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Their end code must now be open source. Taxpayers can review the code they produce and raise a stink.

by sb8244 10y ago

tw04 10y ago
So again I ask: how does that fix anything? The government still spent too much money. The site still sucks. People are already raising a stink they're spending too much money for subpar work, and nothing has changed. Having the code has exactly 0 effect on either of those two issues. Even if a concerned citizen FIXED the code, the odds of the politicians refusing to accept the fixes "for the security of their infrastructure" is upwards of 5-9s. Why on earth would they take those fixes when they're beholden to the people they're already overpaying for the work who likely donate large sums of money to their political campaigns?
- sb8244 10y ago
  I can take my best shot here. This is how I would see it at least: These politicians probably know nothing about the software they are receiving. 300k for a static site? Good deal! By making the sites open source, it allows groups that wouldn't be reviewing the code / bids to do so and then validate the work. For a US example, the TSA has that iPad application which is essentially a pRNG. Or is it? There is speculation that it might be much more than that, but no one can know without seeing the source code. If we could see the source code, we would know for sure and could verify if this project was really worth hundreds of thousands of tax-payer dollars.
- mamon 10y ago
  It would prevent vendor lock-in. Some time ago, before government officials become more aware of IT matters, it was common practice in government contracts in Poland that consulting company creating website or bespoke IT system would keep code copyrights for themselves and then charge huge amount of money for even simplest change requests. That ended once they start requiring that source code is delivered together with binaries. Open-sourcing apps is just one small step further in the same direction.

Their end code must now be open source. Taxpayers can review the code they produce and raise a stink.

by sb8244 10y ago

Their end code must now be open source. Taxpayers can review the code they produce and raise a stink.

tw04 10y ago

So again I ask: how does that fix anything? The government still spent too much money. The site still sucks. People are already raising a stink they're spending too much money for subpar work, and nothing has changed. Having the code has exactly 0 effect on either of those two issues. Even if a concerned citizen FIXED the code, the odds of the politicians refusing to accept the fixes "for the security of their infrastructure" is upwards of 5-9s. Why on earth would they take those fixes when they're beholden to the people they're already overpaying for the work who likely donate large sums of money to their political campaigns?

sb8244 10y ago
I can take my best shot here. This is how I would see it at least: These politicians probably know nothing about the software they are receiving. 300k for a static site? Good deal! By making the sites open source, it allows groups that wouldn't be reviewing the code / bids to do so and then validate the work. For a US example, the TSA has that iPad application which is essentially a pRNG. Or is it? There is speculation that it might be much more than that, but no one can know without seeing the source code. If we could see the source code, we would know for sure and could verify if this project was really worth hundreds of thousands of tax-payer dollars.
mamon 10y ago
It would prevent vendor lock-in. Some time ago, before government officials become more aware of IT matters, it was common practice in government contracts in Poland that consulting company creating website or bespoke IT system would keep code copyrights for themselves and then charge huge amount of money for even simplest change requests. That ended once they start requiring that source code is delivered together with binaries. Open-sourcing apps is just one small step further in the same direction.