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Full disclosure, I'm in a federal department that has been pushing for more open source for a while. This is a great move by the White House. While there are a

by thewopr 10y ago

Full disclosure, I'm in a federal department that has been pushing for more open source for a while. This is a great move by the White House. While there are a lot of groups that are trying to push for more openness and release of software, it can often be challenging. A lot of federal groups have been taught over the years to be very risk averse, and open software is viewed by them to be risk. Probably one of the most common concerns is, "What happens if someone takes and misuses our software?" In a highly risk-averse federal environment, these can be challenging arguments to fight against. If you like and support this kind of thing, one big thing you can do is to contribute and supply feedback. We frequently have to go to our superiors and justify what we are doing with regards to open source. We say things like, "this repository had X pull requests from non-federal contributors". Or, "We got Y comments and questions from non-federal users of our projects". It could be as simple as an email saying "Hey thanks, I found this useful", to a full-on pull request fixing an issue or with a new feature request. The more fodder we have to say "open source increases engagement and creates positive feedback" the more you will see this kind of thing happening.

wang_li 10y ago
I'm pretty sure that, assuming you're a government employee, any work you create that would normally be covered by copyright as part of your job is public domain. There's no license legally possible.
- snuxoll 10y ago
  Of course, this isn't the case when you are contracted by the government to develop software for them, which is a huge issue in my eyes. I'm not going to say let's ban shrinkwrapped software in the government (as much as I'd like to see everything the government uses be open source), but I think it's reasonable to require any contracted out to be released under on open license to the public, specifically because it ISN'T just off the shelf software.
  - syshum 10y ago
    >>Of course, this isn't the case when you are contracted by the government to develop software for them...I'm not going to say let's ban shrinkwrapped software in the government Shrinkwrapped software != bespoke software that is contracted to be developed for the government IMO any software that is contracted to be developed by the government should be public domain, if the government "owns" the software then in reality the public "owns" it... after all the government is "for the people, by the people" right... This does preclude the government from licensing the USE of software (like Windows, Office, etc) that is a completely different debate. However if the government is contracting with a company for the company to build custom software the exclusive use of the government they yes that should be Public domain.
- thewopr 10y ago
  Yeah, absolutely. We make that argument often. In fact, the software we open-source is technically supposed to be released as public domain (as in, no license applied) and often is if people are doing things right. But that doesn't mean it has to be hosted and released online. Many agencies work under the "not going to release anything until we get a FOIA request" model. Just because it is public domain doesn't mean it is public.
  - squidfood 10y ago
    Well (as another Federal coder), one problem is the unfunded mandate issue. If this comes with resources to maintain public repos and updates, sure. Otherwise, if someone emails me I share the latest snapshot but only as my time and duties permit.
    - galdosdi 10y ago
      How about just using github, like many federal agencies do? (https://government.github.com/community/#us-federal https://government.github.com/community/#us-federal) I realize that setting up an automatic integration between your existing source control system and github might be nontrivial (eg if you are using an unpopular source control system for which no easy conversion to git) so this won't work for everyone without funding (and it would be nice if some were made available for that) But if you already use git (or something like SVN or hg which can easily interoperate with git) or don't currently use any SCM (!) then just publishing to github is a nobrainer. Am I missing anything?
      - jamespitbully 10y ago
        >don't currently use any SCM It's even easier when you do. For instance, we have RhodeCode (https://rhodecode.com https://rhodecode.com) as an "umbrella SCM" to control permissions for Git, Hg and Subversion repositories. We then mirror public ones to GitHub/Bitbucket.
      - thewopr 10y ago
        I generally agree. I've seen a few challenges to this perspective. 1) Some agencies do not think using 3rd party services like github is allowed. 2) Different groups make the initial code release pretty time consuming (as, in part, it should be) as, through time, the history may have accumulated secrets/keys/other sensitive material. So very thorough reviews are sometimes required. 3) Some agencies allow the use of github (and the like), but make the process of getting code up there extremely challenging. For example, some groups require all changes to code to go through the same internal review process as traditional communication, like a scientific publication or press release (internal review, multiple levels of management, etc). Of course, the last one is the worst. A lot of groups are getting their act together when it comes to starting open-source, but it is met with a lot of skepticism.
- x1798DE 10y ago
  > There's no license legally possible. Apparently things are a bit more complicated than this, since works created by government employees are in the public domain in the US, but foreign copyrights are still held by the government. Unless the software is released with a FOSS license where applicable, I don't think public domain government code is compatible with other FOSS licenses (which are generally worldwide). Even if it weren't the case that the US government held full copyrights abroad, it's still something of a problem because some jurisdictions do not have a concept of public domain - this is why the concept CC-0 licensing comes into play (it's public domain with a permissive license fallback). See 18F's open source policy: https://github.com/18F/open-source-policy/blob/master/policy.md https://github.com/18F/open-source-policy/blob/master/policy...
- VikingCoder 10y ago
  I'm pretty sure people working in defense would disagree.

by thewopr 10y ago

wang_li 10y ago

I'm pretty sure that, assuming you're a government employee, any work you create that would normally be covered by copyright as part of your job is public domain. There's no license legally possible.

snuxoll 10y ago
Of course, this isn't the case when you are contracted by the government to develop software for them, which is a huge issue in my eyes. I'm not going to say let's ban shrinkwrapped software in the government (as much as I'd like to see everything the government uses be open source), but I think it's reasonable to require any contracted out to be released under on open license to the public, specifically because it ISN'T just off the shelf software.
- syshum 10y ago
  >>Of course, this isn't the case when you are contracted by the government to develop software for them...I'm not going to say let's ban shrinkwrapped software in the government Shrinkwrapped software != bespoke software that is contracted to be developed for the government IMO any software that is contracted to be developed by the government should be public domain, if the government "owns" the software then in reality the public "owns" it... after all the government is "for the people, by the people" right... This does preclude the government from licensing the USE of software (like Windows, Office, etc) that is a completely different debate. However if the government is contracting with a company for the company to build custom software the exclusive use of the government they yes that should be Public domain.
thewopr 10y ago
Yeah, absolutely. We make that argument often. In fact, the software we open-source is technically supposed to be released as public domain (as in, no license applied) and often is if people are doing things right. But that doesn't mean it has to be hosted and released online. Many agencies work under the "not going to release anything until we get a FOIA request" model. Just because it is public domain doesn't mean it is public.
- squidfood 10y ago
  Well (as another Federal coder), one problem is the unfunded mandate issue. If this comes with resources to maintain public repos and updates, sure. Otherwise, if someone emails me I share the latest snapshot but only as my time and duties permit.
  - galdosdi 10y ago
    How about just using github, like many federal agencies do? (https://government.github.com/community/#us-federal https://government.github.com/community/#us-federal) I realize that setting up an automatic integration between your existing source control system and github might be nontrivial (eg if you are using an unpopular source control system for which no easy conversion to git) so this won't work for everyone without funding (and it would be nice if some were made available for that) But if you already use git (or something like SVN or hg which can easily interoperate with git) or don't currently use any SCM (!) then just publishing to github is a nobrainer. Am I missing anything?
    - jamespitbully 10y ago
      >don't currently use any SCM It's even easier when you do. For instance, we have RhodeCode (https://rhodecode.com https://rhodecode.com) as an "umbrella SCM" to control permissions for Git, Hg and Subversion repositories. We then mirror public ones to GitHub/Bitbucket.
    - thewopr 10y ago
      I generally agree. I've seen a few challenges to this perspective. 1) Some agencies do not think using 3rd party services like github is allowed. 2) Different groups make the initial code release pretty time consuming (as, in part, it should be) as, through time, the history may have accumulated secrets/keys/other sensitive material. So very thorough reviews are sometimes required. 3) Some agencies allow the use of github (and the like), but make the process of getting code up there extremely challenging. For example, some groups require all changes to code to go through the same internal review process as traditional communication, like a scientific publication or press release (internal review, multiple levels of management, etc). Of course, the last one is the worst. A lot of groups are getting their act together when it comes to starting open-source, but it is met with a lot of skepticism.
x1798DE 10y ago
> There's no license legally possible. Apparently things are a bit more complicated than this, since works created by government employees are in the public domain in the US, but foreign copyrights are still held by the government. Unless the software is released with a FOSS license where applicable, I don't think public domain government code is compatible with other FOSS licenses (which are generally worldwide). Even if it weren't the case that the US government held full copyrights abroad, it's still something of a problem because some jurisdictions do not have a concept of public domain - this is why the concept CC-0 licensing comes into play (it's public domain with a permissive license fallback). See 18F's open source policy: https://github.com/18F/open-source-policy/blob/master/policy.md https://github.com/18F/open-source-policy/blob/master/policy...
VikingCoder 10y ago
I'm pretty sure people working in defense would disagree.