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

Isn't this the purpose of the GPL? "Sure, you can use our code, but any additions need to be reusable as well, so everyone is contributing fairly."

Unless, of course, countries B,C,D don't change anything, in which case, no actual loss to country A.

The traffic lights in Chicago are likely made by a different company than the traffic lights in New York City (I dunno for sure... but it'd be a separate arrangement nonetheless). Those are two grossly different customers.

USA has a federal society: that means we have mini-governments across the country with their own laws and regulations. In an extreme case, an Home-owners association can own traffic lights and operate roads. (My own HOA for example owns the traffic lights in my area, and hires cops from the county to patrol our roads. They're county-cops contracted out to the Homeowner's Association for security in the neighborhood)

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Same thing with voting booths, and other services. They're made by private companies in the USA, to serve the many different local governments that exist.

And local governments interact with local neighborhoods / homeowners associations, depending on local regulations of course.

FOIA has a number of things exceptions, material subject to it's exceptions is not required to be released, including:

---[quote]---

Exemption 1: Information that is classified to protect national security.

Exemption 2: Information related solely to the internal personnel rules and practices of an agency.

Exemption 3: Information that is prohibited from disclosure by another federal law.

Exemption 4: Trade secrets or commercial or financial information that is confidential or privileged.

Exemption 5: Privileged communications within or between agencies, including those protected by the:

1. Deliberative Process Privilege (provided the records were created less than 25 years before the date on which they were requested)

2. Attorney-Work Product Privilege

3. Attorney-Client Privilege

Exemption 6: Information that, if disclosed, would invade another individual's personal privacy.

Exemption 7: Information compiled for law enforcement purposes that:

7(A). Could reasonably be expected to interfere with enforcement proceedings

7(B). Would deprive a person of a right to a fair trial or an impartial adjudication

7(C). Could reasonably be expected to constitute an unwarranted invasion of personal privacy

7(D). Could reasonably be expected to disclose the identity of a confidential source

7(E). Would disclose techniques and procedures for law enforcement investigations or prosecutions, or would disclose guidelines for law enforcement investigations or prosecutions if such disclosure could reasonably be expected to risk circumvention of the law

7(F). Could reasonably be expected to endanger the life or physical safety of any individual

Exemption 8: Information that concerns the supervision of financial institutions.

Exemption 9: Geological information on wells.

---[quote from: https://www.foia.gov/faq.html ]---

The sensitive things at issue probably fall into the existing exemptions (a lot in #3), otherwise business rules could be disclosed under FOIA now, even if the code wasn't the government’s to disclose.

If you think this should be open source, do you then carry that logic to demand that all government vehicles run on open source software as well?

In my local community, the government does not own the traffic control cameras. They contract out agreements to maintain cameras at intersections that meet constraints.

I'm not necessarily against the idea of the government being restricted to using 100% open source hardware, but that's super radically different than "software the government owns should be open source".