5 ms·

One of my bigger wishes is that any software paid for with tax money needs to be FOSS. Of course you can't do the switch easily for with all the legacy systems

One of my bigger wishes is that any software paid for with tax money needs to be FOSS. Of course you can't do the switch easily for with all the legacy systems running everywhere, but there must be some path from paying SAP and Microsoft Gigabucks in perpetuity to building an ecosystem of free software that everybody can use.

asiachick 5y ago
I don't know if SAP contributes but Microsoft pays for C#, VSCode, and other open source projects. And further they support open source by providing github, github's free site hosting, and github's free CI.
- pessimizer 5y ago
  The suggestion wasn't that the government should only buy from companies that have done or are doing some open source, the suggestion was that the government only finance FOSS. Also, nobody told them to buy Github. It wasn't a charitable acquisition.
- int_19h 5y ago
  Microsoft also pays salary for several people who are core Python contributors, and sponsor PSF and PyCon. (I'm sure there are similar arrangements for other projects - that's just the stuff I'm familiar with.) However, Python is an example of a large and prominent OSS product. Generally speaking, stuff like that doesn't struggle to find sponsors. But there are all those countless small OSS projects that get used by for-profit companies without any financial support for their maintenance. There needs to be some arrangement to accommodate those, as well.
- einpoklum 5y ago
  > I don't know if SAP contributes but Microsoft pays for C# That barely counts, as C# is very Windows-centric AFAIK.
majormajor 5y ago
I don't think funding should be the sole determiner here. We don't expect any company which raises VC money to give 100% ownership of their code to the VCs. Labor needs to be rewarded, not just investment capital.
- indigochill 5y ago
  But we do expect any company which raises VC money to pay out to the VCs according to their shares when a buyout happens. That's because VCs don't buy code, they buy a risky promise of future wealth. By contrast, public funding for code is buying code (at least in theory).
  - phkahler 5y ago
    >> By contrast, public funding for code is buying code (at least in theory). Funding developers is a risk as to weather the results will be what you hope. Paying for software is actually paying rent on something already complete. A typical software company uses the rent they collect on prior work to fund the newer risky work. The big companies are mostly doing the rent thing to pay shareholders.
  - bruce511 5y ago
    Actually no, they don't buy code. They buy the people to implement a system at scale, and keep that system running and users trained. The code is negligible. Take Windows desktop. It's designed to run at scale, out the box, when you have 10 000 employees, and any hardware, printers, whatever. A govt isn't buying Windows its buying active directory, and the fact that every new hire knows how to use it already. And a million other things windows does at scale (technically and humanally).
- Zababa 5y ago
  > We don't expect any company which raises VC money to give 100% ownership of their code to the VCs. If they sell 100% of their shares to the VCs, the VCs have 100% ownership of the code, because they own the company.
cabalamat 5y ago
> but there must be some path from paying SAP and Microsoft Gigabucks in perpetuity to building an ecosystem of free software that everybody can use. Simply have a law that any software the state buys, if not OSS already, becomes time-delayed OSS: after 2 years it becomes open source. If Microsoft et al don't want to sell software on those terms, fine, then no country within the EU (or state owned entities) will ever buy any of their software. This idea is probably far too sensible for the EU to ever adopt.
- bruce511 5y ago
  Alas, I wish it was, but it's not sensible. Govts run at enterprise scale, and need specialised software, and specialised services to manage that scale. And in some areas that simply doesn't exist as OSS. So then you have to have your law carve out exceptions. Which means you need criteria to determine when you have to have OSS, and when you can use off the shelf. Or conversely all Govts at every level need herds of programmers to tweak OSS code to make it fit. My city is 10000 people so we need a rate calculator that matches our bylaws, over there is a city of 1000000 people who need a very different rate calculator. So every town has to hire a programmer to tailor some OSS program - but hey, we don't need every town to have a rates-calculator domain expert - we can say hire 10 of them between us, and split the cost. Yay, a central it dept, with builtin monopoly, at govt pay, can't be fired. What could possibly go wrong with this model. No wait, we'll make them compete, pay them only for success, negotiate rates, and we end up with? A commercial proprietary software business that's motivated to deliver... With experts at doing this one task at scale. Rinse and repeat for hundreds and hundreds of departments...
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
  - lelanthran 5y ago
    > Or conversely all Govts at every level need herds of programmers to tweak OSS code to make it fit. My city is 10000 people so we need a rate calculator that matches our bylaws, over there is a city of 1000000 people who need a very different rate calculator. > > So every town has to hire a programmer to tailor some OSS program - but hey, we don't need every town to have a rates-calculator domain expert - we can say hire 10 of them between us, and split the cost. Why would each town need their own? It's FLOSS, so it's perfectly feasible to have the state maintain FLOSS systems, in which case you'd just need a small team that handles this functionality. > Yay, a central it dept, with builtin monopoly, at govt pay, can't be fired. What could possibly go wrong with this model. When the alternative is a builtin monopoly, at govt contract costs, that can't be fired but can also hold the state to ransom with proprietary software, then that central IT dept at state level looks a lot more desirable. In fact, the only difference between the two would be that the FLOSS systems would allow the state to invite different vendors to bid on and compete for modification of the FLOSS systems, with all the modifications open so that the state can switch to a new vendor if necessary.
MayeulC 5y ago
https://publiccode.eu/ https://publiccode.eu/
zapita 5y ago
The US government has been working towards that goal: https://www.whitehouse.gov/sites/whitehouse.gov/files/omb/memoranda/2016/m_16_21.pdf https://www.whitehouse.gov/sites/whitehouse.gov/files/omb/me... I don’t know the current status of implementation since the policy was published mere months before the Obama/Trump transition. But I wouldn’t be surprised to see it make progress again under the Biden administration.
lifeisstillgood 5y ago
My personal bugbear too - http://www.oss4gov.org http://www.oss4gov.org oh noes - my domain ran out ... bugger
- pitay 5y ago
  I guess this will have to do for now. https://web.archive.org/web/20210301034848/http://oss4gov.org/ https://web.archive.org/web/20210301034848/http://oss4gov.or...
labawi 5y ago
I think requiring source code may be prohibited by so called "free trade agreements", and even enforceable by arbitrage, in the name of corporate freedoms and guarantees over governments that dare disagree. Regardless, we should find a way. Neither FTAs, "capitalism", nor intellectual "property" should be above public good.

asiachick 5y ago

I don't know if SAP contributes but Microsoft pays for C#, VSCode, and other open source projects. And further they support open source by providing github, github's free site hosting, and github's free CI.

pessimizer 5y ago
The suggestion wasn't that the government should only buy from companies that have done or are doing some open source, the suggestion was that the government only finance FOSS. Also, nobody told them to buy Github. It wasn't a charitable acquisition.
int_19h 5y ago
Microsoft also pays salary for several people who are core Python contributors, and sponsor PSF and PyCon. (I'm sure there are similar arrangements for other projects - that's just the stuff I'm familiar with.) However, Python is an example of a large and prominent OSS product. Generally speaking, stuff like that doesn't struggle to find sponsors. But there are all those countless small OSS projects that get used by for-profit companies without any financial support for their maintenance. There needs to be some arrangement to accommodate those, as well.
einpoklum 5y ago
> I don't know if SAP contributes but Microsoft pays for C# That barely counts, as C# is very Windows-centric AFAIK.

majormajor 5y ago

I don't think funding should be the sole determiner here. We don't expect any company which raises VC money to give 100% ownership of their code to the VCs. Labor needs to be rewarded, not just investment capital.

indigochill 5y ago
But we do expect any company which raises VC money to pay out to the VCs according to their shares when a buyout happens. That's because VCs don't buy code, they buy a risky promise of future wealth. By contrast, public funding for code is buying code (at least in theory).
- phkahler 5y ago
  >> By contrast, public funding for code is buying code (at least in theory). Funding developers is a risk as to weather the results will be what you hope. Paying for software is actually paying rent on something already complete. A typical software company uses the rent they collect on prior work to fund the newer risky work. The big companies are mostly doing the rent thing to pay shareholders.
- bruce511 5y ago
  Actually no, they don't buy code. They buy the people to implement a system at scale, and keep that system running and users trained. The code is negligible. Take Windows desktop. It's designed to run at scale, out the box, when you have 10 000 employees, and any hardware, printers, whatever. A govt isn't buying Windows its buying active directory, and the fact that every new hire knows how to use it already. And a million other things windows does at scale (technically and humanally).
Zababa 5y ago
> We don't expect any company which raises VC money to give 100% ownership of their code to the VCs. If they sell 100% of their shares to the VCs, the VCs have 100% ownership of the code, because they own the company.

cabalamat 5y ago

> but there must be some path from paying SAP and Microsoft Gigabucks in perpetuity to building an ecosystem of free software that everybody can use. Simply have a law that any software the state buys, if not OSS already, becomes time-delayed OSS: after 2 years it becomes open source. If Microsoft et al don't want to sell software on those terms, fine, then no country within the EU (or state owned entities) will ever buy any of their software. This idea is probably far too sensible for the EU to ever adopt.

bruce511 5y ago
Alas, I wish it was, but it's not sensible. Govts run at enterprise scale, and need specialised software, and specialised services to manage that scale. And in some areas that simply doesn't exist as OSS. So then you have to have your law carve out exceptions. Which means you need criteria to determine when you have to have OSS, and when you can use off the shelf. Or conversely all Govts at every level need herds of programmers to tweak OSS code to make it fit. My city is 10000 people so we need a rate calculator that matches our bylaws, over there is a city of 1000000 people who need a very different rate calculator. So every town has to hire a programmer to tailor some OSS program - but hey, we don't need every town to have a rates-calculator domain expert - we can say hire 10 of them between us, and split the cost. Yay, a central it dept, with builtin monopoly, at govt pay, can't be fired. What could possibly go wrong with this model. No wait, we'll make them compete, pay them only for success, negotiate rates, and we end up with? A commercial proprietary software business that's motivated to deliver... With experts at doing this one task at scale. Rinse and repeat for hundreds and hundreds of departments...
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- lelanthran 5y ago
  > Or conversely all Govts at every level need herds of programmers to tweak OSS code to make it fit. My city is 10000 people so we need a rate calculator that matches our bylaws, over there is a city of 1000000 people who need a very different rate calculator. > > So every town has to hire a programmer to tailor some OSS program - but hey, we don't need every town to have a rates-calculator domain expert - we can say hire 10 of them between us, and split the cost. Why would each town need their own? It's FLOSS, so it's perfectly feasible to have the state maintain FLOSS systems, in which case you'd just need a small team that handles this functionality. > Yay, a central it dept, with builtin monopoly, at govt pay, can't be fired. What could possibly go wrong with this model. When the alternative is a builtin monopoly, at govt contract costs, that can't be fired but can also hold the state to ransom with proprietary software, then that central IT dept at state level looks a lot more desirable. In fact, the only difference between the two would be that the FLOSS systems would allow the state to invite different vendors to bid on and compete for modification of the FLOSS systems, with all the modifications open so that the state can switch to a new vendor if necessary.

MayeulC 5y ago

https://publiccode.eu/ https://publiccode.eu/

zapita 5y ago

The US government has been working towards that goal: https://www.whitehouse.gov/sites/whitehouse.gov/files/omb/memoranda/2016/m_16_21.pdf https://www.whitehouse.gov/sites/whitehouse.gov/files/omb/me... I don’t know the current status of implementation since the policy was published mere months before the Obama/Trump transition. But I wouldn’t be surprised to see it make progress again under the Biden administration.

lifeisstillgood 5y ago

My personal bugbear too - http://www.oss4gov.org http://www.oss4gov.org oh noes - my domain ran out ... bugger

pitay 5y ago
I guess this will have to do for now. https://web.archive.org/web/20210301034848/http://oss4gov.org/ https://web.archive.org/web/20210301034848/http://oss4gov.or...

labawi 5y ago

I think requiring source code may be prohibited by so called "free trade agreements", and even enforceable by arbitrage, in the name of corporate freedoms and guarantees over governments that dare disagree. Regardless, we should find a way. Neither FTAs, "capitalism", nor intellectual "property" should be above public good.