Governments should adopt and invest in FOSS
jamesmcm.github.io
Governments should adopt and invest in FOSS
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Re: Governments should adopt and invest in FOSS
#2Let's go further than this though. Governments should all follow the China model and have their own firewalls, support their own software industries, and splinter the internet.
Also support institutes that do work in FOSS.
Re: Governments should adopt and invest in FOSS
#3I agree. I’ve seen a few models work in other industries. MIT’s OpenCourseWare (OCW) and edX initiatives relied on partnerships with other universities and institutions. They all pay in to fund the development of the underlying platform. OpenEdX has individual and institutional contributors that help improve it.
Smaller credit unions join forces to form credit union service organizations (CUSOs) that provide a service (e.g., IT support, or lending services) to all member credit unions.
I would love to see US state and local governments do something similar. Start with everyone’s favorite state office: the DMV. I’ve lived in three states. The DMV experience for all three has been pretty bad. This is more frustrating as an software engineer because it is painfully obvious where a bit of software could have a huge improvement. It makes no sense that 50+ states and territories have 50+ systems for the DMV, business registration, taxes, etc. when the basic functionality is most likely the same across all of them.
Re: Governments should adopt and invest in FOSS
#4If you are interested in this topic, checkout https://code.gov/
“The Federal Source Code Policy (FSCP) called for the establishment of the the Code.gov program office and corresponding technical platform of a website and application programming interface (API). The program office assists agencies with policy, acquisition, and code inventory creation. We are a small but mighty team with five members with expertise and beliefs pertaining to discovering, sharing, and open sourcing the People's code.”
You may also want to read up on 18f.gsa.gov. They publish and share lots of open source code.
I started at 18F and now run https://github.com/cloud-gov
Re: Governments should adopt and invest in FOSS
#5Unfortunately, that isn't how government works. Whether it's F35's or Microsoft Office, putting money into the pockets of political cronies is what drives the purchase. FOSS doesn't benefit anyone with power, so it's useless to the government.
Re: Governments should adopt and invest in FOSS
#6Unfortunately, that isn't how government works. Whether it's F35's or Microsoft Office, putting money into the pockets of political cronies is what drives the purchase. FOSS doesn't benefit anyone with power, so it's useless to the government.
I suppose it depends on the government, but my experience is that it’s more about familiarity and ease of maintenance.
In the US there are few actual digital services/ engineering / hackers who are employees. Mostly project managers and contract admins. So it’s frustrating to me seeing a mediocre commercial solution purchased because it’s easier to support than equivalent OSS that requires just a single person who knows how to admin something simple like Wordpress.
The number of times I’ve heard that SharePoint is superior to Wordpress for intranet and content management because it had better support would boggle any reasonable mind. No one is paying political cronies, just people trying to do their best without any direct understanding of what it takes to run these types of services.
I think the solution is to require a rigorous analysis of OSS in solution contracts. Then all the contractors supporting SharePoint will just support WordPress and funnel the license savings into more contractors.
Re: Governments should adopt and invest in FOSS
#7I agree. I’ve seen a few models work in other industries. MIT’s OpenCourseWare (OCW) and edX initiatives relied on partnerships with other universities and institutions. They all pay in to fund the development of the underlying platform. OpenEdX has individual and institutional contributors that help improve it. Smaller credit unions join forces to form credit union service organizations (CUSOs) that provide a servic…
> It makes no sense that 50+ states and territories have 50+ systems for the DMV, business registration, taxes, etc. when the basic functionality is most likely the same across all of them.
While this is likely true, this being the US, you are also very likely going to end up in an ideological (for the lack of a better word) rabbit hole about freedom and state's right to do their own thing.
Re: Governments should adopt and invest in FOSS
#8So the reasons are: cost, contributions, and audits.
I'm playing devil's advocate here and think this could be an interesting thought exercise.
There is no evidence or proof any of the above are advantageous to governments.
1. Cost - Does it cost more for an existing solution, that maybe other governments and companies have paid toward, than adding features to a solution without all the bells and whistles?
2. Do you want other governments to receive the improvements?
3. Do you want other governments to be able to audit your ("you" being the government) software? It is more effective to hire a specialized audit team or have random code readings by random people?
Re: Governments should adopt and invest in FOSS
#9So the reasons are: cost, contributions, and audits. I'm playing devil's advocate here and think this could be an interesting thought exercise. There is no evidence or proof any of the above are advantageous to governments. 1. Cost - Does it cost more for an existing solution, that maybe other governments and companies have paid toward, than adding features to a solution without all the bells and whistles? 2. Do you…
My toughts:
2. Yes, in areas where other governments profit isnt your loss. I think there are lots of these. For example, if you have software which makes people more healthy, you wont lose if people in other countries get healthier as well.
3. Yes, similarly in many areas others auditing the software is harmless.
Re: Governments should adopt and invest in FOSS
#10I agree. I’ve seen a few models work in other industries. MIT’s OpenCourseWare (OCW) and edX initiatives relied on partnerships with other universities and institutions. They all pay in to fund the development of the underlying platform. OpenEdX has individual and institutional contributors that help improve it. Smaller credit unions join forces to form credit union service organizations (CUSOs) that provide a servic…
> It makes no sense that 50+ states and territories have 50+ systems for the DMV, business registration, taxes, etc. when the basic functionality is most likely the same across all of them. While this is likely true, this being the US, you are also very likely going to end up in an ideological (for the lack of a better word) rabbit hole about freedom and state's right to do their own thing.
This is exactly what happened to Common Core.