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If Software Is Funded from a Public Source, Its Code Should Be Open Source

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Re: If Software Is Funded from a Public Source, Its Code Should Be Open Source

#131

Post by ip26 »

ar_lan wrote: post #102
GlenTheMachine wrote: post #91

Government scientist here. IANAL, but my understanding is that all software written by US government civil servants is in the public domain. It cannot be copyrighted or otherwise licensed (although the government can patent things). This does not necessarily mean that it is available to the public, as noted in the other comments; it may be classified, considered For Official Use Only, or restricted from release by IT…

I used to work in a state government job as a student intern, and they said they wanted an internal directory for some various tasks. You can think of it like an inventory manager sort of website, purely on our intranet. The mad lad my lead was, said we would need a database for retaining some of the basic data we needed to keep track of. Nothing all that special, just a few tables, and by nature nothing sensitive wo…

I guess in their defense, databases were pretty famous for being a huge attack surface for many years.

Re: If Software Is Funded from a Public Source, Its Code Should Be Open Source

#132

Post by Wowfunhappy »

GlenTheMachine wrote: post #91

Government scientist here. IANAL, but my understanding is that all software written by US government civil servants is in the public domain. It cannot be copyrighted or otherwise licensed (although the government can patent things). This does not necessarily mean that it is available to the public, as noted in the other comments; it may be classified, considered For Official Use Only, or restricted from release by IT…

> The bigger problem, though, is that much of the US government just isn't technically set up to release software (as opposed to documents). Setting up a git repository, in the DoD, is an utter nightmare. Every single patch has to be pushed through a public release process that can take weeks or months and involves review by as many as ten to fifteen different offices, few if any of which even know anything about software. If you're setting up your own server, getting the server itself approved and provisioned can be an exercise in bureaucratic frustration, and can take literally years to accomplish.

Please excuse what I suspect is a naïve question: why can't they just throw the code into a zip file, and send out the file the same way they would other documents? Digitally or on a physical thumb drive.

(The FOIA requester could then put the code on Github or similar.)

Re: If Software Is Funded from a Public Source, Its Code Should Be Open Source

#133

Post by vanderZwan »

throwawaymath wrote: post #115
vanderZwan wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't quite follow your line of thinking here: - currently most electronic voting software is owned by the vendors - electronic voting should really not be trusted, period, but definitely not be allowed to be closed source - therefore, we should ban any electronic voting software not made on open source software (arguably even hardware) - therefore, I am implying vendors of electronic voting software should only be…

That's a lot more involved and domain-specific than the question of whether or not government-owned code should be open source. The person you're responding to is just making the positive observation that, since electronic voting software is licensed - not produced - by the government, you can't mandate it be open sourced via e.g. a FOIA request. You are making a normative declaration that it should be open sourced b…

Right, I see where GP and I were talking past each other now now. Thank you for clarifying!

Re: If Software Is Funded from a Public Source, Its Code Should Be Open Source

#134

Post by analog31 »

natechols wrote: post #104
zbruhnke wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Man it would be pretty amazing to be able to submit a Pull Request to the IRS. Matt Cutts if you're reading this please help! On another note, I'm not sure I agree on the electrical grid or traffic controls being open sourced ... could imagine some nefarious things happening as a result of that

Or at the very least our entire national tax code should be downloadable in machine-readable form.

It should just be a giant function:

    def foo(**kwargs):
        
        return how_much_you_owe

Re: If Software Is Funded from a Public Source, Its Code Should Be Open Source

#135

Post by jeffalyanak »

The Government of Canada has some decent policies on that. The Directive on Management of Information Technology stipulates that government agencies must:

* Favour open source solutions * Favour non-prorietary solutions * Release source for custom-built solutions under open source licenses through Government of Canada sites

See C.2.3.8 for the relevant clauses: https://www.tbs-sct.gc.ca/pol/doc-eng.aspx?id=15249

Re: If Software Is Funded from a Public Source, Its Code Should Be Open Source

#136

Post by ozzyman700 »

arcaster wrote: post #45
moosey wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Perhaps we could just stop making weapons software? I mean, someone needs to go first. When I look at wars throughout the world, a huge number of them are fought with US weapons, and we don't actually have a good track record of supporting peaceful people. I don't think that we'll get there until we stop dumping weapons on the world for profit.

Of course this would be great, we'd all like this to happen. But your perspective is dangerously shallow and juvenile, the real world just straight up doesn't work this way. If you believe in this enough, you're better off leaving the U.S. IMHO. If you disagree, I recommend visiting a country on the verge of complete collapse. Do that, then think about how good we have it, think about how many people want to take tha…

Interesting, I have found that being an adult is as easy as not dying.

Re: If Software Is Funded from a Public Source, Its Code Should Be Open Source

#137

Post by uberman »

tracker1 wrote: post #126
uberman wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You seem to be conflating my position on the use of public funds with your position on open source in general. "So, if YOUR government uses Linux, but doesn't participate in Linux development, it's bad for everyone else?" I'm not sure where you are going with this. I certainly never claimed that governments should not use open source software. By all means I hope (for argument sake let's call it The US) leverages Lin…

Users who don't contribute back, aren't removing what you have done, or a given government may have funded. Some governments ARE contributing to open-source... other governments using open-source doesn't undo or degrade things. We are not in a communist/socialist world where every community must pay at the point of a gun for things they don't choose to pay for. And if some government wants to force users of software…

I am baffled by your post.

"We are not in a communist/socialist world"

This is EXACTLY my point. We are (at least I am) not. My government does not owe me or anyone else (let alone a foreign government) open source access to it's IP. To think otherwise (as you appear to do) is to be the socialist.

I hate to break it to you, but open source IP is socialism. I hope that does not come as some sort of shock to you.

Again to be very clear I am a fan of open source projects. I use them, I contribute to them. However, I choose how and what I use and contribute. My government does not choose for me or worse mandate via some policy that I must.

If you feel that The US government should require you to open source your in-house CnC software to the people of the DPRK because The US gave you a business development grant of $10k then you sir are the communist, not I.

Re: If Software Is Funded from a Public Source, Its Code Should Be Open Source

#138

Post by keithnz »

dragontamer wrote: post #49
zbruhnke wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Man it would be pretty amazing to be able to submit a Pull Request to the IRS. Matt Cutts if you're reading this please help! On another note, I'm not sure I agree on the electrical grid or traffic controls being open sourced ... could imagine some nefarious things happening as a result of that

> On another note, I'm not sure I agree on the electrical grid or traffic controls being open sourced ... could imagine some nefarious things happening as a result of that Any more nefarious things that can be done with your Linux OS server talking to your Open Source Chromium / Firefox web browser? Open Source doesn't necessarily mean less secure.

I'm not sure these things are equivalent, many people use a browser and Linux, not many people need to use electrical grid software.

However, I would imagine it would still be beneficial for open analysis though. I'm not sure security through obscurity is a good option when there are motivated nefarious actors involved. But that's more of a "gut feel" than based on any evidence

Re: If Software Is Funded from a Public Source, Its Code Should Be Open Source

#139

Post by maxxxxx »

zbruhnke wrote: post #42
kerkeslager wrote: post #36

Most posts on this thread are focusing on exceptional cases where there are obvious reasons not to open the source, such as defense, but huge amounts of publicly-funded code is locked up for no reason whatsoever. Let's discuss some use cases that make more sense: 1. healthcare.gov 2. Stoplights/traffic control cameras. 3. Voting machines. 4. Electrical grid. 5. IRS.

Man it would be pretty amazing to be able to submit a Pull Request to the IRS. Matt Cutts if you're reading this please help! On another note, I'm not sure I agree on the electrical grid or traffic controls being open sourced ... could imagine some nefarious things happening as a result of that

I am always told that if security is done right you can release the code. Makes sense to me. If you don’t release code it’s much more tempting to do some quick hacks that rely on not releasing the code but aren’t really secure.
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