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Debate On Public Procurement of Open Source

Posted by timothy on from the buggy-whips-come-to-mind dept.

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."

11 of 22 comments (clear)

  1. James V. DeLong is, of course, uninformed. by Alethes · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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.

    1. Re:James V. DeLong is, of course, uninformed. by killmenow · · Score: 2, Insightful
      I agree. I also like this:
      In addition, it is hard to see the cooperative effort working over a period of years in an environment in which hardware changes continually and software must be modified in response.
      I guess that's why we're still on the 2.0 series kernel.

      And another thing: Was it RMS that actually called the GPL "Viral" as DeLong suggests? I always attributed that label to Mundie...but I could be wrong.
    2. Re:James V. DeLong is, of course, uninformed. by JimDabell · · Score: 2
      If he had just bothered to read this,he might have had a little crediblity.

      Or even this.

    3. Re:James V. DeLong is, of course, uninformed. by matthewn · · Score: 2
      It took a lot of effort to continue reading once he said this:

      But the elephant in the living room, seldom mentioned by OS advocates, is that the programmers must be supported somehow.

      The dude clearly hasn't done his homework. I've never known an "Open Source advocate" who wasn't willing to tackle this [non]issue head-on.

    4. Re:James V. DeLong is, of course, uninformed. by MrResistor · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Exactly what I was going to say. He had a modicum of credibility until he made that blatantly ignorant statement. I was even willing to let his confusion about who coined the term "viral lecense" slide until I read that.

      The comment on the quality of MS support was really interesting, though, and he started to make some other good points, but failed to follow through. To bad he had to go and destroy his credibility like that, it might have become an interesting debate.

      --
      Under capitalism man exploits man. Under communism it's the other way around.
  2. Strawman by Meat+Blaster · · Score: 3, Insightful
    Like others, I was initially inclined to dismiss Jim DeLong's article on the basis that his research wasn't thorough enough to differentiate Craig Mundie's comments from Richard Stallman's. Upon further reading, I've decided instead to dismiss it because he's not factoring anything into his arguments besides the business perspective, and even that appears to be flawed when you consider the issue.

    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.

  3. These guys are nuts! by chriso11 · · Score: 2

    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.
  4. Why GPL? by dirk · · Score: 3, Interesting

    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"
    1. Re:Why GPL? by dirk · · Score: 2

      > If software is created by the government, it is
      > paid for by taxes. ...But it belongs to the voters. The revised BSD lisence would do very nicely, but I don't see what is wrong with the GPL for publicly funded code.

      The government doesn't need to write programs for businesses to distribute under proprietary lisences. It should be enough for the government to write (free) software that can be used together with proprietary software. I don't see why businesses should be allowed to charge for the software, or how free (as in beer) software based on government developed code would be better for the voters than FOSS.

      You are assuming the only people on earth who want to release closed-code programs are businesses looking to make a buck. There are many small programs written by individuals that are not open source (some charge, but others are freeware). Why should these people be forced to release their code if they don't want to? The key is true freedom allows anyone to do what they want with the code. That means you are free to release it OSS, and I am free to keep it closed.

      Also, don't forget that businesses pay taxes, just like individuals. Shouldn't they have the same benefits from the software?

      --

      "Information wants to be expensive" - Stewart Brand, the same guy who said "Information wants to be free"
    2. Re:Why GPL? by Russellkhan · · Score: 2

      The way I see it, the GPL works well because it protects the code that's already been paid for through taxes from becoming proprietary and therefore causing the taxpayers to have to pay for it again. It is true that a BSD style license will do that for the code in it's released state, and that's a good thing, but personally, I like the idea of the government working on and releasing software that must stay free.

      Unless I understand the concept wrong, releasing software to the public domain offers no protection at all - whoever wants to can come along and copyright the work and then it's lost to all others unless they are willing to meet that owner's licensing requirements, whatever they may be.

      --
      Information doesn't want to be anthropomorphized anymore.
  5. OT: quoting what? by Russellkhan · · Score: 2

    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.