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Governments should adopt and invest in FOSS

jamesmcm.github.io

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Re: Governments should adopt and invest in FOSS

#61

Post by LukeShu »

Supermancho wrote: post #59
slg wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How does this apply to militaries and intelligence agencies? I can understand wanting a lot of government software to be FOSS, but maybe the software on spy satellites shouldn't be available to everyone.

> maybe the software on spy satellites shouldn't be available to everyone. I would agree if I felt it made security stronger. I don't feel that way, given I know now that satellite is likely running windows. OSS serving as a basis, not the end-implementation of a system is how it would work in practice. Just like it does now with contracted vendors.

I'd be surprised if satellites are running Windows. I'd guess VxWorks.

Re: Governments should adopt and invest in FOSS

#62

Post by atburrow »

Supermancho wrote: post #59
slg wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How does this apply to militaries and intelligence agencies? I can understand wanting a lot of government software to be FOSS, but maybe the software on spy satellites shouldn't be available to everyone.

> maybe the software on spy satellites shouldn't be available to everyone. I would agree if I felt it made security stronger. I don't feel that way, given I know now that satellite is likely running windows. OSS serving as a basis, not the end-implementation of a system is how it would work in practice. Just like it does now with contracted vendors.

The development machines used to create satellite software are likely running Windows, but the satellites are more likely to be running a real time OS such as VxWorks, Rodos, RTEMS, etc.

Re: Governments should adopt and invest in FOSS

#63

Post by hannofcart »

mulmen wrote: post #40
majkinetor wrote: post #11

Since its taxpayers money, any custom made software for gov MUST be FOSS or we can equally abandon any logic whatsoever - citizens payed for it, gov employees were working with implementation team on shaping it, so it belongs to them. This doesn't have to be so for supportive domains such as databases but I would personally prefer that also (i.e. Postgresql instead Oracle db). There are many more reasons for this the…

I love Postgres but it really does not do what Oracle does, even today and definitely not 15 years ago. My tax dollars paid for the M1 Abrams and the USS Enterprise but they won’t let me take either for a joyride. I still derive utility from those expenditures. It’s the same with software. If corruption is the problem I’m not sure how software licenses solve it.

Even assuming that Oracle does indeed have some features that Postgres does not (even with some extension), one will still need to make the case that _that_ specific Oracle feature is indispensable to a given government project.

Re: Governments should adopt and invest in FOSS

#65

Post by Barrin92 »

majkinetor wrote: post #11

Since its taxpayers money, any custom made software for gov MUST be FOSS or we can equally abandon any logic whatsoever - citizens payed for it, gov employees were working with implementation team on shaping it, so it belongs to them. This doesn't have to be so for supportive domains such as databases but I would personally prefer that also (i.e. Postgresql instead Oracle db). There are many more reasons for this the…

I don't agree with this. The government should purchase software or services based on quality of the service provided and cost. It's nice if the software is open source, but it doesn't need to be just because tax payers pay for it. That's a total non-sequitur.

If the government buys Mercedes cars it doesn't demand Mercedes to hand over the engineering designs for the cars.

In fact in the entire military and intelligence space I don't even think this is practically possible due to secrecy and avoiding to give away software that is vital to national security.

Another obviously giant issue is that this would effectively prohibit companies which do proprietary work in the private sector to work with the government at the same time, because they'd be forced to open source their code. The likely result of this would simply be that the government has significantly less software to chose from, higher cost, or needs to start maintaining large engineering teams to replicate entire software stacks just for public use.

Re: Governments should adopt and invest in FOSS

#66

Post by NomDePlum »

GDS, a department of the UK government already advocates the use and creation of open source software: https://www.gov.uk/guidance/be-open-and-use-open-source

Including publishing a lot here: https://github.com/alphagov

A lot of the philosophy of their approach on this is around making the code public and inspectable given it was funded by tax payers. Not to say reuse isn't part of it but it is an interesting angle on why some code should be open sourced.

Re: Governments should adopt and invest in FOSS

#67

Post by oska »

MattGaiser wrote: post #19

I work for a government software development team (At least for the next week). I have other friends in other governments on other teams. I can’t see a government being able to build generalized software or contribute effectively to it. Governments don’t tend to have people who say no to feature requests. The end result is not a generalized good solution, but extremely specific solutions built on a generalized platfo…

You're assuming the government controls the development process. That's not the objective (and frankly, FOSS licences works against control, as any party can fork the code). Rather, the suggestion is for governments to support FOSS developers, just as they do the arts community, without directly dictating what work they do. If they want a project extended in a certain way they can pay directly for that development, but they should do it on the back of an existing product that serves the general community and feed useful development of the software from their extension back into the general development tree.

Re: Governments should adopt and invest in FOSS

#68

Post by pc86 »

majkinetor wrote: post #35
fsflover wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Since its taxpayers money, any custom made software for gov MUST be FOSS or we can equally abandon any logic whatsoever This is why Free Software Foundation Europe created a petition to make all publicly paid code public: https://publiccode.eu .

Bulgaria seems to have it: https://thepolicy.us/bulgaria-got-a-law-requiring-open-sourc...

When's the last time Bulgaria developed spy satellite or fighter jet software?

Re: Governments should adopt and invest in FOSS

#69

Post by rbecker »

Barrin92 wrote: post #65
majkinetor wrote: post #11

Since its taxpayers money, any custom made software for gov MUST be FOSS or we can equally abandon any logic whatsoever - citizens payed for it, gov employees were working with implementation team on shaping it, so it belongs to them. This doesn't have to be so for supportive domains such as databases but I would personally prefer that also (i.e. Postgresql instead Oracle db). There are many more reasons for this the…

I don't agree with this. The government should purchase software or services based on quality of the service provided and cost. It's nice if the software is open source, but it doesn't need to be just because tax payers pay for it. That's a total non-sequitur. If the government buys Mercedes cars it doesn't demand Mercedes to hand over the engineering designs for the cars. In fact in the entire military and intellige…

> I don't agree with this.

Probably because you missed the "custom made" part.

> secrecy and avoiding to give away software that is vital to national security.

This would obviously be an exception and the code wouldn't be publicized. But that doesn't mean it can't be open-source to the government itself.

> this would effectively prohibit companies who do proprietary work in the private sector to work with the government at the same time, because they'd be forced to open source their code.

Developing open-source code doesn't mean you have to open-source all your code. Windows is still closed-source despite Visual Studio Code being open.

Re: Governments should adopt and invest in FOSS

#70

Post by pc86 »

specialist wrote: post #22

"Citizen owned software." Phrasing I used on the stump, both campaigning and as an activist. Overwhelming support. One of those 90/10 issues. People just get it. Resolutions, petitions, platforms practically write themselves. Forewarning for any future advocates: Appeal directly to the rank & file, Jane Public, editorial boards. Organize bottom up. I can't recall any elected or appointed person supporting (publicly).…

How did you square this goal with nearly every election expert (I'm talking academics here, not politicians) being against using more technology in elections?
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