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That's a lot more involved and domain-specific than the question of whether or not government-owned code should be open source. The person you're responding to
by throwawaymath 8y ago
That's a lot more involved and domain-specific than the question of whether or not government-owned code should be open source.
The person you're responding to is just making the positive observation that, since electronic voting software is licensed - not produced - by the government, you can't mandate it be open sourced via e.g. a FOIA request.
You are making a normative declaration that it should be open sourced because it's important and intrinsically untrusted software, and as a consequence it either will be or electronic voting won't be possible. These are separate things. You're talking about what ought to be, the other commenter is talking about what (currently) is.
- vanderZwan 8y agoRight, I see where GP and I were talking past each other now now. Thank you for clarifying!
- vanderZwan 8y agoHaving said that, I think there is a more general point to be made from bringing up electronic voting in the discussion of open source + government funded software development. Licensed products are an inevitable loophole to be exploited unless we stipulate rules for use-cases like this. Inevitable because some products will always be licensed, and mandating that everything the government uses must be open source is... well, actually, that sounds great, but even if such a policy were implemented that would be a slow, tough transition to make.