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This project isn’t in need of critical feedback. The fatal problems with the proposition they’ve put forward are plainly obvious. They’ve simply chosen to try a

This project isn’t in need of critical feedback. The fatal problems with the proposition they’ve put forward are plainly obvious. They’ve simply chosen to try and ignore them. I also support making publicly funded code open source. But campaigning for all government licensed code to be made open source by legislation, especially with no indication of what reasonable limits you think that should include, is a fundamentally stupid idea. Microsoft isn’t going to open source windows to retain government licenses, and government orgs aren’t going to stop using windows. This position puts this project in the camp of ideological extremists who are simply disconnected from reality. Including scaremongering about the security of proprietary software is also an incredibly weak and unnecessary inclusion here. If this campaign were to gain some traction with the public, the only thing it would achieve is attaching supporters of a more reasonable version of this idea, with a stupid and trivially easy to dismiss argument to support it.

burnished 3y ago
Can you use small words and explain what about this would ever require that of Microsoft? I do not see it.
- AmericanChopper 3y ago
  The entire video on the front page advocates for public organisations to only use software that is open source. > Mostly our administrations procure proprietary software, this means a lot of money goes into licenses that last for a limited amount of time, and restrict our rights. We aren’t allow to use our infrastructure in a reasonable way, and because the source code of proprietary software is usually a business secret, finding security holes, or deliberately installed back doors, is extremely difficult and even illegal. But our public administrations can do better, if all publicly financed software were to be free and open source, we could use and share our infrastructure for anything, and for as long as we wanted. It seems like you missed how stupid this proposal is. Perhaps you simply assumed that it aligned with your own, less stupid, preconceived version of this idea? In which case you should consider that this campaign is clearly targeting people who are unfamiliar with the entire concept of open source software, in order to properly gauge how harmful it could be.
  - fsflover 3y ago
    Videos never consider all necessary nuances. Did you read their brochure before making such strong conclusions about the whole project? https://fsfe.org/activities/publiccode/brochure.en.html https://fsfe.org/activities/publiccode/brochure.en.html

burnished 3y ago

Can you use small words and explain what about this would ever require that of Microsoft? I do not see it.

AmericanChopper 3y ago
The entire video on the front page advocates for public organisations to only use software that is open source. > Mostly our administrations procure proprietary software, this means a lot of money goes into licenses that last for a limited amount of time, and restrict our rights. We aren’t allow to use our infrastructure in a reasonable way, and because the source code of proprietary software is usually a business secret, finding security holes, or deliberately installed back doors, is extremely difficult and even illegal. But our public administrations can do better, if all publicly financed software were to be free and open source, we could use and share our infrastructure for anything, and for as long as we wanted. It seems like you missed how stupid this proposal is. Perhaps you simply assumed that it aligned with your own, less stupid, preconceived version of this idea? In which case you should consider that this campaign is clearly targeting people who are unfamiliar with the entire concept of open source software, in order to properly gauge how harmful it could be.
- fsflover 3y ago
  Videos never consider all necessary nuances. Did you read their brochure before making such strong conclusions about the whole project? https://fsfe.org/activities/publiccode/brochure.en.html https://fsfe.org/activities/publiccode/brochure.en.html