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Public Money, Public Code

publiccode.eu

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Re: Public Money, Public Code

#3

Post by krupan »

There will be ignorant arguments against this due to cyber security concerns, enemy nations benefiting from the code, the copyrights of the people/companies who are being paid to write the code, etc., etc.

Re: Public Money, Public Code

#4

Post by NegativeLatency »

anon-3988 wrote: post #2

I am fully in support of such initiative. So I am interested to hear what the possible downsides are? Please share your opinions on the matter as I can only see upsides to this.

I suspect many stakeholders would not like their dirty laundry aired so publicly, which is an obvious good outcome for most people but not the heads of departments and large consulting companies that get big contracts.

Re: Public Money, Public Code

#5

Post by laserbeam »

There are a lot of good reasons to do this, even if it's just better interop between different branches of the government, all cool.

However, you then realize that the military is funded by public money. I'd wager you don't want fighter jet or missile guidance software to be open source.

The idea is way too simplistic and lacks nuance.

Re: Public Money, Public Code

#6

Post by charcircuit »

The video says that it's accurate that every night proprietary software is stealing citizen's healthcare data and that the solution is for the government to locate all of the software it needs from scratch and open source it. Why stop at rebuilding all software from scratch? You will also want to rebuild computers from scratch, light bulbs from scratch, etc. The government doesn't need to invent everything from scratch. It can be cheaper and more effective them to buy goods and services from public companies.

The website has another message that publically funded software should be open source, but that's not always possible. The government may not have the rights to even do so if they outsourced some of the development. The software is often niche and would not benefit others. In fact it can be a security risk because attackers can look for security vulnerabilities or weaknesses in systems. Attackers have a much bigger insensitive to look for security problems than security researchers because there won't be a bug bounty, it isn't software they personally use, and it could be some rare piece of software no one knows or cares about. If most talented developers are working at private companies, that means that the remaining developers who chose to work for the government are likely more prone to have poor security practices. If attackers know the supply chain of the software they can attack it. If these are open source in the sense they take contributions attackers can contribute vulnerabilities. Open sourcing code is also extra work that has to be done and will make the software more expensive to make and maintain.

>Tax savings

>Similar applications don't have to be programmed from scratch every time

Buying existing software means you don't have to program it from scratch. Sharing projects with other agencies doesn't require open source.

>Collaboration

>Major projects can share expertise and costs.

This doesn't require open source either. The government if they didn't have an income stream from leaching off it's population would be incentivized to figure this out.

>Serving the public

>Applications paid by the public should be available for everyone.

Most of the software will be useless to the public.

>Fostering innovation

>With transparent processes, others don't have to reinvent the wheel.

This is just the collaboration point. The government isn't innovative in the software field.

Re: Public Money, Public Code

#7

Post by inciampati »

laserbeam wrote: post #5

There are a lot of good reasons to do this, even if it's just better interop between different branches of the government, all cool. However, you then realize that the military is funded by public money. I'd wager you don't want fighter jet or missile guidance software to be open source. The idea is way too simplistic and lacks nuance.

To communicate it and receive your commentary it had to be clear and simple. Of course there are caveats, and these are the kind of thing that makes law difficult and complex despite the overall objective being clear and straightforward.

Re: Public Money, Public Code

#8

Post by l0b0 »

NegativeLatency wrote: post #4
anon-3988 wrote: post #2

I am fully in support of such initiative. So I am interested to hear what the possible downsides are? Please share your opinions on the matter as I can only see upsides to this.

I suspect many stakeholders would not like their dirty laundry aired so publicly, which is an obvious good outcome for most people but not the heads of departments and large consulting companies that get big contracts.

Maybe we'd finally be able to tell which consulting companies actually output decent software, if any.

Re: Public Money, Public Code

#10

Post by redox99 »

laserbeam wrote: post #5

There are a lot of good reasons to do this, even if it's just better interop between different branches of the government, all cool. However, you then realize that the military is funded by public money. I'd wager you don't want fighter jet or missile guidance software to be open source. The idea is way too simplistic and lacks nuance.

> I'd wager you don't want fighter jet or missile guidance software to be open source.

I'd be OK with that.

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