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I'm not sure that I understand how we can change it from your reply, though; or what we could change. Some things seem to be invariants here: people need to ge

I'm not sure that I understand how we can change it from your reply, though; or what we could change. Some things seem to be invariants here: people need to get paid (or they will do something else); corporations are a good way to organize people to get paid to do something, whereas government is not; corporations are not organized for the public benefit and have to be balanced out by some other institution for public goods, like roads and many others, where aligning incentives through the market is too difficult. What do you disagree with, in all that? Now from the example you cite, and so many others, one direction we might take is that actually DoD projects are what works and so we just need to do more of them. This actually worked okay for the early history of the internet and we got quite a few decentralized, trustworthy communication mechanisms as a result -- the core internet protocols, email, the web. That seems to be tied to a certain era, though; so that's why I'm looking for alternatives. One option would be to do something like a museum: a non-profit that takes money from the public (sometimes as tickets and sometimes as grants) and then pays people (directly or through contractors) to accomplish something in the public good.

dragontamer 2y ago
> That seems to be tied to a certain era, though; https://github.com/NationalSecurityAgency/ghidra https://github.com/NationalSecurityAgency/ghidra I'm talking about modern software, Ghidra. > What do you disagree with, in all that? It seems like a balance has been achieved somewhere in the US Government. Maybe Ghidra was an accident but if it could happen once, we can analyze the team behind it, the circumstance and create new government organizations that follow it. And it can then serve as the basis of a model for other public-good software. A lot of video game reverse-engineerers now use Ghidra for video game analysis. Its a really good tool. I can imagine that the security / infosec / bug-hunting communities would also like a tool like Ghidra. So it sounds good for a net-positive effect for the public good. Its just kind of unexpected, that's all. But its still US Government software that has a good niche. ------------ I've seen some other analysis like Argonne National Labs GREET (https://greet.anl.gov/ https://greet.anl.gov/), which helps analyze different supply-chain models for how much greenhouse gasses exist. And thanks to GREET, there are large scale analysis into what kind of EVs contribute to more greenhouse-gas emissions. A subject that requires deep analysis of the various chemistries that go into different EVs: NCA vs LiFePo4 vs NCM etc. etc.. As well as hypothetical future chemistries like Silicon or Sodium batteries. So we are now better able to focus on better solutions moving forward. GREET sucks as a UI but the features are clearly good. -------- Whenever I think of US Government software, these are the examples that come up. I think its... fine. The Government should make more tools for the benefit of society. GREET isn't as well written as Ghidra but its still software that matches the profile of public good that you and I are talking about.
- solidsnack9000 2y ago
  There was a time when the DoD supported and led the development of core internet protocols that resulted in open systems we all use: Email, TCP/IP, the web, &c. That era has passed, though. Do I have the facts wrong there? I don't think Ghidra or GREET are even relevant -- what makes you include them here? They are cases where the government has produced some open source that is useful to developers -- even good open source "...sucks as a UI but the features are clearly good" -- but that's not really a problem we need to solve. There is plenty of good open source for developers. For "societal software", as you put it, it's actually unworkable if it "...sucks as a UI but the features are clearly good"; it takes considerable design and usability resources to get the UI to be nice, and that's why the Discord vs IRC conversation comes. On the one hand, we have a company producing a product that developers actually want to use for chat, and on the other hand we have an open system that is increasingly falling behind.
  - dragontamer 2y ago
    Ghidra is doing a lot better than commercial software it seems, only IDA seems to be keeping up with it? Your point about "TCP/IP" and other historical software was that "it was a long time ago". I'm trying to point out that modern projects available today show that the Government is still an entity that can create good software that absolutely does crush other commercial works and/or serves niches that society needs that commerical failed to serve. GREET is the example of societal software that must be created and is part of the solution to future climate change... in its small way. There needs to be programs that track emissions and analyzes supply chains and different products. I don't think any commercial (or open source) program could have done similar to GREET, its something that only a well-regarded lab (Argonne National Labs) can release and immediately gain recognition as a well-regarded program that makes decent estimates. There was a time when people (ex: TCP/IP days) thought that government software was too powerful and that it'd wreck the free market just by participating. The reason the Government (IMO anyway) held back on software design is to protect the free market, but its always been an entity that could deliver if we just had the will to ask the government to make something. ----------- The issues you're bringing up seem to all be about how commercial needs fail to line up to societal needs. But its never really been the commercial world's goal to make society better... its instead the commercial world's goal to make money for itself (which when well regulated, can often lead to societal improvement). For any program that directly needs to improve society (ex: reverse engineering / software security... and/or supply chain analysis for climate change planning), its 100% should be a government project and owned by the government. > There is plenty of good open source for developers. Open Source has a major funding problem. If people are willing to improve society voluntarily, that's good. But we can't rely upon that for every bit of computer infrastructure we have. To get true benefits as a society, we need to actually pay people.

dragontamer 2y ago

> That seems to be tied to a certain era, though; https://github.com/NationalSecurityAgency/ghidra https://github.com/NationalSecurityAgency/ghidra I'm talking about modern software, Ghidra. > What do you disagree with, in all that? It seems like a balance has been achieved somewhere in the US Government. Maybe Ghidra was an accident but if it could happen once, we can analyze the team behind it, the circumstance and create new government organizations that follow it. And it can then serve as the basis of a model for other public-good software. A lot of video game reverse-engineerers now use Ghidra for video game analysis. Its a really good tool. I can imagine that the security / infosec / bug-hunting communities would also like a tool like Ghidra. So it sounds good for a net-positive effect for the public good. Its just kind of unexpected, that's all. But its still US Government software that has a good niche. ------------ I've seen some other analysis like Argonne National Labs GREET (https://greet.anl.gov/ https://greet.anl.gov/), which helps analyze different supply-chain models for how much greenhouse gasses exist. And thanks to GREET, there are large scale analysis into what kind of EVs contribute to more greenhouse-gas emissions. A subject that requires deep analysis of the various chemistries that go into different EVs: NCA vs LiFePo4 vs NCM etc. etc.. As well as hypothetical future chemistries like Silicon or Sodium batteries. So we are now better able to focus on better solutions moving forward. GREET sucks as a UI but the features are clearly good. -------- Whenever I think of US Government software, these are the examples that come up. I think its... fine. The Government should make more tools for the benefit of society. GREET isn't as well written as Ghidra but its still software that matches the profile of public good that you and I are talking about.

solidsnack9000 2y ago
There was a time when the DoD supported and led the development of core internet protocols that resulted in open systems we all use: Email, TCP/IP, the web, &c. That era has passed, though. Do I have the facts wrong there? I don't think Ghidra or GREET are even relevant -- what makes you include them here? They are cases where the government has produced some open source that is useful to developers -- even good open source "...sucks as a UI but the features are clearly good" -- but that's not really a problem we need to solve. There is plenty of good open source for developers. For "societal software", as you put it, it's actually unworkable if it "...sucks as a UI but the features are clearly good"; it takes considerable design and usability resources to get the UI to be nice, and that's why the Discord vs IRC conversation comes. On the one hand, we have a company producing a product that developers actually want to use for chat, and on the other hand we have an open system that is increasingly falling behind.
- dragontamer 2y ago
  Ghidra is doing a lot better than commercial software it seems, only IDA seems to be keeping up with it? Your point about "TCP/IP" and other historical software was that "it was a long time ago". I'm trying to point out that modern projects available today show that the Government is still an entity that can create good software that absolutely does crush other commercial works and/or serves niches that society needs that commerical failed to serve. GREET is the example of societal software that must be created and is part of the solution to future climate change... in its small way. There needs to be programs that track emissions and analyzes supply chains and different products. I don't think any commercial (or open source) program could have done similar to GREET, its something that only a well-regarded lab (Argonne National Labs) can release and immediately gain recognition as a well-regarded program that makes decent estimates. There was a time when people (ex: TCP/IP days) thought that government software was too powerful and that it'd wreck the free market just by participating. The reason the Government (IMO anyway) held back on software design is to protect the free market, but its always been an entity that could deliver if we just had the will to ask the government to make something. ----------- The issues you're bringing up seem to all be about how commercial needs fail to line up to societal needs. But its never really been the commercial world's goal to make society better... its instead the commercial world's goal to make money for itself (which when well regulated, can often lead to societal improvement). For any program that directly needs to improve society (ex: reverse engineering / software security... and/or supply chain analysis for climate change planning), its 100% should be a government project and owned by the government. > There is plenty of good open source for developers. Open Source has a major funding problem. If people are willing to improve society voluntarily, that's good. But we can't rely upon that for every bit of computer infrastructure we have. To get true benefits as a society, we need to actually pay people.