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Public Money, Public Code

publiccode.eu

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101–110 of 216 posts

Re: Public Money, Public Code

#101

Post by atx42 »

Zigurd wrote: post #45
machinerychorus wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was tangentially related to the covid app stuff so I can offer some insight there: most of those apps weren't built by the state. Google provided an open-source "base app" that could be customized by the states, but most states hired third-party contractors to build an app for them. I've worked in public sector and this is typical. the states can't open source it because they don't own it, they just pay a third-par…

Contract software development is nearly always work-for-hire. To not own the result of what is in common practice work-for-hire is terrible contract management. Imagine a road paving company claiming the state doesn't own the road they just paved.

I think it's called a toll road. Around me they are owned by some French company.

Re: Public Money, Public Code

#102

Post by colonwqbang »

redocneknurd wrote: post #97

Isn’t this quite hard to implement? How do you distinguish between Saas, software and custom services. Will this implicate that Microsoft office needs to be open source just because some government is buying that software?

You cannot actually buy Office, only license it from Microsoft.

Here the author seems to be talking about software that was originally written by the government. Or, one supposes, where development is chiefly funded by the government.

Re: Public Money, Public Code

#104

Post by atx42 »

ldoughty wrote: post #71
postalrat wrote: post #10

The state I lived in developed one of those covid tracking apps. I asked for the source code and was told it wasn't available and would never be. I talked to people working on other software developed for the state and they all think that software shouldn't be public. It seems crazy to me that taxpayers pay for this software but it doesn't belong to them. Knowing what I do know I gotta wonder if it's just about those…

This is the kind of issue that causes all that government bloat... If I was a state employee and I wrote the app, and I had to release the source code, then I'm making it very easy for a bad actor to find a vulnerability and exploit it to leak the data of citizens. One might respond: "Well software shouldn't have those holes! Just because it's closed source, doesn't mean that won't happen anyway Also true, in an idea…

I find it bizarre that anyone familiar with software development would think this is a good idea.

I mean if gov't creates a useful API (eg. weather), or creates some reusable useful module (eg. something like hibernate), that would be nice. But, just generally publishing everything? REALLY BAD IDEA.

Re: Public Money, Public Code

#105

Post by KarlKemp »

postalrat wrote: post #10

The state I lived in developed one of those covid tracking apps. I asked for the source code and was told it wasn't available and would never be. I talked to people working on other software developed for the state and they all think that software shouldn't be public. It seems crazy to me that taxpayers pay for this software but it doesn't belong to them. Knowing what I do know I gotta wonder if it's just about those…

The German version is at https://github.com/corona-warn-app.

It was expensive (18 million Euros I believe, but may be wrong). But other than that, it was excellent from start to finish. First release a few weeks after the API was available. The source was divided into logical components of more or less perfect size, it was straightforward, well commented, responsive to PRs, worked, and had no security issues as far as I remember.

Re: Public Money, Public Code

#106

Post by gehwartzen »

UncleEntity wrote: post #80
ldoughty wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is the kind of issue that causes all that government bloat... If I was a state employee and I wrote the app, and I had to release the source code, then I'm making it very easy for a bad actor to find a vulnerability and exploit it to leak the data of citizens. One might respond: "Well software shouldn't have those holes! Just because it's closed source, doesn't mean that won't happen anyway Also true, in an idea…

> And just to throw in a silly extrapolation... I would love an M109 Paladin tank... my tax dollars pay for them :-) If they give you a tank they have one less tank to do stuff with but if they give you a copy of software they still have the ability to do stuff with the software. There’s a whole bunch of software out there that has been open sourced by government agencies like nasa and you don’t see satellites fallin…

I'm not in software so maybe my viewpoint is just different but I also wouldn't expect NASA to give me the mechanical blueprints for a rocket, or even a concrete launch pad nor would I expect the local government to give me the the electrical schematics for the stop light systems, even though doing so would in no way prevent them from continuing to use these systems/items

Re: Public Money, Public Code

#107

Post by jdrc »

I am more interested in public government code being shared with other EU countries. EU funds a lot of government software projects , but they never end up becoming EU-wide projects. EU is all about enabling common standards across countries. And what better way to enforce them than by using common software across the EU states.

Re: Public Money, Public Code

#108

Post by _jal »

worik wrote: post #44
machinerychorus wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was tangentially related to the covid app stuff so I can offer some insight there: most of those apps weren't built by the state. Google provided an open-source "base app" that could be customized by the states, but most states hired third-party contractors to build an app for them. I've worked in public sector and this is typical. the states can't open source it because they don't own it, they just pay a third-par…

> but most states hired third-party contractors to build an app for them. So the states paid the bills so can license the result any way they want. How can they pay for something and not own it? Sounds to me like there are deep corruption problems

> Sounds to me like there are deep corruption problems

I consider this to be a flavor of corruption, too, but it isn't, legally. It is the desired outcome for many, and for many more, maybe not the outcome they wanted, but the logical outcome of what they asked for.

There has been a decades-long process in the US of pressuring governments to do less, to outsource more, to privatize, to move to "public-private partnerships" or whatever new buzzword means socialize losses and privatize profits.

And this is what you get - government that doesn't have the capabilities it needs to do what people ask of it. Which makes it look bad, which encourages another cycle of privatization...

If you want functional government, stop electing people who promise to break it.

Re: Public Money, Public Code

#109

Post by NGRhodes »

sonicggg wrote: post #5

Exact same story with publicly financed research going behind paywalled journals. If we're paying for it, we should have access. Maybe time to have an equivalent of SciHub for code as well, although it will probably be harder to source that.

I know off the top of my head 2 examples where code can be stored for research:

Zenodo: https://about.zenodo.org/ OSF: https://osf.io/

Re: Public Money, Public Code

#110

Post by puritanicdev »

reillyse wrote: post #49

Large consulting companies like Accenture have entire divisions of their business devoted to "government". These divisions make money by developing software for governments. It is very much against their interest for this software to be open source because 1) there is visibility into their performance and 2) they can't sell very similar software to the same government if everyone knows what software they've already b…

A few years ago, I did a consulting for an IT agency and had insight into their code, including some projects done for the government. It was a worst mess of spaghetti code I've ever seen. For one of those projects they've hired people without any or little experience for cheap, and sold them as seniors for a crazy price.
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