"Cutter Consortium Fellow Ed Yourdon recently suggested that a dramatically successful cyber-terrorism attack might lead to a government-imposed mandate to use open-source software. In his latest book Byte Wars, Yourdon suggests that since September 11 we live in a world of unpredictable, and sometime malevolent, disruptive change. In the book he argues that this new state of affairs, which will probably persist for the next several years, is likely to cause a number of paradigm shifts in the IT industry, as well as various other parts of society. This potentially-mandated use of open source is one such change.
"Says Yourdon, 'Even without another dramatic incident, September 11 set into motion a series of analyses and assessments that could cause a dramatic shift toward open-source software. Up until now, we've heard discussions and debates about the marketplace acceptance of open-source systems like Linux, and the open-source advocates might have predicted that within another 5 or 10 or 20 years, their paradigm for software development would gradually dominate the more familiar and traditional paradigm of proprietary software.
"'But, if a terrorist group uses a cyber-attack to bring down the nation's telecommunications network, or banking network, or air- traffic control system, or electric power grid, or any other part of the 'critical infrastructure' for even a day or two, the situation could change dramatically--a government mandate to use open-source could not only accelerate an otherwise slow and steady movement, it could enforce it as a matter of law...'"
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