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If Software Is Funded from a Public Source, Its Code Should Be Open Source

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Re: If Software Is Funded from a Public Source, Its Code Should Be Open Source

#91
Government scientist here.

IANAL, but my understanding is that all software written by US government civil servants is in the public domain. It cannot be copyrighted or otherwise licensed (although the government can patent things). This does not necessarily mean that it is available to the public, as noted in the other comments; it may be classified, considered For Official Use Only, or restricted from release by ITAR regulations.

Barring any of those cases, you should be able to get a copy by filing a FOIA request. The problem with FOIA requests is that you have to know specifically what to request, usually by name. Obviously, it can be hard to put your finger on exactly what software you are requesting.

The bigger problem, though, is that much of the US government just isn't technically set up to release software (as opposed to documents). Setting up a git repository, in the DoD, is an utter nightmare. Every single patch has to be pushed through a public release process that can take weeks or months and involves review by as many as ten to fifteen different offices, few if any of which even know anything about software. If you're setting up your own server, getting the server itself approved and provisioned can be an exercise in bureaucratic frustration, and can take literally years to accomplish.

Those of us writing software very often want it to get out there. But the structure of the organization makes that excruciatingly difficult.

Re: If Software Is Funded from a Public Source, Its Code Should Be Open Source

#93
Consider the Feds tried doing this with IP post WW2 and the results were disasterous. Turns out govt. employees aren’t allowed to be paid enough to make 100 hour work weeks reasonble - the level of effort required to get some ideas off the ground.

Once the Bayh-dole act was passed to allow citizens to take ownership of IP related to publicly funded endeavors, only then did the public start benefiting.

Re: If Software Is Funded from a Public Source, Its Code Should Be Open Source

#94

Most posts on this thread are focusing on exceptional cases where there are obvious reasons not to open the source, such as defense, but huge amounts of publicly-funded code is locked up for no reason whatsoever. Let's discuss some use cases that make more sense: 1. healthcare.gov 2. Stoplights/traffic control cameras. 3. Voting machines. 4. Electrical grid. 5. IRS.

There is more than one country in the world. Let's say country A is paying for some software and open source it, the rest of the world can get it. That may be fair if everyone is doing the same and contributing fairly (hard to assess that), but if countries A,B,C are the only ones contributing (paying) and everyone else just use, then it is not fair or sensible. More than that, there is no "public paid", just "tax pa…

Countries a, b, c already can reuse their code/don’t duplicate effort. Others will join for sure. They’ll also get free code/bug fixes from people who want to contribute. People do it for many reasons, just listing you’re contributor to gov project can look nice on cv. No tax money is paid for that. If other countries want to use but not contribute back - so what? I don’t think it ever bothered anybody that their open source lib/whatever was used by people who don’t contribute back to it or by people who themselves don’t have open source projects.

Re: If Software Is Funded from a Public Source, Its Code Should Be Open Source

#95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Man it would be pretty amazing to be able to submit a Pull Request to the IRS. Matt Cutts if you're reading this please help! On another note, I'm not sure I agree on the electrical grid or traffic controls being open sourced ... could imagine some nefarious things happening as a result of that

Agreed, safety and essential infrastructure should probably not be open source. That said, the main points of infrastructure access and configuration are probably larger issues at hand over the actual systems source itself. As to TFA, I have mixed feelings. I'm actually more concerned about research and related patents and data surrounding publicly funded study. I do feel that Open-Source should be given some level o…

Disagreed, safety and essential infrastructure should definitely be open source. Right now your typical infrastructure project is about as leaky as they come compared to a typical web app. Exposing that stuff to broad daylight will certainly help to harden it.

Re: If Software Is Funded from a Public Source, Its Code Should Be Open Source

#96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is more than one country in the world. Let's say country A is paying for some software and open source it, the rest of the world can get it. That may be fair if everyone is doing the same and contributing fairly (hard to assess that), but if countries A,B,C are the only ones contributing (paying) and everyone else just use, then it is not fair or sensible. More than that, there is no "public paid", just "tax pa…

Wealth is not a zero sum game.

In a finite system, it is.

Re: If Software Is Funded from a Public Source, Its Code Should Be Open Source

#97

Alot of the conversation I have seen so far has been US-centric. That's fair, given that this was posted during US business hours, but for the US I don't really think this discussion applies as much. Works created by the United States Government are not covered by copyright in the US, effectively making them public domain _in the US_. See https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/17/105 "But—", you say, "—the code the…

But what about software that is funded by the government, but not directly created by government agencies, such as software that is the result of government research grants (at universities or private research institutions) or contracts with private companies?

And does that law also apply to works created by state and municipal governments?

Re: If Software Is Funded from a Public Source, Its Code Should Be Open Source

#98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> And private software that only needs a 3-5% modification for government usage? Should that be required to open-source the entire software? I think there is a good argument for anything where the government is acquiring software rather than paying for service that the acquired software (even if it zero percent modified) should be under a permissive open source license (or even acquired into the public domain), and t…

So, you'd rather spend millions and years of time extra than to use closed source software?

> So, you'd rather spend millions and years of time extra than to use closed source software?

No, I'd rather save millions and years of time than use closed source software (if it's zero modification COTS, the extra cost comes in organizing operations around software limitations rather than business driving tools, if it's 3-5% modification at acquisition MOTS, then the additional cost is the continued modifications necessary as government needs evolve differently than private needs with the original vendor able to charge want amounts to monopoly rents because there are no substitute providers because the vendor owns the code, or you fail back to business organized around software rather than vice versa again.)

I've actually spent quite a while working in public sector IT in a unit which manages COTS, MOTS, and we-own-the-code solutions.

(Now there are some exceptions, just as FOIA has exceptions as to which government records are disclosable, but by far I'd prefer the baseline would be code acquired by government must belong to or be freely usable by the public, either PD or permissively-licensed.)

Re: If Software Is Funded from a Public Source, Its Code Should Be Open Source

#99
post #5

I am an open source advocate, but I don't really agree here. Should the IRS, NSA, CIA, and FBI code all be open source? Here are some cases where closed source software, with some security by obscurity could be helpful. Another example would be some software around designing nuclear systems. But as an example maybe a software funded by the national weather service to run simulations, that aught to be open source (per…

What do they have to hide? Nobody is asking for their list of passwords/private keys. Even if they do have secret projects, nobody sane is asking them to open source every line of code they write.

Look at NASA’s open mct on github - that’s awesome and we should push govt orgs to release more projects like this.

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