Aahhh, but "have public utilities order open source software" is not the same as "release the source code of software paid for by taxpayers' money".

I am all for my town council using OpenOffice (Free, Libre, or whatever the current flavour of the month is) over MS Office. But forcing them to release the source of the software created to e.g. control the traffic light system (making it up, nothing better comes to mind)? I see very little public interest in that, but I see a lot of risk for the small local business who may have contracted for such software. If they want to do it, fine. It is the forcing part that I object to.

EDIT
In addition, the petition is for " publicly financed software developed for the public sector be made publicly available under a Free and Open Source Software licence". Any software? Including one to control nuke launch? Including one that was written 10 years ago? Including one where the source is no longer available? Including one that incorporates closed source components? The devil is, as always, in the details. It is one thing to live in some utopian dreamland and demand something in the name of ideology and another to live in the real world.