Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Bulgaria Passes a Law Requiring Open Source

medium.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

71–80 of 89 posts

Re: Bulgaria Passes a Law Requiring Open Source

#71

Post by tw04 »

sb8244 wrote: post #68
tw04 wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How exactly is open source going to fix that? The same companies can write the same garbage code for too much money with open source software just as easily. In fact they're probably already using open source.

Their end code must now be open source. Taxpayers can review the code they produce and raise a stink.

So again I ask: how does that fix anything? The government still spent too much money. The site still sucks.

People are already raising a stink they're spending too much money for subpar work, and nothing has changed. Having the code has exactly 0 effect on either of those two issues. Even if a concerned citizen FIXED the code, the odds of the politicians refusing to accept the fixes "for the security of their infrastructure" is upwards of 5-9s. Why on earth would they take those fixes when they're beholden to the people they're already overpaying for the work who likely donate large sums of money to their political campaigns?

Re: Bulgaria Passes a Law Requiring Open Source

#72

Post by hga »

jomamaxx wrote: post #70
hga wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In all fairness to CGI and company, the government set them up for abject failure, no dream team of programmers could have succeeded with it taking the role of integrator for which is did not have the talent or realization of the testing required, so many delayed decisions, and last minute changes (like a very big one a week or two before), being forced to use an unfamiliar database that, worse, implemented an unfami…

I don't doubt that, but it's $2 Billion we're talking. An 'unfamiliar database' does not begin to cover it. Neither do 'last minute changes'. It was a boondogle from the start, failure in gov, failure in planning etc., failure to understand what they are doing. Google Engineers had to come in and fix it.

I'm sorry for my lack of clarity:

An unfamiliar database paradigm. If it was some random RDBMS there wouldn't have been a huge problem there.

You ignored the constantly late transmission of requirements, and I can't believe you're saying that a fundamental re-engineering of the way the site worked 2 or less weeks before launch should be trivialized. How are you even going to test that, when you don't really have the time to implement it well?

Re: Bulgaria Passes a Law Requiring Open Source

#73

Post by sb8244 »

tw04 wrote: post #71
sb8244 wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Their end code must now be open source. Taxpayers can review the code they produce and raise a stink.

So again I ask: how does that fix anything? The government still spent too much money. The site still sucks. People are already raising a stink they're spending too much money for subpar work, and nothing has changed. Having the code has exactly 0 effect on either of those two issues. Even if a concerned citizen FIXED the code, the odds of the politicians refusing to accept the fixes "for the security of their infras…

I can take my best shot here. This is how I would see it at least:

These politicians probably know nothing about the software they are receiving. 300k for a static site? Good deal! By making the sites open source, it allows groups that wouldn't be reviewing the code / bids to do so and then validate the work.

For a US example, the TSA has that iPad application which is essentially a pRNG. Or is it? There is speculation that it might be much more than that, but no one can know without seeing the source code. If we could see the source code, we would know for sure and could verify if this project was really worth hundreds of thousands of tax-payer dollars.

Re: Bulgaria Passes a Law Requiring Open Source

#74

Post by andkenneth »

SyneRyder wrote: post #41
onestone wrote: post #21

I remember the CEO of Information Services JSC (the de-facto Bulgarian monopolist in governement software procurement), prof. Mihail Konstantinov, making the ridiculous claim on TV that "We can't release the source code of the elections counting software. Anyone who has the source can hack into the system, even children know that. If you don't understand that, you should tear your diploma". Glad to see that morons su…

If it makes you feel better, the Australian government said the same thing: "Ronaldson refused to table any documents relating to the case, stating that publishing the source code could lead to the EasyCount software being hacked. "In relation to the source code for the Senate counting system, I am advised that publication of the software could leave the voting system open to hacking or manipulation," he said. "In ad…

I don't see the huge issue with using VB. You can engineer a solution in a modern language terribly, and similarly engineer a VB application well.

However I do suspect that they engineered the VB application terribly. But them using VB should not automatically disqualify them from writing good code.

Re: Bulgaria Passes a Law Requiring Open Source

#76

Post by onion2k »

SyneRyder wrote: post #41
onestone wrote: post #21

I remember the CEO of Information Services JSC (the de-facto Bulgarian monopolist in governement software procurement), prof. Mihail Konstantinov, making the ridiculous claim on TV that "We can't release the source code of the elections counting software. Anyone who has the source can hack into the system, even children know that. If you don't understand that, you should tear your diploma". Glad to see that morons su…

If it makes you feel better, the Australian government said the same thing: "Ronaldson refused to table any documents relating to the case, stating that publishing the source code could lead to the EasyCount software being hacked. "In relation to the source code for the Senate counting system, I am advised that publication of the software could leave the voting system open to hacking or manipulation," he said. "In ad…

These politicians are right - simply opening the existing source, with all it's flaws, bugs, and security holes, would be dangerous. It would be a huge help to any malicious party. I don't think they're suggesting open source is worse from a security point of view; they're saying that you can't open up an existing product without doing a lot of work first.

Where they are wrong is in the assumption that keeping the source closed makes them safe from an attack.

Re: Bulgaria Passes a Law Requiring Open Source

#77

Post by unusximmortalis »

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…

This is the same or even worse in Romania. I just sent to Romania prime minister a link to this article via his FB account. I am curious to see if I will get any kind of answer.

Re: Bulgaria Passes a Law Requiring Open Source

#78

Post by duckingtest »

themartorana wrote: post #46
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…

If you have a government sponsored monopoly like that, at least do a half-way decent job. I will never understand getting paid $300k for a static website and being so desperate to squeeze another ounce of profit out of an already absurdly profitable contract that you shoot yourself in the foot by not at least delivering something pretty. I mean, wow.

What happens is they pocket $295k and spend $5k on an actual project. In Poland a company got ~$150k to make a system to collect and count votes for local elections, it failed spectacularly. It turned out they employed one 23 year old CS student to make everything over about a half year. No public salary data, but I bet they paid her something like $800/month. The saddest thing is she got most of the blame for failure, if you google her name it's the only thing that comes out.

Re: Bulgaria Passes a Law Requiring Open Source

#79

Post by unusximmortalis »

netcan wrote: post #37
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 nee…

I do not think you can imagine what kind of money (huge amounts) and what kind of software (worse possible you can release) is developed in fraudulent schemes where corrupt governments meet corrupt businesses. Having them by law open spurce I believe it will stop a lot of money to be wasted and quality of software to be much better compared to what is happening now.

Re: Bulgaria Passes a Law Requiring Open Source

#80

Post by donkeyd »

lucb1e wrote: post #63
donkeyd wrote: post #53

I've personally seen the Dutch government spend millions implementing open source software. This was something that could've been fixed for a fraction using a closed source solution. After a couple of years, the project was canceled and the closed source solution was implemented anyway. I'm not saying that using OSS is a bad thing. I don't, however, think that 'OSS only' is the solution to the problem at hand.

More background please? Because unless they were cutting corners in a huge way (probably security-wise), I don't see how open source would be so much more expensive than closed source. The statement that "[it] could've been fixed for a fraction using closed source" seems very weird since there are no fundamental differences in how one writes open or closed source code.

They were implementing an ESB. There wasn't any internal knowledge on it, so they had started a joint venture with a business that provided consultants. For some reason (not exactly sure why), the project went past its deadline by about 2 years. My own employer at the time also provided an ESB, though it was closed source. We had a lot of experience with the product, and therefore could've implemented it quickly and for a fraction of the price (like we'd done before). Unfortunately, no information on this is available online, for reasons I understand.

When they canceled the project, apparently they ended up hiring my employer anyway.

Post reply on HN