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US government commits to publish publicly financed software under FOSS licenses

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Re: US government commits to publish publicly financed software under FOSS licenses

#81

Post by caf »

BWStearns wrote: post #73
ipsin wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm probably misreading it, but "the integrity of the agency's personnel" makes it sound like "the in-house developers wrote terrible code and people will criticize them for it".

Or the stability. Open sourcing certain code may literally lead to insanity! I think this was just poorly word-smithed and the "correct" interpretation would only apply the protection of security to personnel.

I believe the correct parse is:

                             / (the stability, security, or integrity of the agency’s systems)
  (an identifiable risk to)

Re: US government commits to publish publicly financed software under FOSS licenses

#82

Post by meanduck »

phkahler wrote: post #74

Licensing problems. For new projects this sounds great, put the code either in the public domain or they pick a license. Which one? MIT/BSD, GPL/LGPL, or something else? The former can generally be incorporated into the later, but what if they pick something else that's incompatible? At least we can see what was done and learn from it I guess. And what if they require a particular license as part of the policy and it…

Its only the article stating (and misleading) that softwares be Free Software but in actual the draft never once mention Free Software. So unlikely it would be GPL/LGPL/etc.

Its also suprising to see that this question popped up after 500+ points.

Re: US government commits to publish publicly financed software under FOSS licenses

#84

Post by rmason »

I presented on this three years ago to the state government here in Michigan. It makes far more sense for the state's to do this than the Feds.

Why should there be fifty different software programs to register for a state campground? Or deal with the DMV? When the Feds pass a new law some contractor ends up writing the same software fifty different times for each individual state with small differences.

I believe the key is to have a plug in architecture, like WordPress, that allow each state to adopt the program for their individual laws. I think the savings could be tremendous and its entirely possible with multiple states collaborating the software could be continually improved.

I failed to convince them that day but I think the tide is turning.

Re: US government commits to publish publicly financed software under FOSS licenses

#85

Post by batbomb »

phkahler wrote: post #74

Licensing problems. For new projects this sounds great, put the code either in the public domain or they pick a license. Which one? MIT/BSD, GPL/LGPL, or something else? The former can generally be incorporated into the later, but what if they pick something else that's incompatible? At least we can see what was done and learn from it I guess. And what if they require a particular license as part of the policy and it…

GPL is discouraged in government software (speaking from DOE/NSF experience) but BSD or similar is encouraged. The path of least resistance is private/closed source, followed by open source BSD/MIT/Apache, followed by GPL/LGPL, followed by commercialization.

The reason why there is a bit of resistance with open source as a default is because funding has to be traced.

Re: US government commits to publish publicly financed software under FOSS licenses

#86

Post by deathanatos »

> The custom-build software will also be published to the general public either as public domain, or as Free Software so others can improve and reuse the software.

> However, it is encouraged to be retroactively applicable for the existing custom-build software developed by agency employees in the course of their official duties.

As much as I love FOSS, anything produced by the government — including software — is public domain, right? The government is not eligible for copyright — including FOSS licensing. While I understand that the government sometimes contracts stuff out, and those third-parties seem to enjoy a weird exception to the rule, the article seems to be including stuff developed directly by the government for the government. How do they think they have any rights to it at all?

Re: US government commits to publish publicly financed software under FOSS licenses

#88

Post by rtkwe »

komaromy wrote: post #3

Wow, this is great. I hope it prevents another contractor-related debacle like healthcare dot gov.

There was a lot of things that went into that. There was a huge time crunch on the project and until the bill was signed there was only so much groundwork that could be laid because you could only make passable guesses at the final requirements.

Re: US government commits to publish publicly financed software under FOSS licenses

#89

Post by [deleted] »

justinlardinois wrote: post #49
moon_of_moon wrote: post #29

Why is this limited to software? Why not also publish publicly financed: * legal agreements * HR contracts * management presentations, best practices, and training material * marketing presentations and training material * creative output such as artwork and music so that the rest of the world can use them for free..

> creative output such as artwork and music If I'm not mistaken, all intellectual property published by the US government is public domain by law. I may be wrong or you may be referring to something else.

[deleted]

Re: US government commits to publish publicly financed software under FOSS licenses

#90

Post by carussell »

justinlardinois wrote: post #49
moon_of_moon wrote: post #29

Why is this limited to software? Why not also publish publicly financed: * legal agreements * HR contracts * management presentations, best practices, and training material * marketing presentations and training material * creative output such as artwork and music so that the rest of the world can use them for free..

> creative output such as artwork and music If I'm not mistaken, all intellectual property published by the US government is public domain by law. I may be wrong or you may be referring to something else.

Freely redistributable artifacts are one thing, but publication "in the preferred form for making modifications" is a pretty important part of FOSS.
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