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Debate On Public Procurement of Open Source
An anonymous reader writes "A debate over at TechCentralStation has Jim DeLong arguing against favoring open source in government procurement contracts, and Julian Sanchez arguing for it." Sanchez' piece is especially well argued; I especially like his phrasing here: "it's not clear precisely what a 'hands off' policy means in a context where government is necessarily acting as a player in the market."
for great justice
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If all this should have a reason, we would be the last to know.
Under the GPL, the licensee agrees not to sell or otherwise limit the reproduction of the software (though one is allowed to charge for costs of distribution, warranties, and services, as noted above in the discussion of Red Hat).
If he had just bothered to read this,he might have had a little crediblity. Instead, he chose to believe Microsoft FUD.
For example, if the government needs an inventory system built, pays a professional to do it, and turns the results back to the public, then how is the quality of the system affected by the fact that the end result is open source? After identifying the groups with an interest in open source, DeLong spends the rest of the article explaining how such a system can only pale in quality over the long run in comparison to a commercial system -- without ever noting that the difference between open source procurement vs. commercial procurement will in most cases only determine whether or not the public will have access to the results of software design done for the government.
On a related note, some background on the think-tank he works for. In some ways, this is like having Richard Stallman arguing the merits for copy-protection.
Excellent background link.
These bozos are insane.
One of my favorites:
>PFF's Medical Innovation Project, headed by former Department of
>Health and Human Services Secretary Louis Sullivan, "seeks to replace
>the current process by which new drugs and medical devices are
>brought to market." To this end, it proposes transfer of Food & Drug
>Administration safety and efficacy testing to private organizations.
Let's work this out - suppose the 'private testing organization' rubber-stamps 'deadagra', an even more potent form of 'viagra'. However, 'deadagra' has some more unpleasent side-effects (say, sterilization?) that somehow didn't come out in the testing phase. How much do you want to bet that the 'private testing organizations' will be immune from lawsuits for that?
These guys have a faith in the marketplace that is unfounded. There are two factors that they keep ignoring - first, the marketplace is never perfectly efficient, and second, that corporations can impact the regulatory environment for their benefit.
I love how they still support 'more competition' in electrical power industry. They probably want to ignore California's experience, or they would state that there were loopholes in the law, and that the guilty parties will be punished. Don't buy that - first, the corporations are the ones that inserted the loopholes in the first place, and second, I see all of those companies keeping a larger chuck of their ill-gotten gains.
No, I don't trust in god. He'll have to pay up front, like everybody else.
I have to ask, why is the GPL the only option other than proprietary? Releasing it as public domain, or a BSD style license (which is the license closest to PD) seems a lot more fair than releasing it under the GPL. The GPL is a great license, but it's main purpose is keeping the GPL around. It is great for people who want their stuff never to be closed source, but that isn't what the government is about. If software is created by the government, it is paid for by taxes. That should mean that anyone can use the software (and source) any way they want. If you want to use it in a GPL program, that's great, go for it. But if I want to use it in a closed source program (or even a BSD licensed program), that should be great too. From this perspective, the GPL is less a "free" license, and more of a "political" license. It forces people to do something specific with the code if they choose to reuse it.
"Information wants to be expensive" - Stewart Brand, the same guy who said "Information wants to be free"
...the Open Source movement, which has some impressive strengths and has produced some significant accomplishments.
Every article that does not favor OSS, Linux, etc. always includes such a disclaimer. How else to appear unbiased?
Example:
You dress nicely, however, you're ugly, dirty, smell bad, need to brush your teeth more, need take a shower at least once a month, and you have an all-around awful personality. But let me repeat, you dress nicely.
Also, Sanchez points out "...the elephant in the living room, seldom mentioned by OS advocates, is that the programmers must be supported somehow."
Ummm.... technical support? How about customizing software for a specific customer? Extra features? Many do that. Helping a company set up your product is usually very profitable. Example: Amazon using Red Hat? Sure, they could have downloaded Red Hat onto CDs... but they opted to have Red Hat employees help set everything up, and of course have ongoing technical support.
Beyond this, a model that depends on free riding by corporations, individuals, and governments is not likely to be sustainable.
See above paragraph.
One last little rant: "btw"? How many real writers use abbreviations like that? (He used it while talking about academicians)
Open source, ala BSD or even public domain is fine. GPL is not.
Stow your line of crap about evil corporations stealing our tax money. Corporations pay taxes, indeed, they pay taxes twice - the corporation itself pays them, and then the employees and share holders are whacked with income tax from the company's profits.
I should be able to make money off of software developed with my tax money. So should corporations. Furthermore, we both should have full, unrestricted use of said software. The GPL, by its nature, restricts the use of software. Free as in speech does not mean free as in freedom.
Of course, the BSD license restricts rights as well - but in that case, it is an ethical restriction. Having to include the names of people who have worked on code that's being used does not harm the ability of the user to generate income or use it in the way that they choose.
The GPL, on the other hand, infringes upon free use rights. If you are forced to give up source with executables, you now have little chance of selling software for the sake of selling software. Theft of your work will increase, as anti-copy measures can easily be countermanded with a few select comment symbols. Your own work, not payed for with your or other's taxes, must now be given away to everyone who's interested.
Don't get me wrong, I think the GPL is a great license. I just don't think it has a place in government code that's written via tax money.
If the goverment (US) paid to have software written, and they have, whould it be possible to gain access to the source code through the Freedom of Information Act? We may already have the right to this software.
This, of cource, would only be true for software written under contract where the goverment ended up with ownership of the software.
I'm missing something here. The text you quoted doesn't appear to be from the quote you're responding to. What's it from.
(I haven't read the articles yet, sorry if that's where it's from)
Information doesn't want to be anthropomorphized anymore.