Well, making it open source is not the same as making regular citizens/programmers to work on it. You still pay the company to develop and maintain the softwar

Well, making it open source is not the same as making regular citizens/programmers to work on it. You still pay the company to develop and maintain the software. Same way as open source developers get "sponsored". The reason is that anyone who wants to see the code and suggest on how to make it better, or to report a bug, then that would be possible. Furthermore, that work can be reused by other parts of the government. That last point is why some companies wouldn't want to do it, or would charge more. However, to your point, I think the increased cost is worth it in this case. Sure, there are going to be less better roads/schools by 500k, but the problem with that money is that there are rarely big projects for that amount, so it's not like they would be put to best use without being "lost" in the process of relocation.