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Would this not imply that if "my" government funded some software that "your" government would be free to take it? I'm not sure I'm keen on subsidizing "your"

Would this not imply that if "my" government funded some software that "your" government would be free to take it? I'm not sure I'm keen on subsidizing "your" government all that much. What would stop the people of/under "your" government from freeloading off the people of/under "my" government?

mulmen 8y ago
Is it your position that utilizing open source software is freeloading?
- uberman 8y ago
  I contribute, I utilize and I appreciate open source and the community of dedicated contributors. Open source software is great and "YES" frankly the vast vast majoring of those involved in the use of open source software are freeloaders. We (yes I include myself) typically sow way less than we reap. This argument though is not about the merits of open source software but about the use of public funds. "If my taxes helped pay for software, should result necessarily be public source code." My opinion is absolutely not. If my taxes as a citizen of country "A" paid for the development of some piece of software then I do not have the slightest reservation that the citizens of country "B" have no kind of moral, ethical, or legal right to it. If the tax payers, government representatives, and authors agree and choose to release their results and products under some open source agreement then that is up to them.
  - c22 8y ago
    On the other hand if my taxes went to pay for something I should get to know what it is, shouldn't I? If our elected representatives paid 500 million of our tax dollars for some piece of software shouldn't we be able to audit it and see if that was money well spent? If we can't do this, how will we know which representatives to vote for again?
    - uberman 8y ago
      This is a complete red herring. Within reason you can see where your money went. This is what a FOIA request is for.
      - mulmen 8y ago
        Can I FOIA the source code for healthcare.gov? If so why hasn’t anyone done it?
c22 8y ago
If "your" government needs and uses the software then what have "you" lost?
tracker1 8y ago
So, if YOUR government uses Linux, but doesn't participate in Linux development, it's bad for everyone else? Most Linux users aren't contributing to Linux itself. And likely less than half are making any significant contribution to Open Source Software at all. It's still useful software, and I still appreciate everyone that does work on it.
- uberman 8y ago
  You seem to be conflating my position on the use of public funds with your position on open source in general. "So, if YOUR government uses Linux, but doesn't participate in Linux development, it's bad for everyone else?" I'm not sure where you are going with this. I certainly never claimed that governments should not use open source software. By all means I hope (for argument sake let's call it The US) leverages Linux where practical. What I disagree with is the premise that The US or their contractors owe pull requests or public repos to the peoples of the world just because the US taxpayer partly or fully funded a development project. Hate on me if you must but I believe that no US funded research results be they in software or any other IP are or should be automatically owed to the peoples of the earth. "Most Linux users aren't contributing to Linux itself. And likely less than half are making any significant contribution to Open Source Software at all. It's still useful software, and I still appreciate everyone that does work on it." Yes, I agree with your idea that most open source users are freeloading in the sense that they contribute far less than they use. That is part of my point.
  - tracker1 8y ago
    Users who don't contribute back, aren't removing what you have done, or a given government may have funded. Some governments ARE contributing to open-source... other governments using open-source doesn't undo or degrade things. We are not in a communist/socialist world where every community must pay at the point of a gun for things they don't choose to pay for. And if some government wants to force users of software they develop to contribute to funding, then there licensing should probably be something to reflect that. But then it wouldn't strictly be OSI/Open-Source.
zimablue 8y ago
This it getting downvoted maybe because it sounds nasty, but I think there's a relevant point here. Govt open source funding is something that external countries can benefit from, but I think a) the US is so big that any unfairness to them would be outweighed by benefits to themselves and society b) I have an uninformed guess that most government software is not groundbreakingly brilliant so there's quite a small subset that would be interesting to "steal", c) for smaller countries maybe this should be a treaty thing, would be interesting for example for the EU to vote on it, or put it into trade deals.

mulmen 8y ago

Is it your position that utilizing open source software is freeloading?

uberman 8y ago
I contribute, I utilize and I appreciate open source and the community of dedicated contributors. Open source software is great and "YES" frankly the vast vast majoring of those involved in the use of open source software are freeloaders. We (yes I include myself) typically sow way less than we reap. This argument though is not about the merits of open source software but about the use of public funds. "If my taxes helped pay for software, should result necessarily be public source code." My opinion is absolutely not. If my taxes as a citizen of country "A" paid for the development of some piece of software then I do not have the slightest reservation that the citizens of country "B" have no kind of moral, ethical, or legal right to it. If the tax payers, government representatives, and authors agree and choose to release their results and products under some open source agreement then that is up to them.
- c22 8y ago
  On the other hand if my taxes went to pay for something I should get to know what it is, shouldn't I? If our elected representatives paid 500 million of our tax dollars for some piece of software shouldn't we be able to audit it and see if that was money well spent? If we can't do this, how will we know which representatives to vote for again?
  - uberman 8y ago
    This is a complete red herring. Within reason you can see where your money went. This is what a FOIA request is for.
    - mulmen 8y ago
      Can I FOIA the source code for healthcare.gov? If so why hasn’t anyone done it?

c22 8y ago

If "your" government needs and uses the software then what have "you" lost?

tracker1 8y ago

So, if YOUR government uses Linux, but doesn't participate in Linux development, it's bad for everyone else? Most Linux users aren't contributing to Linux itself. And likely less than half are making any significant contribution to Open Source Software at all. It's still useful software, and I still appreciate everyone that does work on it.

uberman 8y ago
You seem to be conflating my position on the use of public funds with your position on open source in general. "So, if YOUR government uses Linux, but doesn't participate in Linux development, it's bad for everyone else?" I'm not sure where you are going with this. I certainly never claimed that governments should not use open source software. By all means I hope (for argument sake let's call it The US) leverages Linux where practical. What I disagree with is the premise that The US or their contractors owe pull requests or public repos to the peoples of the world just because the US taxpayer partly or fully funded a development project. Hate on me if you must but I believe that no US funded research results be they in software or any other IP are or should be automatically owed to the peoples of the earth. "Most Linux users aren't contributing to Linux itself. And likely less than half are making any significant contribution to Open Source Software at all. It's still useful software, and I still appreciate everyone that does work on it." Yes, I agree with your idea that most open source users are freeloading in the sense that they contribute far less than they use. That is part of my point.
- tracker1 8y ago
  Users who don't contribute back, aren't removing what you have done, or a given government may have funded. Some governments ARE contributing to open-source... other governments using open-source doesn't undo or degrade things. We are not in a communist/socialist world where every community must pay at the point of a gun for things they don't choose to pay for. And if some government wants to force users of software they develop to contribute to funding, then there licensing should probably be something to reflect that. But then it wouldn't strictly be OSI/Open-Source.

zimablue 8y ago

This it getting downvoted maybe because it sounds nasty, but I think there's a relevant point here. Govt open source funding is something that external countries can benefit from, but I think a) the US is so big that any unfairness to them would be outweighed by benefits to themselves and society b) I have an uninformed guess that most government software is not groundbreakingly brilliant so there's quite a small subset that would be interesting to "steal", c) for smaller countries maybe this should be a treaty thing, would be interesting for example for the EU to vote on it, or put it into trade deals.