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The positive and optimistic side of this is well-documented. The darker side is that making all publicly-funded software public would also mean making all weap

The positive and optimistic side of this is well-documented. The darker side is that making all publicly-funded software public would also mean making all weapons software public. That could have disastrous consequences.

dpwm 8y ago
You can have information that is public domain but still secret. Open source falls under copyright; secrecy falls under whatever national security laws are in place. The UK government's cabinet papers fall under this: they won't be released for thirty years, but they will be released under the Open Government License. I'm not sure that this is what the article is advocating, though.
moosey 8y ago
Perhaps we could just stop making weapons software? I mean, someone needs to go first. When I look at wars throughout the world, a huge number of them are fought with US weapons, and we don't actually have a good track record of supporting peaceful people. I don't think that we'll get there until we stop dumping weapons on the world for profit.
- arcaster 8y ago
  Of course this would be great, we'd all like this to happen. But your perspective is dangerously shallow and juvenile, the real world just straight up doesn't work this way. If you believe in this enough, you're better off leaving the U.S. IMHO. If you disagree, I recommend visiting a country on the verge of complete collapse. Do that, then think about how good we have it, think about how many people want to take that way of life away at all costs. Part of being an adult is striking a balance between your ideals, a comfortable life and letting one or the other take over.
  - deleted 8y ago
    [deleted]
  - moosey 8y ago
    > But your perspective is dangerously shallow and juvenile There was a line in one of the Expanse books that really got me, where a woman was talking to her son, and paraphrasing, she explained that "We have lost again". When her son inquired how, she said, again paraphrasing "Those who want peace have lost to those who want violence." One of the primary ways we can do this, is to simply stop exporting it. As of 2017, we export 50% more arms than the #2 country, Russia, https://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/interactive/2017/02/10-countries-export-major-weapons-170220170539801.html https://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/interactive/2017/02/10-cou..., and we will as long as people who support violence and the contemporary model of arms sales throughout the world call people who disagree with it "juvenile".
  - ozzyman700 8y ago
    Interesting, I have found that being an adult is as easy as not dying.
dwheeler 8y ago
It would never be implemented that way. At most it'd be "by default, software developed with government funding is released as open source software". Specialty weapon systems would quickly request and get an exemption. But the reality is that even in weapon systems there's lots of "boring code" that would make sense to have as open source software. A lot of it involves "move bits from A to B", "calculate this matrix", and so on that are not really special (you can find the basic algorithms publicly) - but having a way to share the costs with others who need it would be valuable. You can find the US Department of Defense (DoD) OSS FAQ here: https://dodcio.defense.gov/open-source-software-faq/ https://dodcio.defense.gov/open-source-software-faq/ Here's the US DoD OSS policy (2009): https://dodcio.defense.gov/portals/0/documents/foss/2009oss.pdf https://dodcio.defense.gov/portals/0/documents/foss/2009oss.... The DoD policy does not require release by default as open source software (OSS), but there IS a short discussion of when it's okay to release software as OSS when it's funded by the Department of Defense (DoD) - and it's quite open-ended.

dpwm 8y ago

You can have information that is public domain but still secret. Open source falls under copyright; secrecy falls under whatever national security laws are in place. The UK government's cabinet papers fall under this: they won't be released for thirty years, but they will be released under the Open Government License. I'm not sure that this is what the article is advocating, though.

moosey 8y ago

Perhaps we could just stop making weapons software? I mean, someone needs to go first. When I look at wars throughout the world, a huge number of them are fought with US weapons, and we don't actually have a good track record of supporting peaceful people. I don't think that we'll get there until we stop dumping weapons on the world for profit.

arcaster 8y ago
Of course this would be great, we'd all like this to happen. But your perspective is dangerously shallow and juvenile, the real world just straight up doesn't work this way. If you believe in this enough, you're better off leaving the U.S. IMHO. If you disagree, I recommend visiting a country on the verge of complete collapse. Do that, then think about how good we have it, think about how many people want to take that way of life away at all costs. Part of being an adult is striking a balance between your ideals, a comfortable life and letting one or the other take over.
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
- moosey 8y ago
  > But your perspective is dangerously shallow and juvenile There was a line in one of the Expanse books that really got me, where a woman was talking to her son, and paraphrasing, she explained that "We have lost again". When her son inquired how, she said, again paraphrasing "Those who want peace have lost to those who want violence." One of the primary ways we can do this, is to simply stop exporting it. As of 2017, we export 50% more arms than the #2 country, Russia, https://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/interactive/2017/02/10-countries-export-major-weapons-170220170539801.html https://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/interactive/2017/02/10-cou..., and we will as long as people who support violence and the contemporary model of arms sales throughout the world call people who disagree with it "juvenile".
- ozzyman700 8y ago
  Interesting, I have found that being an adult is as easy as not dying.

dwheeler 8y ago

It would never be implemented that way. At most it'd be "by default, software developed with government funding is released as open source software". Specialty weapon systems would quickly request and get an exemption. But the reality is that even in weapon systems there's lots of "boring code" that would make sense to have as open source software. A lot of it involves "move bits from A to B", "calculate this matrix", and so on that are not really special (you can find the basic algorithms publicly) - but having a way to share the costs with others who need it would be valuable. You can find the US Department of Defense (DoD) OSS FAQ here: https://dodcio.defense.gov/open-source-software-faq/ https://dodcio.defense.gov/open-source-software-faq/ Here's the US DoD OSS policy (2009): https://dodcio.defense.gov/portals/0/documents/foss/2009oss.pdf https://dodcio.defense.gov/portals/0/documents/foss/2009oss.... The DoD policy does not require release by default as open source software (OSS), but there IS a short discussion of when it's okay to release software as OSS when it's funded by the Department of Defense (DoD) - and it's quite open-ended.