4 ms·

I think this is a good case for why all government software should be open source. How many police departments around the world are spending absurd amounts of

I think this is a good case for why all government software should be open source. How many police departments around the world are spending absurd amounts of money for this technology? It would make much more sense both cost and productivity wise to have one big project that anyone can improve on instead of multiple inferior projects. Not to mention that all of this is paid for with taxpayer money, so it is reasonable for those same taxpayers to have access to the code.

lifeisstillgood 9y ago
Please join my campaign at http://www.oss4gov.org/manifesto http://www.oss4gov.org/manifesto - this is exactly why we want all government software to be open source (Shameless plug)
- chii 9y ago
  i think there's some gov't contractors that survive off these inefficiencies. They will fight tooth and nail against OSS in gov't, and since they are often more connected, it's quite likely they can win.
  - enraged_camel 9y ago
    Full disclosure: I'm one such contractor. We work with small and local government. Cities and counties mostly. I personally don't have a problem with open source software and use it extensively outside of work. However, the big problem with it is technical support. If you are a government organization and the OSS you are using has a bug, who do you contact to get it hotfixed ASAP or find you workarounds? That's one of the biggest advantages of commercial software: it is often sold with support contracts that entitle customers to certain levels of support, which can be critical to get things fixed and minimize downtime. I know there are companies that focus on supporting OSS deployments, but from what I have seen in my own niche, they charge a ton of money that often surpasses what the equivalent commercial package would cost.
    - true_religion 9y ago
      I think the key here is open sourcing your software that you are selling, so to a vendor, it's little different from supporting your own proprietary tech.
      - chii 9y ago
        yea, good point. There's some misunderstanding about the issue - OSS in gov't could mean both adopting pre-existing OSS rather than contracting for bespoke software, and also to open source new/existing bespoke software as OSS (which makes sense, since it was public money that developed it). Both are worthwhile goals.
    - lgas 9y ago
      > Full disclosure: I'm one such contractor. We work with small and local government. Cities and counties mostly. ... >If you are a government organization and the OSS you are using has a bug, who do you contact to get it hotfixed ASAP or find you workarounds? You, or someone like you, presumably?
      - nradov 9y ago
        That's a nice theory about OSS but it seldom works in practice. It can take a very long time for even experienced and skilled government contractors to learn enough about a code base to fix major defects. And even then there's no guarantee that the project maintainers will accept that patch into the mainline, so if they don't that puts you into configuration management hell. Governments need a "single neck to choke" along with some reliable assurances of support levels and time to resolution.
        dikaiosune 9y ago
        It seems to me that govt agencies could still pay contractors to build these things, just with the requirement to make them openly available as part of the contract. If others step in to offer support contracts as well, great! Competitive environments for that would probably be good.

lifeisstillgood 9y ago

Please join my campaign at http://www.oss4gov.org/manifesto http://www.oss4gov.org/manifesto - this is exactly why we want all government software to be open source (Shameless plug)

chii 9y ago
i think there's some gov't contractors that survive off these inefficiencies. They will fight tooth and nail against OSS in gov't, and since they are often more connected, it's quite likely they can win.
- enraged_camel 9y ago
  Full disclosure: I'm one such contractor. We work with small and local government. Cities and counties mostly. I personally don't have a problem with open source software and use it extensively outside of work. However, the big problem with it is technical support. If you are a government organization and the OSS you are using has a bug, who do you contact to get it hotfixed ASAP or find you workarounds? That's one of the biggest advantages of commercial software: it is often sold with support contracts that entitle customers to certain levels of support, which can be critical to get things fixed and minimize downtime. I know there are companies that focus on supporting OSS deployments, but from what I have seen in my own niche, they charge a ton of money that often surpasses what the equivalent commercial package would cost.
  - true_religion 9y ago
    I think the key here is open sourcing your software that you are selling, so to a vendor, it's little different from supporting your own proprietary tech.
    - chii 9y ago
      yea, good point. There's some misunderstanding about the issue - OSS in gov't could mean both adopting pre-existing OSS rather than contracting for bespoke software, and also to open source new/existing bespoke software as OSS (which makes sense, since it was public money that developed it). Both are worthwhile goals.
  - lgas 9y ago
    > Full disclosure: I'm one such contractor. We work with small and local government. Cities and counties mostly. ... >If you are a government organization and the OSS you are using has a bug, who do you contact to get it hotfixed ASAP or find you workarounds? You, or someone like you, presumably?
    - nradov 9y ago
      That's a nice theory about OSS but it seldom works in practice. It can take a very long time for even experienced and skilled government contractors to learn enough about a code base to fix major defects. And even then there's no guarantee that the project maintainers will accept that patch into the mainline, so if they don't that puts you into configuration management hell. Governments need a "single neck to choke" along with some reliable assurances of support levels and time to resolution.
      - dikaiosune 9y ago
        It seems to me that govt agencies could still pay contractors to build these things, just with the requirement to make them openly available as part of the contract. If others step in to offer support contracts as well, great! Competitive environments for that would probably be good.