Editor at large Mark Hall and I were discussing this development last week, and he pointed out that the inherent beauty of open-source methodology is that it has built into it the means to identify and fix flaws. He's right. Institutionalizing that process stands to rob the methodology of the informality that has been the very hallmark of its success.

"If the DHS insists, as bureaucracies are apt to do, that open-source must be certified via a sanctioned, formal process, it will interfere with the informal process of open-source itself," Hall says. "It seems to me the DHS is trying to turn an open-source development project into a Microsoft (or IBM or Oracle) software development project. And we know what that means: more, not fewer, errors -- security and otherwise."

Hall wonders, as I do, whether that $1.24 million couldn't have been better spent. He wonders, as I do, how much progress that money could yield in finding ways to improve, say, the security of containers coming into our ports or cargo being shipped on our airliners.

I don't claim to be unfurling a patriotic flag by exposing some huge misdeed. But the DHS has unfurled a bright red flag of poor judgment here, and it can't be allowed to wave unheeded.