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."

Comments

Why GPL?

[dirk]

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.