81–90 of 216 posts
Question for HN: How could this possibly work with software developed for the military?
Why do software developers always shoot themselves in the foot with regard to their economic value? Governments pay all the time for development of technology that they buy, but that doesn't mean that the IP is released. For example, the government paid Boeing to develop transport aircraft. However, that does not mean that all the drawings/plans/etc for the aircraft are made public. The government is buying a set of…
Governments are better at keeping ancient records around than most companies.
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…
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…
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…
In your example it would be the layer of defense. But then we still have to wonder who is the attacker? The assumption made on the web page is that the developer is the attacker. The obscurity then becomes a major issue rather than the defense.
Yes, we will have to pay what it costs and we will have to add extra developers. We all know the difference?
I could write any government app or software but it would be a slow process, it would be hostile to further development and the security of it would be laughable. But from the GUI you wouldn't notice the difference. Mine might actually be nicer.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
How so? Because of external contributors? Most software developed for the public sector is quite use-case specific (and the use-cases are often quite boring), so I don’t see that happening for most projects.
Over time the use-cases will grow, and if done right you'll start being able to "borrow" from similar use-cases in other areas/governments. It WOULD likely require massive retooling as much "government code" is more like "black box machine that does X" than "fancy new web-app".
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…
If a government can't afford to release the sources in public right away, a gradual transition is possible: vendors that offer open source software have their prices multiplied by 0.1 during bidding. And this factor of preference for open source can be increased or decreased state-wide depending on the budget.
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…
It's not: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Security_through_obscurity#Cri....
See also: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kerckhoffs's_principle.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Hence it also increases the cost for the taxpayers Isn't that just a short-term problem? Mid to long term, it should decrease costs dramatically.
How so? Because of external contributors? Most software developed for the public sector is quite use-case specific (and the use-cases are often quite boring), so I don’t see that happening for most projects.
I feel like there's too many benefits to even list. Having seen some of the proprietary code developed for 3 letter agencies, it's shocking how bad some of it is (and there's even projects that have better open source alternatives that solve every use-case) and adding transparency can only be a good thing... in my opinion.
- 18F https://github.com/18f
- GDS https://github.com/alphagov
- CDS https://github.com/cds-snc
I do agree with the sentiment, it's absurd that any software developed through public means is not available to the public.