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Public Money, Public Code
31–40 of 156 posts
Re: Public Money, Public Code
#32UK and Australian Governments manage to do this, at least to a certain extent: https://www.gov.uk/service-manual/technology/making-source-c... https://www.dta.gov.au/help-and-advice/digital-service-stand...
The vast majority of code written the for Australian government is, and I think will remain, closed, though there's certainly support for contributing to or publishing open source. But the reality is, most government software isn't particularly interesting, and what is would most likely not be approved to be open sourced.
Re: Public Money, Public Code
#33There 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.
Why do you assume that sane and common sense exceptions and nuance are off the table?
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.
Re: Public Money, Public Code
#34Earlier quoted context omitted.
Why do you assume that sane and common sense exceptions and nuance are off the table?
The linked site speaks in absolute terms, perhaps that's where they got the idea
That it be licensed with an open source license, yet folk are acting like they've never heard of security clearances, or that the license will somehow supercede all of our other laws regarding document security.
Then again I wouldn't be surprised if the same voices on hearing freedom of information being proposed to raise similar "but military secrets" objections that were completely divorced from reality.
Re: Public Money, Public Code
#35[dead]
Re: Public Money, Public Code
#36There 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.
Civilian agencies would be a start.
Re: Public Money, Public Code
#37Earlier quoted context omitted.
Why do you assume that sane and common sense exceptions and nuance are off the table?
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?
Re: Public Money, Public Code
#38Earlier quoted context omitted.
Why do you assume that sane and common sense exceptions and nuance are off the table?
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.
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 the last word.
Re: Public Money, Public Code
#39There 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. 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.
Re: Public Money, Public Code
#40Earlier 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.
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 fundamentally stupid idea. Microsoft isn’t going to open source windows to retain government licenses, and government orgs aren’t going to stop using windows. This position puts this project in the camp of ideological extremists who are simply disconnected from reality. Including scaremongering about the security of proprietary software is also an incredibly weak and unnecessary inclusion here.
If this campaign were to gain some traction with the public, the only thing it would achieve is attaching supporters of a more reasonable version of this idea, with a stupid and trivially easy to dismiss argument to support it.