So avionics software for our latest fighter planes should be open source? Does not sound like a very smart idea from that perspective...
If Software Is Funded from a Public Source, Its Code Should Be Open Source
221–230 of 277 posts
Re: If Software Is Funded from a Public Source, Its Code Should Be Open Source
#222Earlier quoted context omitted.
>Most software developed by government funds is developed, at least in part, by contractors. And that is a COMPLETELY different circumstance. The details, unsurprisingly, depend on the contract. // Isn't the point that the contact should have a non-negotiable OSS clause of it's using public funds. My impression, from my seat in Europe, is that USA government is run by rich capitalists that would as soon eat faeces li…
> Isn't the point that the contact should have a non-negotiable OSS clause of it's using public funds. Okay. Say you're a vendor for student information systems. It handles registration, enrollment, scheduling, attendance, report cards, state and federal reporting, teacher gradebooks, parent portal, etc. You sell your product to one school district with 800 students for an initial fee of $100,000 plus an annual fee o…
What does it mean to be funded "with public money". In your example, it sounds like the software was funded with private money then sold as a product to the schools.
The relevant scenario is that the school approached the company and paid them to develop the software.
Re: If Software Is Funded from a Public Source, Its Code Should Be Open Source
#223Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Isn't the point that the contact should have a non-negotiable OSS clause of it's using public funds. Okay. Say you're a vendor for student information systems. It handles registration, enrollment, scheduling, attendance, report cards, state and federal reporting, teacher gradebooks, parent portal, etc. You sell your product to one school district with 800 students for an initial fee of $100,000 plus an annual fee o…
What does it mean to be funded "with public money". In your example, it sounds like the software was funded with private money then sold as a product to the schools. The relevant scenario is that the school approached the company and paid them to develop the software.
That's a fair point. I hadn't thought of it that way, it's just what I went to because it's what I'm used to thinking in terms of.
Re: If Software Is Funded from a Public Source, Its Code Should Be Open Source
#224Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'm having to switch CentOS servers over to RHEL servers because... support(?) Some state work got in trouble a few years back because they'd updated guidelines that no applications could be on the same machine as a database server. Enforced separation, for security. Having enough staff and management to distribute that message to people dealing with the apps and servers didn't seem to be a requirement, however. And.…
The web server had to communicate through an application server. It wasn't a huge deal, until we got into the discussion about what a database meant to them. That was painful.
still having trouble parsing that (not trying to be dumb here, really!) in java, my java app might talk to a connection pool, which then talks the the database. that connection pool could, I'd guess, be in a separate 'application server', no?
my 'database and app server separation' thing - never quite got a straight answer on 'why', other than 'security'. except... adding more systems, with more logins, more access rules, more stuff to update/patch/test leads to... more potential for security failure (in my experience).
Re: If Software Is Funded from a Public Source, Its Code Should Be Open Source
#225Government 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 IT…
I used to work for a National Laboratory that was privatized, and the 1980 Bayhd-Dole [1] act made any intellectual property developed on a government contract on what was previously a public national lab now the private ownership of the company that took over the national lab.
All the science done at that national lab for less money before it was privatized was after privatization private property, and before privatization more science was done for less money.
The reason the costs became higher was that a private company is not tax excempt and the government guarantees a profit for the contract.
In effect this is a no cost private theft of government funded research, and I find it fishy that almost all the national labs were made private in the decades after the act. The only upside seems to be that the private company take any blame for a scandal.
[1] https://www.mofo https://www.mofo.com/resources/news/the-governments-patent-p...
Re: If Software Is Funded from a Public Source, Its Code Should Be Open Source
#226Earlier quoted context omitted.
What does it mean to be funded "with public money". In your example, it sounds like the software was funded with private money then sold as a product to the schools. The relevant scenario is that the school approached the company and paid them to develop the software.
That's a fair point. I hadn't thought of it that way, it's just what I went to because it's what I'm used to thinking in terms of.
Its still not as clear cut as I make it sound.
Another potential model is for the government to partially fund development. For instance, if the government wants a piece of software that costs $1,000,000 to develop, a company might offer to develop it for them for $500,000 and the rights to resale it to other customers.
This isn't an intractable problem though. You would just need to make a clear delimination between what components the government is paying for, and which ones is coming out of the company's R&D budget. Due to billing, this is already how many of these projects work, but the publicly funded portion is often far less useful without the privately funded portion; and there often is not a good solution to this (think a government funded plugin to Microsoft Excel, where an Excel license costs $5,000)
Re: If Software Is Funded from a Public Source, Its Code Should Be Open Source
#227I have always thought that all of the BBC's code should be open source.
Re: If Software Is Funded from a Public Source, Its Code Should Be Open Source
#228Earlier quoted context omitted.
>Most software developed by government funds is developed, at least in part, by contractors. And that is a COMPLETELY different circumstance. The details, unsurprisingly, depend on the contract. // Isn't the point that the contact should have a non-negotiable OSS clause of it's using public funds. My impression, from my seat in Europe, is that USA government is run by rich capitalists that would as soon eat faeces li…
> Isn't the point that the contact should have a non-negotiable OSS clause of it's using public funds. Okay. Say you're a vendor for student information systems. It handles registration, enrollment, scheduling, attendance, report cards, state and federal reporting, teacher gradebooks, parent portal, etc. You sell your product to one school district with 800 students for an initial fee of $100,000 plus an annual fee o…
You should Google redhat.
Edit: or elastic. Or automattic. Or black duck, or canonical, or cloud bees...
Re: If Software Is Funded from a Public Source, Its Code Should Be Open Source
#229OK. If you believe this to be true, you need to elect leaders that make this a priority. If it's not an issue, make it one. If no one cares to support the issue, find someone to run on it. If you can't find someone to run on the issue, you've got to run yourself.
What a useless suggestion. The current political setup does not allow electing people based on issues as granular as this. No politicians will make promises about this because only a small population understands why it is important.
Also you know how useless attempting to run yourself is. You will never get anywhere which is good because just having one good idea doesn't make you qualified to lead.
The best thing to do is to start public debate among people who understand the issue and attempt to get those in charge to join in.
Re: If Software Is Funded from a Public Source, Its Code Should Be Open Source
#230Earlier quoted context omitted.
Users who don't contribute back, aren't removing what you have done, or a given government may have funded. Some governments ARE contributing to open-source... other governments using open-source doesn't undo or degrade things. We are not in a communist/socialist world where every community must pay at the point of a gun for things they don't choose to pay for. And if some government wants to force users of software…
I am baffled by your post. "We are not in a communist/socialist world" This is EXACTLY my point. We are (at least I am) not. My government does not owe me or anyone else (let alone a foreign government) open source access to it's IP. To think otherwise (as you appear to do) is to be the socialist. I hate to break it to you, but open source IP is socialism. I hope that does not come as some sort of shock to you. Again…
Your government owes you access to the software that you funded.