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Bulgaria Passes a Law Requiring Open Source

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Re: Bulgaria Passes a Law Requiring Open Source

#31

Post by blahi »

jdimov10 wrote: post #26
jdimov10 wrote: post #20

Out of context, this may sound like mildly cheerful news. It is not. Bulgaria is a doomed shithole, which has for many decades been ran by a murderous communist mafia, controlling every aspect of the economy and the legal system, while licking many foreign asses with equal dexterity (US / NATO, Russian, European, Ukrainian, Saudi, Israeli, Turkish - everyone whose ass is worth licking, Bulgarian "politicians" do it i…

Gosh, you people think I'm kidding about this! You think I'm sketching a tasteless comic or something full of foul language just for kicks.. If anything, I've put it too kindly! It is A LOT worse than this.

It is a lot worse than this. It is jaw dropping terror.

Re: Bulgaria Passes a Law Requiring Open Source

#33

Post by jdimov10 »

bozho wrote: post #30
jdimov10 wrote: post #20

Out of context, this may sound like mildly cheerful news. It is not. Bulgaria is a doomed shithole, which has for many decades been ran by a murderous communist mafia, controlling every aspect of the economy and the legal system, while licking many foreign asses with equal dexterity (US / NATO, Russian, European, Ukrainian, Saudi, Israeli, Turkish - everyone whose ass is worth licking, Bulgarian "politicians" do it i…

That is irrelevant to the topic. Yes, there are big problems, but they are not fixed overnight. They are fixed slowly and patiently by introducing ever more transparency and safeguards.

No, they are not fixed slowly and patiently. There is ONLY one way to "fix" these "problems" and, unfortunately, it is the exact opposite of slowly and patiently. That's how absurd Bulgaria is.

Re: Bulgaria Passes a Law Requiring Open Source

#34

Post by bozho »

jdimov10 wrote: post #33
bozho wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That is irrelevant to the topic. Yes, there are big problems, but they are not fixed overnight. They are fixed slowly and patiently by introducing ever more transparency and safeguards.

No, they are not fixed slowly and patiently. There is ONLY one way to "fix" these "problems" and, unfortunately, it is the exact opposite of slowly and patiently. That's how absurd Bulgaria is.

Revolutions normally don't fix problems, they create new ones.

Re: Bulgaria Passes a Law Requiring Open Source

#35

Post by drinchev »

vminkov wrote: post #11
blahi wrote: post #7

Every law passed by Bulgarian parliament serves only one purpose - to put pressure on somebody, so people in the shadows can get a slice. edit: A new government agency is tasked with enforcing the law Ah, I see now.

I know the people who stand behind this and believe me, they have 0 (zero) dependence on the oligarchy and moreover they are a team of experts who have been in the private sector until recently. This law is one against the status quo.

Great to hear that, because I was ( still am ) skeptical about any government legislation these days.

Re: Bulgaria Passes a Law Requiring Open Source

#36

Post by jdimov10 »

bozho wrote: post #34
jdimov10 wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, they are not fixed slowly and patiently. There is ONLY one way to "fix" these "problems" and, unfortunately, it is the exact opposite of slowly and patiently. That's how absurd Bulgaria is.

Revolutions normally don't fix problems, they create new ones.

I'm not talking about an internal revolution - there is nobody left in that country to carry that out. Everyone with half a brain and access to a little bit of money has long left.

Re: Bulgaria Passes a Law Requiring Open Source

#37

Post by netcan »

bluetomcat wrote: post #8

You wouldn't know the background motivating this decision unless you have been a frustrated user of the nearly non-functional software of Bulgarian state institutions. Ludicrous amounts of money are paid by the government to a selected niche of companies for developing all kinds of useless websites which barely work under load and have abysmal implementations with blatant security holes. This law can act as a safegua…

I hope it helps, but it doesn't seem like a sure thing on the face of it. To the extent these big, expensive government projects are similar to smaller “dumb-customer” projects, I don’t think this will help.

Anything that requires working with a hard to work with organization is “expensive” in one way or another. You need to sell them the project, which could take months or years. You need to figure out what they need, which will be difficult and you’ll be wrong because no one knows, nevermind articulating it . You’ll be forced to take numerous long cuts to meet unnecessary requirements. There will be iterations, slow progress, long waits for client input, training…

The companies who succeed at this are the ones who are experts in this process. They sell well. They’re good at “managing the process” and winning when a project is 3 years overdue, over budget, the spec is on iteration 46, and no one can remember the original goal.

OTOH, if the government is developing software, why shouldn’t it be open source. At the least, its good transparency.

Re: Bulgaria Passes a Law Requiring Open Source

#38

Post by bluetomcat »

mtrn wrote: post #28
onestone wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He is a professor in Mathematics, and is often invited in popular TV shows as a supposed "expert" on elections, software, and politics in general.

Well, at least the TV shows invite mathematicians, that's not a bad start.

All Bulgarian TV shows invite the same bunch of around 50 self-proclaimed experts (supposed historians, economists, national security experts, sociologists). These people spread tons of lies and misconceptions to the wider public which is generally badly informed and uncaring. Mixing in a little bit of obvious truth with the rest of the garbage makes them look like a credible authority.

Re: Bulgaria Passes a Law Requiring Open Source

#39

Post by vladimirralev »

bozho wrote: post #29
bluetomcat wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And how do you ensure that the actual deployed code doesn't differ from the one posted on GitHub?

From the electoral code, rough translation: "Independent observers are allowed to verify whether the digital fingerprint of the system in the data centers matches the publicly announced one"

The more people insist such verification is possible, the less you should trust them, they don't understand the issues[1]. It might be possible to come up with some provably verifiable scheme but they are very sophisticated and revised often because people still come up with ways to skew them[2].

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w3_0x6oaDmI

[2] https://evoting.bismark.se/verifiable-electronic-voting/

Re: Bulgaria Passes a Law Requiring Open Source

#40

Post by onestone »

vladimirralev wrote: post #39
bozho wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From the electoral code, rough translation: "Independent observers are allowed to verify whether the digital fingerprint of the system in the data centers matches the publicly announced one"

The more people insist such verification is possible, the less you should trust them, they don't understand the issues[1]. It might be possible to come up with some provably verifiable scheme but they are very sophisticated and revised often because people still come up with ways to skew them[2]. [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w3_0x6oaDmI [2] https://evoting.bismark.se/verifiable-electronic-voting/

That YouTube video is full of logical fallacies and wrong claims.

And even if such a verification is impossible, I don't think we should reject incremental improvements just because the result is not yet perfect.

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