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 st

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.