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Public Money, Public Code
41–50 of 156 posts
Re: Public Money, Public Code
#42Earlier quoted context omitted.
Probably because the campaign this post links to puts forward a completely un-nuanced argument, and even trivialises or brushes over most of the reasonable criticism you could make about the case it’s putting forward. I don’t know why so many activists fail to understand this. If you have a cause that you think is important, putting forward a shitty argument for it isn’t going to help in the long run.
Why not? Governments routinely propose policies that are clearly “too far” and then “compromise” to their actual goals — eg, restrictions on civil rights. Why wouldn’t the same tactic work for activists?
If you’re trying to promote an idea that the public is largely disinterested in, then putting forward a strawman argument for it yourself is only going to empower its detractors.
Re: Public Money, Public Code
#43https://code.gov/
Sharing America's Code
Unlock the tremendous potential of the Federal Government’s software.
Code.gov is the federal government's platform for sharing America's open source software. Our mission is to help agency partners and developers save money and increase quality by promoting code reuse and educating and connecting the open source community.
> In 2016, then-President Barack Obama’s Federal Source Code Policy pushed agencies to use open source software. Among other things, the policy included a pilot program requiring agencies to publish 20 percent of code written by the government.
> The U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) faces unique challenges in open sourcing its code. Unlike most software projects, code written by U.S. Federal government employees typically does not have copyright protections under U.S. and some international laws. This can make it difficult to attach an open source license to our code. The Defense Digital Service (DDS) has been working with DoD and the open source community since early 2017 to develop a guideline for supporting open source software (OSS) within the Department.
U.S. DoD Open-Source Software FAQ (2021), https://dodcio.defense.gov/Open-Source-Software-FAQ/
> This page is an educational resource for government employees and government contractors to understand the policies and legal issues relating to the use of open source software (OSS) in the United States Department of Defense (DoD).
David Wheeler (now at Linux Foundation working on software supply chain security via OpenSSF), "Open-Source and the Department of Defense" (2009), https://dwheeler.com/essays/dod-oss.pdf
DoD memo “Clarifying Guidance Regarding OSS” (Oct 16, 2009)
OSS is commercial, commercial must be preferred
DoD must develop/update capabilities faster; OSS advantages
Source code is “data” per DODD 8320.02; must share in DoD
DoD-developed software should be released to the public under certain conditionsRe: Public Money, Public Code
#44Earlier quoted context omitted.
Probably because the campaign this post links to puts forward a completely un-nuanced argument, and even trivialises or brushes over most of the reasonable criticism you could make about the case it’s putting forward. I don’t know why so many activists fail to understand this. If you have a cause that you think is important, putting forward a shitty argument for it isn’t going to help in the long run.
Why not? Governments routinely propose policies that are clearly “too far” and then “compromise” to their actual goals — eg, restrictions on civil rights. Why wouldn’t the same tactic work for activists?
This is exactly the tactic unions always used. Probably one of the causes of unions' global demise are their overtly unreslistic campaigns.
Re: Public Money, Public Code
#45Earlier quoted context omitted.
> I'd wager you don't want fighter jet or missile guidance software to be open source. Why not? I can think of some reasons but they mostly devolve to security by obscurity and a whole lot of assumptions to even get there. The actors who want to know are already in the know. At least open sourcing the rest would be a compelling lever to avoid accidentally escalating conflicts.
Signatures are carefully protected and used for targeting. If you disclose everything about how a targeting system or sensor system operates, it becomes easier to defeat. But I think there’s a happy medium where the framework and general missile/sensor code is disclosed — but truly critical information like the sonar signature of enemy submarines is protected.
Google open-souces a lot but keeps the search algorithm in secret.
Re: Public Money, Public Code
#46I 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.
The downside is public shame. Governmrnt code is no worse than private code and is usually of very low quality and hints at tought organisational problems and outright fraud.
Re: Public Money, Public Code
#47Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
none?
Re: Public Money, Public Code
#48Earlier quoted context omitted.
Missile guidance software isn't generally produced by public agencies, right? It's produced by private companies and licensed to the government. The same way Microsoft Windows is.
If it is actually produced by the federal government, it can’t be open source because it is already public domain. “Public money, public code” either refers, in the US, exclusively to state governments, or it applies to software developed under government contracts (and possibly other software purchased by government), not just software developed by the government itself.
We could still have “Public money, public code” by having the government leasing planes from private companies, so the government would just be operating a service provided by the private sector, and wouldn’t be entitled to get the code delivered to us.
Re: Public Money, Public Code
#49Earlier quoted context omitted.
It isnt a shitty argument - do you think that a permissive license supersedes security clearances? I find it powerfully frustrating to see these sort of reactions where people act like the very first thing they can think of that might require nuance is this fatal flaw, or that even a robust critique represents some death blow. Critical feedback improves projects so it is bewildering to me to see people treat it as th…
This project isn’t in need of critical feedback. The fatal problems with the proposition they’ve put forward are plainly obvious. They’ve simply chosen to try and ignore them. I also support making publicly funded code open source. But campaigning for all government licensed code to be made open source by legislation, especially with no indication of what reasonable limits you think that should include, is a fundamen…
Can you use small words and explain what about this would ever require that of Microsoft? I do not see it.
Re: Public Money, Public Code
#50Earlier quoted context omitted.
If it is actually produced by the federal government, it can’t be open source because it is already public domain. “Public money, public code” either refers, in the US, exclusively to state governments, or it applies to software developed under government contracts (and possibly other software purchased by government), not just software developed by the government itself.
We could still have “Public money, public code” by having the government leasing planes from private companies, so the government would just be operating a service provided by the private sector, and wouldn’t be entitled to get the code delivered to us.
So, we’d still be spending public money but not getting public code, so how would that be “public money, public code”?