US Congress is scared of Linux?

If the US Congress is saying that it is scared of Linux, I say "follow the money." I just received email from the SIIA stating that:

"...yesterday 23 House Republicans and 43 Democrats signed a letter to Cybersecurity Director Richard Clarke regarding Government funding of R&D related to cybersecurity. The letter, which urges use of commercial "intellectual property licenses", has generated numerous calls to SIIA. The controversy stems from the arguments used to encourage members of Congress to sign onto the letter. In particular, organizers of the effort appear to want to preclude Linux and other open source platforms and applications from receiving federal R&D funds."

Here is an article on the topic in the Seattle P-I -- Congressman under fire for attack on free software. Guess Adam Smith D-Wash has some friends on the Redmond campus, as the article in part states:

"But when Smith, whose biggest political contributor is Microsoft, began circulating the letter to his fellow Democrats asking for their signatures, he added his own correspondence saying the free software philosophy is "problematic and threaten(s) to undermine innovation and security.""

I'll be writing a letter to my representativs in Congress letting them know that open source is actually good for innovation and security, hope you will as well.