Between 40 and 50 LinuxWorld attendees marched from San Francisco's Moscone Center to City Hall on Thursday morning to show support for the Digital Software Security Act. The bill, which has been introduced in the California Legislature, would require state agencies to only purchase software that offers unrestricted use of the program, unrestricted access to the source code, and the freedom to copy and distribute the software.

Red Hat chief technology officer Michael Tiemann, one of the organizers, says the purpose of the hour-long march was to bring together IT professionals, a notoriously nonpolitical group, for a common cause. "It was more about planting the seed," Tiemann says, noting that the marchers realize the state's legislative power is really in Sacramento. "We didn't have the legs for that," he joked about a march to the state capital.

At issue is the fact that California sues software companies that exercise monopolies, then turns around and rewards them with new contracts, Tiemann says. Open-source is more secure, he says, because there's the potential for many different experts to examine it for problems before it's put into production. But when there's a problem with, for example, Microsoft software, there's ultimately only one vendor who can fix it, he explains. "With open source, there are more eyes and hands," Tiemann says. "That's the difference between a monarchy and a democracy."

Tiemann says one of the primary objectives of the march was to show IT professionals that they're capable of influencing legislative codes as well as programming codes.