not owned by Hart is owned by third
parties that have licensed it to Hart - e.g. Hart cannot modify the
incredibly fault-ridden Microsoft 2003 Server operating system software
with anything but Microsoft-provided patches (flawed as they are constantly
proven to be).  If Hart were willing to negotiate server changes the County
SHOULD want, e.g. fixing the appallingly insecure and incessantly
cracked-into MS security protocols, Hart would be sued immediately by
Microsoft.

Another persistent wrong-headed belief is that HAVA has outlawed ANY
so-called "low-tech" or hand-counting voting system.  All the Feds can
constitutionally do is refuse to subsidize systems not promoted by
Congress.  If the Commissioners hadn't trusted that Federal money would
eventually pay for the Hart system, I doubt they would have flagrantly and
carelessly wasted so much money on such an unexamined, flawed, unverifiable
and potentially fraudulent system.

Lou Puls

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