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Government Funds Secret Sustainable Computing

Posted by Hemos on from the getting-the-money-in dept.

SEWilco writes "OSDN's NewsForge reports that Carnegie Mellon University has started a Sustainable Computing Consortium to improve the quality and security of software. The only news release is that NASA gave CMU $23 million to help create dependable software. SCC members get an internal-use license for SCC software. So taxpayers are paying millions to create proprietary software, and companies get access for a few thousand dollars. (There is some blurring between CMU's SCC and CMU's High Dependability Computing Consortium, although HDCC's web site has been idle for a year.)"

4 of 192 comments (clear)

  1. Free the software by jhoger · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Non-classified government funded software should be Free for public use, I guess is the point here. Are there any ongoing lobbying efforts to this effect?

  2. Public funds should equal public source. by rushfan · · Score: 5, Insightful

    If the software is written using public funds (i.e. my tax dollars are paying for this), then the resulting software should be publically available. Either under a GPL type license or under a BSD sytle license (with a BSD license, then even companies could incorporate the publically funded technology into their products to sell, sorta giving them something back for their tax dollars). Either way, if we paid [taxes] for it, then it should be available to us.

    Maybe we could get a bill passed that states all software not written for national security that is paid for by taxes should be open to the tax payers. Just a thought.

  3. So what happens when... by csguy314 · · Score: 5, Funny

    stuff from the FSF is still around in a few decades, and their stuff has been completely rewritten 100 times?
    Maybe then they'll realize what sustainable means...
    nahh....

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    This is left as an exercise for the reader.
  4. I actually serve on the committee by quinto2000 · · Score: 5, Informative

    That is currently reviewing Carnegie Mellon's restricted research policy. I'll bring this up. Just so that you all know, this research must be with one of CMU's "semi-autonomous units," and no students are participating in the research, otherwise it could not have cleared our Provost. At any rate, this is interesting information to have.

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    Ceci n'est pas un post