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The government should fund code development? How would individual programmers pitch their projects to the government? Not all code that's created, even if it's

by wooby 17y ago

The government should fund code development? How would individual programmers pitch their projects to the government? Not all code that's created, even if it's free, is ever useful to anybody. Figuring out how to "turn code into consumer value" is a very hard problem, as I'm sure any entrepreneur would tell you. And it's sort of a backwards way of looking at how software, and the people that make it, can benefit themselves and society best. First, there needs to a problem. Then, you solve it. Anyways, I think the kind of thing you're talking about already exists in a more general way - government contracts. The government decides they have a problem, comes up with a list of specifications, and bidding on the proposed solution is open. The most qualified company that solves the problem for the least amount of money or in the shortest amount of time wins. (At least, that's how it's supposed to work.) Many contractors that develop for the government, and bid on these contracts, already use FOSS because it gives them a competitive edge when bidding. For instance, some versions of the FBCB2, a communications system for humvees and other military vehicles, run on Red Hat: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FBCB2 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FBCB2 and http://74.125.95.132/search?q=cache:LLwHBOS8JmYJ:www.cjmtk.com/EventRegistration/CjmtkConf07/04_FBCB2_CJMTK_Migration.PDF http://74.125.95.132/search?q=cache:LLwHBOS8JmYJ:www.cjmtk.c... I think that academia and savvy businesses are really where it's at with open source. As bad as academic bureaucracy can be, government bureaucracy is in my experience much, much worse. So, all things considered, I'd think that even if the government had a direct interest in improving open source software, the best way to do it is through more funding for education - get more people to school, and get more people programming.

JesseAldridge 17y ago
The most obvious way for a programmer to pitch to their projects is to use a committee of experts, like YC does. I'm sure we could come up with other methods too; maybe some sort of web-based voting scheme, for instance. Government contracts are nice for solving certain problems, where you have a narrow goal to achieve, but don't address other problems, such as those that call for a more general, trial-and-error, research type approach. For example, say you wanted to work on Emacs, or the Leo editor. I doubt you could get a government contract to do that under the current system, despite the fact that your work has the potential to benefit all the programmers who use those programs. You may be right about academia being the best way to go. I myself dropped out of college after two years. It felt like a big waste of time to me. You have to do a lot of irrelevant work and it's expensive as hell. The prospect of enduring another two years of that, followed by a Masters program and then a PhD just makes me cringe. I don't see any reason why we can't create an organization with minimal bureaucracy that allows hackers to do their thing.
- ram1024 17y ago
  so you want the government to put money into a experimental research type program, like Darpa with the caveat that it won't get to own and capitalize on the inventions/innovations that are created? can you see how this will never fly?

by wooby 17y ago

JesseAldridge 17y ago

The most obvious way for a programmer to pitch to their projects is to use a committee of experts, like YC does. I'm sure we could come up with other methods too; maybe some sort of web-based voting scheme, for instance. Government contracts are nice for solving certain problems, where you have a narrow goal to achieve, but don't address other problems, such as those that call for a more general, trial-and-error, research type approach. For example, say you wanted to work on Emacs, or the Leo editor. I doubt you could get a government contract to do that under the current system, despite the fact that your work has the potential to benefit all the programmers who use those programs. You may be right about academia being the best way to go. I myself dropped out of college after two years. It felt like a big waste of time to me. You have to do a lot of irrelevant work and it's expensive as hell. The prospect of enduring another two years of that, followed by a Masters program and then a PhD just makes me cringe. I don't see any reason why we can't create an organization with minimal bureaucracy that allows hackers to do their thing.

ram1024 17y ago
so you want the government to put money into a experimental research type program, like Darpa with the caveat that it won't get to own and capitalize on the inventions/innovations that are created? can you see how this will never fly?