9 ms·

EU countries pledge to promote OSS within public administrations [pdf]

242 points by fermigier 5y ago

ab_testing 5y ago
Most of the software that I have seen implemented in government organizations is COTS(Commercial off the shelf) software. Governments prefer it because they can usually get multiple vendors to bid on it and can also get SLA. A big problem with implementing custom software is that maintenance of that software would only be done by the organization that wrote it.
fermigier 5y ago
From the declaration: The European Ministers responsible for public administration, public transformation and the civil service, with the support of the European Commission, declare their intention: […] To promote open source software within public administrations and their sharing, by: - Recognising the major role played by secure open source solutions in the transformation of public administrations, which allow for the pooling of investments among multiple organisations, offer transparency and interoperability by default and guarantee control over the technologies used as well as greater technological independence; - Leveraging open source solutions to strengthen collaboration between public administrations, by promoting the sharing of such solutions created or used by administrations within the European Union; - Promoting a fair redistribution of the value created by open source solutions, especially for those who produce and share open source code.
- gyulai 5y ago
  Sounds very wishy-washy. The action verbs here are "recognize the [...] role played", "promoting the sharing of [...] solutions created/used", "promoting a fair redistribution of the value created [...]". This stuff is so vague that I have zero idea what it's supposed to mean in practice. The language also seems to be quite deliberately referring to stuff that's already there, and definitely not saying anything like putting more of it into place or systematically favouring open source over closed source or anything like that. Typical Brussels hot air.
  - sofixa 5y ago
    The EU commission already sponsors FOSS software, directly and indirectly ( bug bounty programs), so it's really not hot air. Also some EU countries, like France, open source a lot of their code ( e.g. the French government SSO is on GitHub). The language is vague because it's a generic policy to follow, not "Portugal will replace all MS Office with LibreOffice". That's how policies work, they're generic guidelines to follow.
    - gyulai 5y ago
      When software is developed in house in public administration, then open sourcing it, in my mind, is kind of a no brainer, because it was financed with the taxpayer's money. If they keep it as a "trade secret" it most surely won't maximize value creation throughout society. They're probably not going to spin it out into a government-owned for-profit entity that competes in the market. (Might be interesting if it generates a lot of profit that relieves our tax burdens, but it really doesn't sit right. There are probably laws against that sort of thing. Also: Free markets). So that really only leaves open source / open data as the only viable path. The real question is: What sort of circumstances drive a government to develop something "in house" that they'll later open source, or adopt an open source solution, when that competes with giving the government contract to your industry cronies. It would be real nice, if we could get a clear policy framework that basically just says: Whenever open source is an option, the government must go with open source. But we are far away from anyone in power clearly calling for that. And we've seen some real setbacks where that is concerned: For example the city administration of the city of Munich had that policy in the late 00s / early 10s, to the point where they had migrated 15000 workstations to Linux in 2013, shaving €10M/yr off the Microsoft tax. All it took was some government officials getting frustrated over a glitch in the e-mail server once in 2017 and compatibility issues about MS Office vs OpenOffice and they reversed course and decided to migrate everything back to Windows by the end of 2020. (It definitely had nothing to do with Microsoft moving their German headquarters to Munich in 2016, if you're naive enough to believe that). -- Don't know the extent to which that actually happened. As I'm researching this right now on Wikipedia [2], I'm seeing that apparently the new government decided to reverse course back to open source in 2020. -- Don't know the extent to which they've actually finished/begun anything here. I've also dug into European funding schemes that maintainers of open source projects can tap into for their own living expenses in recognition of their contribution to open source. -- That is incredibly thin. You'd have to be a maintainer of a superstar open source project if you want even the minutest chance at a one-off stipend of up to €50k. Compare that to how science funding works: I travel extensively in circles of people who do EU-funded science projects and many of them will readily admit that they are downright embarrassed by how little value they create in return for that funding that they get from the EU. These science projects quickly run into the millions, even when they are quite small projects, and the total budget at the government level is quite considerable. When compared to that, the money that they sometimes throw at open source seems like a symbolic amount at best. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LiMux https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LiMux [2] https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/LiMux https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/LiMux
Ambolia 5y ago
I think the impact of OSS is much smaller now that most people use their devices as web browsers to interact with cloud applications. It's still important, but just a small part of the puzzle, rather than a game changer like it was before in the times of doing most activities through desktop applications.
- kzrdude 5y ago
  We wouldn't have cloud applications without open source software: FOSS software underpins everything and the reason for its success is that there is no fee, it's just free and easy to use. It's as if sugar and flour was free for the food industry.
- Bayart 5y ago
  All the core software and much of the tooling running cloud infrastructure is OSS. The browsers are OSS. The allowable space for proprietary software has shrunk significantly.
  - josteink 5y ago
    > The allowable space for proprietary software has shrunk significantly. Not really. It has just shifted. All the proprietary software we use today are through various SaaS offerings. And that these are built on an OSS base and freeloading off all the work and effort invested by volunteers into OSS software-components is not something that you as a user get to benefit from. While not illegal or a license-violation in itself, it does strike me as somewhat immoral.
    - enriquto 5y ago
      That is the exact problem that the AGPL solves.
    - hughrr 5y ago
      Some of the OSS projects originated from and are entirely maintained by commercial entities.
    - 5y ago
pokepim 5y ago
How can we protect against people like RIAEvnagelist and whole node-ipc fiasco who undermine whole point of OSS? Imagine if public admin app uses some library written by lunatic? Whole goverment system can be target of such terrorist attack.
- ZeroGravitas 5y ago
  I had to look up what RIAEvangelist was, but now I've done so, I'm not sure why we need protected from it: https://github.com/RIAEvangelist/peacenotwar https://github.com/RIAEvangelist/peacenotwar Seems like it's promoting good software security practices?
  - smitop 5y ago
    At one point node-ipc deleted all files on the filesystem if the user had a Russian/Belarusian IP, they have since made it non-destructive (just adding a file to the desktop).
    - ZeroGravitas 5y ago
      Nothing on the GitHub repo suggests this is true, can you link to a reliable source for this info?
      - lapinot 5y ago
        https://gist.github.com/MidSpike/f7ae3457420af78a54b38a31cc0c809c https://gist.github.com/MidSpike/f7ae3457420af78a54b38a31cc0...
- dgellow 5y ago
  Proprietary software is very likely to rely on the same open source dependencies, also using NPM, pypi, etc, with the same baked assumptions that allow for that type of supply chain attack. Just saying that it’s a systematic problem in the way we use, manage, and consider 3rd party dependencies. And the risk already exist right now, without administration promoting open source software. (I don’t know how to protect against it at scale)
majkinetor 5y ago
Not only FOSS should be promoted in use (as in PostgreSql) but in making (as in budget execution platform). Anything custom made for the gov MUST BE FOSS as money is from the people, so people MUST own it. Vendors should earn on initial development, and eventually subsequent support/consultation/upgrade if it happens (i.e. work exceeds gov capacity). Big vendors that now get to do this via tenders do not have best interest in mind for the government (as it contradicts profits most of the time) and consequently people suffer. Also, there are usually independent levels of government that need to use the same or similar software (now they each order it from independent vendors so there are multiple platforms doing the same/similar thing each payed by tax money). Not to mention that they have access to local production data by necessity. This could be further organized to include academia that could use those projects to bring on new generation of developers, security testers etc. There is really no down side to this, only benefits, along with less Oracle yacht racing. I congratz Bulgaria for making those efforts and it looks like they succeeded: https://futurism.com/bulgaria-amends-law-to-require-open-source-governmental-software https://futurism.com/bulgaria-amends-law-to-require-open-sou...
- squarefoot 5y ago
  > Anything custom made for the gov MUST BE FOSS as money is from the people, so people MUST own it. This should also include the operating systems and associated tools used to run such software. Right now there are countries around the world shoveling loads of money to alternatives because they suddenly realized Kaspersky can't be trusted.
  - majkinetor 5y ago
    It seems that Bulgaria allows for usage of proprietary mainstream tools (such as Sql Server) but doesnt recommend it. Custom made software MUST be FOSS tho. which is IMO good middle ground. Also, that law was adopted 6 years ago. FOSS is stronger then ever IMO now, and there is really no reason nowdays to use propriatery stuff for majority of things.
- worldsayshi 5y ago
  It would also be a huge incentive for developers to turn to the public sector.
aaron695 5y ago
fbkaLP 5y ago
This is a typical EU declaration. Many bureaucrats with their snouts in the trough in Brussels work out some whitepaper to get billable hours. The city of Munich tried to use Linux until Ballmer et al. visited and they backed off. The EU is a racket for government officials. Most countries are worse off than before, wages go down and the middle/working class is poor. Government buildings look like palaces next to decaying houses of private "citizens" who cannot afford to maintain them (if they can buy a house at all in the first place).
- dingdingdang 5y ago
  Honestly closer to the truth than is comfortable, even improvements to public utilities are routed through private companies with such vague contractual agreements that the primary losers are the supposed beneficiaries?! Have seen this up close in Denmark but the tales from the rest of the block speak for themselves.
andrewclunn 5y ago
3 areas I want OSS to have REAL government backing: - Libre / Open Office because open document standards aid collaboration and reverse compatibility. - Video / audio conferencing because security and the network effect there are so important. - Operating system because if you make the leap to an OS OS then all the incentives align to promote usage of open source software for everything by default.
emptysongglass 5y ago
Denmark really needs to step up its game here. We function on a public tender system where behemoth private corporations bid on public sector solutions (like our digital ID system, public childcare app, corona pass, digital post, etc.) None of this code is OSS and the result is very shady behavior from certain giants (I'm looking squarely at you Netcompany) who hold our digital infrastructure hostage. I've worked directly in this sector as a SWE for a few years now and I can tell you it is rotten. We pay vast quantities in taxes and what we pay to these parasitic corporations out of our taxes is exploitive. I hope we can turn this ship around but we're so deep in the muck I don't know how we can extricate ourselves without getting pulled down in the consequent riptide.
- specialist 5y ago
  I advocate Citizen Owned Software. Taxpayers must own all the software (and stack) that they fund (pay) to develop. Back when I wrote software for hospitals, we had to put our entire stack into an escrow. So that if we disappeared, or the relationship ended for whatever reason, our clients weren't left high and dry. Software and stack in escrow should be the norm. Further, that software should be FOSS. I'm totally fine with orgs (govt, NGOs, not-for-profits) buying COTS. Provided that any and all customizations are citizen-owned.
sylware 5y ago
FOSS alone is no enough anymore, we need lean, simple from all perspectives (but able to do a good enough job), and stable in time FOSS. For instance, noscript/basic (x)html browsers are beyond than enough for citizen access of administration sites (namely a google(blink|geeko)/apple(webkit) should not be mantadory).
deknos 5y ago
only marketing yadda yadda
marcodiego 5y ago
Sometimes I think about governments paying for proprietary software. I wonder why not FLOSS? The answer I estimate: "There's no FLOSS replacement". Then I think: "Why not pay for the development of a replacement?", the answer I estimate: "Because it would be even more expensive than using proprietary software. Which takes me to the next question: "Why don't many government unity to pay for FLOSS development?" For the last question I never got a reasonable answer. Probably the answer is just lack of coordination. If FLOSS became a need thing in even a small group of governments, I'm sure dependency on proprietary software in the public sector would diminish and that is a very good thing.
- unilynx 5y ago
  Governments are terrible at scope and requirements. Bring 10 local governments together to run development of a new FOSS software thingy and you’ll get something that none of the 10 would ever use in practice, if it ever gets finished at all
  - marcodiego 5y ago
    Imagine a few governments donating some million dollars for LibreOffice every year for a decade. Wouldn't it make a difference?
    - unilynx 5y ago
      Probably. But I don’t see how that could happen regarding accountability. “Why is our municipality donating hundreds of thousands to something that is free whilst increasing ticket prices for the swimming pool?” At least with the idea of combining the funding of municipalities to build something together as FOSS, they’re not paying for something that already exists
- specialist 5y ago
  My one experience with a FOSS consortium was terrible. I got hired by a uni explicitly to work on FOSS. The project was Kuali Student. I didn't care about the stack, the language, or methodologies. I only cared about FOSS and governance. I wanted to learn how these orgs work. Amongst many, many other problems, Kuali is the living manifestation of Byran Cantrill's wisdom about why OpenSolaris failed: Although our team had the right to fork, we didn't have the power. So we couldn't ever fix stuff, nor feed patches upstream. We were reduced to mitigating and workarounds. For years. I fear that humans don't (yet) we have the governance technology to make FOSS consortiums viable. If anyone has success stories, please please share.
ramboldio 5y ago
30 years out it will be probably viewed as 'absurd' that anybody would ever operate a democracy on proprietary software.
pfortuny 5y ago
Meanwhile, in Real Life in Spain https://www.euribor.com.es/2019/05/21/el-congreso-se-gasta-504-673e-en-ipads-para-diputados/amp/ https://www.euribor.com.es/2019/05/21/el-congreso-se-gasta-5... (500.000Eu for ipad pros for the members of parliament)… How do you mix that with open source software?
elcapitan 5y ago
OT, but who thought this "declaration style" is a good idea for larger texts? To me it seems this is extremely hard to read, and makes it almost impenetrable. By putting the verb in the gerund and hiding the subject of every sentence somewhere 2 pages above this is very effective in obfuscating who wants to do what. Clearly no normal citizen could read this.
jdrc 5y ago
Actually the EU should build common administration platforms for all members of EU. There is no reason that each individual country is building its own e-government platforms. If they are OSS a plus
- beebeepka 5y ago
  Well, they should but apparently these things take time. The level of incompetence in the public sector here in Bulgaria is so obviously mind blowing, it can only mean one thing - corruption. E-government services speed things up and reduce opportunities for taking bribes. Of course the mob that ran the country since 2009 fought progress on every step.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
ldjb 5y ago
Let's suppose you work in government and want to build a business case for using and contributing to FLOSS. Idealogical arguments will only go so far; the priority is to cut costs, make do with limited resources (staff) and ensure systems are reliable and flexible. What do you do? Are there any tried-and-tested approaches? Asking for a friend. ;-)
qualudeheart 5y ago
What does the supply chain security for open source software look like? I would expect more attempts to compromise open source projects.

242 points by fermigier 5y ago

Most of the software that I have seen implemented in government organizations is COTS(Commercial off the shelf) software. Governments prefer it because they can usually get multiple vendors to bid on it and can also get SLA. A big problem with implementing custom software is that maintenance of that software would only be done by the organization that wrote it.

fermigier 5y ago

From the declaration: The European Ministers responsible for public administration, public transformation and the civil service, with the support of the European Commission, declare their intention: […] To promote open source software within public administrations and their sharing, by: - Recognising the major role played by secure open source solutions in the transformation of public administrations, which allow for the pooling of investments among multiple organisations, offer transparency and interoperability by default and guarantee control over the technologies used as well as greater technological independence; - Leveraging open source solutions to strengthen collaboration between public administrations, by promoting the sharing of such solutions created or used by administrations within the European Union; - Promoting a fair redistribution of the value created by open source solutions, especially for those who produce and share open source code.

gyulai 5y ago
Sounds very wishy-washy. The action verbs here are "recognize the [...] role played", "promoting the sharing of [...] solutions created/used", "promoting a fair redistribution of the value created [...]". This stuff is so vague that I have zero idea what it's supposed to mean in practice. The language also seems to be quite deliberately referring to stuff that's already there, and definitely not saying anything like putting more of it into place or systematically favouring open source over closed source or anything like that. Typical Brussels hot air.
- sofixa 5y ago
  The EU commission already sponsors FOSS software, directly and indirectly ( bug bounty programs), so it's really not hot air. Also some EU countries, like France, open source a lot of their code ( e.g. the French government SSO is on GitHub). The language is vague because it's a generic policy to follow, not "Portugal will replace all MS Office with LibreOffice". That's how policies work, they're generic guidelines to follow.
  - gyulai 5y ago
    When software is developed in house in public administration, then open sourcing it, in my mind, is kind of a no brainer, because it was financed with the taxpayer's money. If they keep it as a "trade secret" it most surely won't maximize value creation throughout society. They're probably not going to spin it out into a government-owned for-profit entity that competes in the market. (Might be interesting if it generates a lot of profit that relieves our tax burdens, but it really doesn't sit right. There are probably laws against that sort of thing. Also: Free markets). So that really only leaves open source / open data as the only viable path. The real question is: What sort of circumstances drive a government to develop something "in house" that they'll later open source, or adopt an open source solution, when that competes with giving the government contract to your industry cronies. It would be real nice, if we could get a clear policy framework that basically just says: Whenever open source is an option, the government must go with open source. But we are far away from anyone in power clearly calling for that. And we've seen some real setbacks where that is concerned: For example the city administration of the city of Munich had that policy in the late 00s / early 10s, to the point where they had migrated 15000 workstations to Linux in 2013, shaving €10M/yr off the Microsoft tax. All it took was some government officials getting frustrated over a glitch in the e-mail server once in 2017 and compatibility issues about MS Office vs OpenOffice and they reversed course and decided to migrate everything back to Windows by the end of 2020. (It definitely had nothing to do with Microsoft moving their German headquarters to Munich in 2016, if you're naive enough to believe that). -- Don't know the extent to which that actually happened. As I'm researching this right now on Wikipedia [2], I'm seeing that apparently the new government decided to reverse course back to open source in 2020. -- Don't know the extent to which they've actually finished/begun anything here. I've also dug into European funding schemes that maintainers of open source projects can tap into for their own living expenses in recognition of their contribution to open source. -- That is incredibly thin. You'd have to be a maintainer of a superstar open source project if you want even the minutest chance at a one-off stipend of up to €50k. Compare that to how science funding works: I travel extensively in circles of people who do EU-funded science projects and many of them will readily admit that they are downright embarrassed by how little value they create in return for that funding that they get from the EU. These science projects quickly run into the millions, even when they are quite small projects, and the total budget at the government level is quite considerable. When compared to that, the money that they sometimes throw at open source seems like a symbolic amount at best. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LiMux https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LiMux [2] https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/LiMux https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/LiMux

Ambolia 5y ago

I think the impact of OSS is much smaller now that most people use their devices as web browsers to interact with cloud applications. It's still important, but just a small part of the puzzle, rather than a game changer like it was before in the times of doing most activities through desktop applications.

kzrdude 5y ago
We wouldn't have cloud applications without open source software: FOSS software underpins everything and the reason for its success is that there is no fee, it's just free and easy to use. It's as if sugar and flour was free for the food industry.
Bayart 5y ago
All the core software and much of the tooling running cloud infrastructure is OSS. The browsers are OSS. The allowable space for proprietary software has shrunk significantly.
- josteink 5y ago
  > The allowable space for proprietary software has shrunk significantly. Not really. It has just shifted. All the proprietary software we use today are through various SaaS offerings. And that these are built on an OSS base and freeloading off all the work and effort invested by volunteers into OSS software-components is not something that you as a user get to benefit from. While not illegal or a license-violation in itself, it does strike me as somewhat immoral.
  - enriquto 5y ago
    That is the exact problem that the AGPL solves.
  - hughrr 5y ago
    Some of the OSS projects originated from and are entirely maintained by commercial entities.
  - 5y ago

pokepim 5y ago

How can we protect against people like RIAEvnagelist and whole node-ipc fiasco who undermine whole point of OSS? Imagine if public admin app uses some library written by lunatic? Whole goverment system can be target of such terrorist attack.

ZeroGravitas 5y ago
I had to look up what RIAEvangelist was, but now I've done so, I'm not sure why we need protected from it: https://github.com/RIAEvangelist/peacenotwar https://github.com/RIAEvangelist/peacenotwar Seems like it's promoting good software security practices?
- smitop 5y ago
  At one point node-ipc deleted all files on the filesystem if the user had a Russian/Belarusian IP, they have since made it non-destructive (just adding a file to the desktop).
  - ZeroGravitas 5y ago
    Nothing on the GitHub repo suggests this is true, can you link to a reliable source for this info?
    - lapinot 5y ago
      https://gist.github.com/MidSpike/f7ae3457420af78a54b38a31cc0c809c https://gist.github.com/MidSpike/f7ae3457420af78a54b38a31cc0...
dgellow 5y ago
Proprietary software is very likely to rely on the same open source dependencies, also using NPM, pypi, etc, with the same baked assumptions that allow for that type of supply chain attack. Just saying that it’s a systematic problem in the way we use, manage, and consider 3rd party dependencies. And the risk already exist right now, without administration promoting open source software. (I don’t know how to protect against it at scale)

majkinetor 5y ago

Not only FOSS should be promoted in use (as in PostgreSql) but in making (as in budget execution platform). Anything custom made for the gov MUST BE FOSS as money is from the people, so people MUST own it. Vendors should earn on initial development, and eventually subsequent support/consultation/upgrade if it happens (i.e. work exceeds gov capacity). Big vendors that now get to do this via tenders do not have best interest in mind for the government (as it contradicts profits most of the time) and consequently people suffer. Also, there are usually independent levels of government that need to use the same or similar software (now they each order it from independent vendors so there are multiple platforms doing the same/similar thing each payed by tax money). Not to mention that they have access to local production data by necessity. This could be further organized to include academia that could use those projects to bring on new generation of developers, security testers etc. There is really no down side to this, only benefits, along with less Oracle yacht racing. I congratz Bulgaria for making those efforts and it looks like they succeeded: https://futurism.com/bulgaria-amends-law-to-require-open-source-governmental-software https://futurism.com/bulgaria-amends-law-to-require-open-sou...

squarefoot 5y ago
> Anything custom made for the gov MUST BE FOSS as money is from the people, so people MUST own it. This should also include the operating systems and associated tools used to run such software. Right now there are countries around the world shoveling loads of money to alternatives because they suddenly realized Kaspersky can't be trusted.
- majkinetor 5y ago
  It seems that Bulgaria allows for usage of proprietary mainstream tools (such as Sql Server) but doesnt recommend it. Custom made software MUST be FOSS tho. which is IMO good middle ground. Also, that law was adopted 6 years ago. FOSS is stronger then ever IMO now, and there is really no reason nowdays to use propriatery stuff for majority of things.
worldsayshi 5y ago
It would also be a huge incentive for developers to turn to the public sector.

aaron695 5y ago

fbkaLP 5y ago

This is a typical EU declaration. Many bureaucrats with their snouts in the trough in Brussels work out some whitepaper to get billable hours. The city of Munich tried to use Linux until Ballmer et al. visited and they backed off. The EU is a racket for government officials. Most countries are worse off than before, wages go down and the middle/working class is poor. Government buildings look like palaces next to decaying houses of private "citizens" who cannot afford to maintain them (if they can buy a house at all in the first place).

dingdingdang 5y ago
Honestly closer to the truth than is comfortable, even improvements to public utilities are routed through private companies with such vague contractual agreements that the primary losers are the supposed beneficiaries?! Have seen this up close in Denmark but the tales from the rest of the block speak for themselves.

andrewclunn 5y ago

3 areas I want OSS to have REAL government backing: - Libre / Open Office because open document standards aid collaboration and reverse compatibility. - Video / audio conferencing because security and the network effect there are so important. - Operating system because if you make the leap to an OS OS then all the incentives align to promote usage of open source software for everything by default.

emptysongglass 5y ago

Denmark really needs to step up its game here. We function on a public tender system where behemoth private corporations bid on public sector solutions (like our digital ID system, public childcare app, corona pass, digital post, etc.) None of this code is OSS and the result is very shady behavior from certain giants (I'm looking squarely at you Netcompany) who hold our digital infrastructure hostage. I've worked directly in this sector as a SWE for a few years now and I can tell you it is rotten. We pay vast quantities in taxes and what we pay to these parasitic corporations out of our taxes is exploitive. I hope we can turn this ship around but we're so deep in the muck I don't know how we can extricate ourselves without getting pulled down in the consequent riptide.

specialist 5y ago
I advocate Citizen Owned Software. Taxpayers must own all the software (and stack) that they fund (pay) to develop. Back when I wrote software for hospitals, we had to put our entire stack into an escrow. So that if we disappeared, or the relationship ended for whatever reason, our clients weren't left high and dry. Software and stack in escrow should be the norm. Further, that software should be FOSS. I'm totally fine with orgs (govt, NGOs, not-for-profits) buying COTS. Provided that any and all customizations are citizen-owned.

sylware 5y ago

FOSS alone is no enough anymore, we need lean, simple from all perspectives (but able to do a good enough job), and stable in time FOSS. For instance, noscript/basic (x)html browsers are beyond than enough for citizen access of administration sites (namely a google(blink|geeko)/apple(webkit) should not be mantadory).

deknos 5y ago

only marketing yadda yadda

marcodiego 5y ago

Sometimes I think about governments paying for proprietary software. I wonder why not FLOSS? The answer I estimate: "There's no FLOSS replacement". Then I think: "Why not pay for the development of a replacement?", the answer I estimate: "Because it would be even more expensive than using proprietary software. Which takes me to the next question: "Why don't many government unity to pay for FLOSS development?" For the last question I never got a reasonable answer. Probably the answer is just lack of coordination. If FLOSS became a need thing in even a small group of governments, I'm sure dependency on proprietary software in the public sector would diminish and that is a very good thing.

unilynx 5y ago
Governments are terrible at scope and requirements. Bring 10 local governments together to run development of a new FOSS software thingy and you’ll get something that none of the 10 would ever use in practice, if it ever gets finished at all
- marcodiego 5y ago
  Imagine a few governments donating some million dollars for LibreOffice every year for a decade. Wouldn't it make a difference?
  - unilynx 5y ago
    Probably. But I don’t see how that could happen regarding accountability. “Why is our municipality donating hundreds of thousands to something that is free whilst increasing ticket prices for the swimming pool?” At least with the idea of combining the funding of municipalities to build something together as FOSS, they’re not paying for something that already exists
specialist 5y ago
My one experience with a FOSS consortium was terrible. I got hired by a uni explicitly to work on FOSS. The project was Kuali Student. I didn't care about the stack, the language, or methodologies. I only cared about FOSS and governance. I wanted to learn how these orgs work. Amongst many, many other problems, Kuali is the living manifestation of Byran Cantrill's wisdom about why OpenSolaris failed: Although our team had the right to fork, we didn't have the power. So we couldn't ever fix stuff, nor feed patches upstream. We were reduced to mitigating and workarounds. For years. I fear that humans don't (yet) we have the governance technology to make FOSS consortiums viable. If anyone has success stories, please please share.

ramboldio 5y ago

30 years out it will be probably viewed as 'absurd' that anybody would ever operate a democracy on proprietary software.

pfortuny 5y ago

Meanwhile, in Real Life in Spain https://www.euribor.com.es/2019/05/21/el-congreso-se-gasta-504-673e-en-ipads-para-diputados/amp/ https://www.euribor.com.es/2019/05/21/el-congreso-se-gasta-5... (500.000Eu for ipad pros for the members of parliament)… How do you mix that with open source software?

elcapitan 5y ago

OT, but who thought this "declaration style" is a good idea for larger texts? To me it seems this is extremely hard to read, and makes it almost impenetrable. By putting the verb in the gerund and hiding the subject of every sentence somewhere 2 pages above this is very effective in obfuscating who wants to do what. Clearly no normal citizen could read this.

jdrc 5y ago

Actually the EU should build common administration platforms for all members of EU. There is no reason that each individual country is building its own e-government platforms. If they are OSS a plus

beebeepka 5y ago
Well, they should but apparently these things take time. The level of incompetence in the public sector here in Bulgaria is so obviously mind blowing, it can only mean one thing - corruption. E-government services speed things up and reduce opportunities for taking bribes. Of course the mob that ran the country since 2009 fought progress on every step.

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

ldjb 5y ago

Let's suppose you work in government and want to build a business case for using and contributing to FLOSS. Idealogical arguments will only go so far; the priority is to cut costs, make do with limited resources (staff) and ensure systems are reliable and flexible. What do you do? Are there any tried-and-tested approaches? Asking for a friend. ;-)

qualudeheart 5y ago

What does the supply chain security for open source software look like? I would expect more attempts to compromise open source projects.