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Free Software as a Public Good
acone asks: "Have any national governments taken measures to subsidize open source projects? I'm aware that many have endorsed Linux in particular, and free software in general, but I was wondering about actual funding. I ask because the notion of a good built and maintained by the community almost inevitably suggests that such be treated as a public good. Many of the public goods we now take for granted--such as police, public libraries, and public fire departments--were historically provided either by private enterprises or by loosely-organized volunteers, neither of which have proven nearly as effectively for the common goods as their current government-run equivalents. An excellent example is the organization of the police force, libraries and fire department in colonial Philadelphia, in which these services became established in a very grassroots manner, then gradually gained acceptance as something that the state should provide. This pattern looks temptingly applicable to free software. In addition to the current, community-based mechanisms in which free software is developed, wouldn't it be beneficial to have dedicated groups of professional free software developers, paid by national governments to serve the overall interests of society? Seems to me like such would be a Good Thing."
There is no orginized fashion to the linux community like the police and such however
School Linux has recieved a grand from the Norwegian educational ministery. The grant was for USD 27,673.81 and funded a fundamental research into the feasibility of Linux in schools.
But you will see various governments writing or commissioning code for their own needs. The important thing is to get that code licensed appropriately (BSD or GPL or whatever your particular views are) so that the populace can use it freely.
I remember reading something a year or so ago about the German government subsidizing KDE development. I may be wrong on that.
Haven't they? And for good reason, this is basically what a good portion of his book "The Future of Ideas" is about....that is, a commons for everyone which enriches society, and how corporations are taking it over to the detriment of society in general. Read this book.
Don't be a zoa (zealous overbearing ass), be happy!
It seems to me that the very idea of paying someone to write free software is the very antithesis of what free software is all about. (Not to mention the practical problems of managing the stable of programmers, ensuring that work actually gets done etc...)
Far better would be something like the Ford Foundation giving grants to folks after they have a track record.
The German government sponsored GnuPG, an open-source version of PGP GnuPG press release
LUGs in our province ub italy take some money for the expenses they have (computers, rental of rooms for lessions, ...) but not for the actual software they write. better than nothing anyway.
I just don't trust anything that bleeds for five days and doesn't die.
This is /. Do NOT mention goverment funding. It's uncapitalistic, unlibertarian, and thus 'uncool'. Remember, only dirty communist hippies have a goverment that *does* something for its people.
I do wish slashdot had a general forum section where we could discuss things not directly pertaining to a particular story.
The unofficial
Almost all the library computers in my country (Sweden) run FreeBSD, does that count?
I am in the process of obtaining a government subsidy for the development of a Client Management System for Youth Shelters in Ontario... things are looking good, very good.
So yes, if you present your plan to the Canadian Government, anyway, in good terms, showing that it will benefit all; it is easy to obtain a subsidy.
In sort, no. Public goods need to benefit EVERYONE, not EVERYONE uses linux or open software. Not EVERYONE trusts such software as it is not funded. Its like saying any volunteer hobbyist should be compensated by the gov't. it doesnt apply here as it doesnt benefit everyone.
"Think, It aint illegal.....yet" - George Clinton
And who exactly would be paying whom exactly for what exactly?
I don't think I want to go there...
What is this? You mean there are still some public goods someplace that haven't yet been privatized? Wait 'till the Republicans hear about this!
(It's a joke, Republicans. I promise, if you learn to laugh at yourselves, I will learn to laugh when you call me a dirty longhair commie-pinko pervert.)
- None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
So, you're(government) going make M$ workers pay a tax for Open Source? or better yet, are you going to give SCO more "free" money than they have tried to get? Linux has worked so well because it doesn't need any money to operate. It's a bunch of us nerds who get together on a daily/weekly/whenever basis and code then upload our code. just my opinion folx.
I'd be happy to take their money, it's their influence I don't want. As I see it, part of the freedom associated with free software is freedom from corporate or government bureaucracy deciding what goes into the software. I doubt most governments would agree to sponsor something if they could not exercise tight control over it.
NAZI
You mentioned police, fire departments, teachers, etc. Why not give these folks a raise instead?
Curb CO2 emissions: Kill yourself today!
in todays world if such things were to happen I would think that working on open source software would become tied up in government red tape, bureacracy (sp?), and legislation. The idea looks good when all simple but would probably become considerably more complicated with government involvemnet. Just my $.02
Have any national governments taken measures to subsidize open source projects?
China?
Don't know for sure, but it would be a clear candidate to subsidize
Another case is Germany paying for that KDE project... how was it kalled? Kroupware? But that's not subsidizing...
I'm a chainsmokin' alcoholic sociopath, so-ci-o-path
when we'll wake up and realize that our computing infrastructure is just as important to our modern society as roads, schools, and hospitals.
Does that mean that the populace, through the means of the government, will ever arrange for public funding to develop and maintain an operating system and telecommunications infrastructure? Unlikely in my lifetime.
Was funding OpenBSD and OpenSSL, for a little while until they changed their minds
see subject
As long as big business is funding politics, there's little chance of such a thing happening in a big scale, regardless of how beneficially it would be.
Conversely, in countries without such a strong link between politics and business (presumably this applies mainly to less developed countries), isn't this already happening?
Yes, software companies love to pay taxes and then the money used to create software to drive them out of business.
On the other hand, I do think it can be used for to help society in general.
But I feel it should be written under BSD-like(public domain) license, putting under a GPL-like license is just wrong for this situation.
That's what America's Army game essentially does now. Try it out, it's a great example of government making software that is freely copyable (read the license).
-Libertarian secular transhumanist
Basically I would worry that if a burocracy was added to the development process, it would end up mucking the development process up.
However, I'm pretty sure that some OSS softwares are directly descended from various government projects that were developed under the GPL or made open source after completion. (can someone help me with examples, or tell me I'm wrong).
Galium Arsenide is the material of the future, and always will be.
Check your history. Guess who funded most of the BSD development? Right. The US Government. Who funded development of TCP/IP? Right again. Are these open source? Yes. Were they funded by Government for the Common Good? Yes. This is nothing new. This has been going on for a couple of decades now.
They've got lots of data to handle. They pay someone for software, why not let the people paying for it (the taxpayers) use it? If the government pays for a road with taxes, everyone can drive on it (most of the time).
If the government subsidized free software then it would not really be free.
In the GNU Manifesto, Richard Stallman long ago proposed the idea of a Software Tax to fund Free Software.
If you examine the parallel to its logical conclusion this is kind of scary. Do you really want to allow political action groups (such as all officers of the Microsoft corporation) the opportunity to affect the election of the Open Source Commissioner? Part of the state-sponsored common good is to put it under the control and regulation of elected officials. This is not a win to my mind...
Police Forces are national.
.02
There are some United Forces (UN) but they really arent a major say in what goes on (US war on "Terrorists").
If governments have thier say, they will think what they choose to write is the right way. Governments of different nations dont always agree (AKA WAR).
Whats to stop the US government to hire more professional coders to get more of what they want to see in OSS
Yes OSS has the branches and someone has the overall say in what makes it in and what does not but when was the last time you heard someone disagreeing with the government and not getting some sort of herassment for it (raisethefist.com) ?
Do you really want to add that much more politics into OSS?
Do you really want to wait for the government to finish coding something that you need to use (we all know how governement deadlines work!!!) ?
Just my
yep it would be good if governments would subsidise development of free software
d -software
.sig: no clue whether this comment is helpful in any way ;)
the german kroupware project springs to mind
as for companies: services based businees models, and not selling it-can-do-anything-and-a-lot-no-one-will-ever-nee
this free software idea can bring back all these nice little nifty customised applications, and even better: they won't get lost on some old server in some company. that is, if they are useful for a larger group of end clients.
i'm considering a new
It seems (to me at least, I may be wrong) that this is already the case. The software that is developed by the goverenment generally gets put into the public domain eventually ( i suspect not always ). Of course the majority of free software doesn't come about this way. My personal inclination is to let the goverenment stay out of the software business except for research/stuff they need. Basically I want the goverenment to have as little to do with my life as possible. But that's just me, and what do i know?
Why do we have to ruin everything by getting the government involved. Look at any gov't agency and it's independent counterpart (i.e. FedEx vs. USPS)
Prospective station wagon buyer: "I know what you say is true...but...er...I don't know how to maintain a tank!"
Maybe you haven't heard but the global economy, from the US to Germany to Japan to Argentina is in major trouble. Governments have many more pressing needs for their decreasing revenue than spending huge amounts to pursue some Stallmanist vision of crushing the proprietary software industry.
What I'm listening to now on Pandora...
Can I be the Boss Hog of Open Source? I already met Congressman Cooter at his museum!
i think it's a great idea personally. open source projects as it is are typically very low, to no income projects and would be able to produce an even higher level of software quality if they sould really employ teams of more talented software developers to work due to the gov't help. sounds like a win-win situation to me.
end clients -> compromise between 'end users' and 'clients'?
i definetly need some sleep
Despite what Microsoft might say, there is a great deal of value in Free.
The start of a great synergy.
(btw: governments - as consumers - have the right to buy anything they want. It doesn't matter that SuSe won the contract. The problem is hailing that as a "great victory" just to find out that the government decided to "buy german" instead of "buy open source" is kinda deflating)
Well, first of all abolish all intellectual property laws to get the corporations out. Then lower taxes so individuals can donate to their favorite open source project.
But I'll keep playing America's Army anyway.
-Libertarian secular transhumanist
Look at how well (as measured by effeciency, cost, quality) the government administers those police, fire departments, etc. Sure, the people who do the work are almost uniformly (ha!) good people, but the bureaucracy around them makes the groups slow to innovate and/or respond to changing community needs.
I'm sure the government could bring the same level of bureaucrazy and expense to open source. Do you really want them to?
I think this is one for the "be careful what you wish for" files.
Cheers
-b
Back in April, the OpenBSD people landed a contract with DARPA (previous story found here). After several anti-war statements made by several Theo de Raadt involving his dislike of the war in Iraq and the Bush administration, the contract, which was funneled through the University of Pennsylvania was pulled (previous story here).
The US, through the NIH (Dept. HHS), funds software development projects, some of which are free (GPLed) software projects. NIH funding comes to researchers through a variety of mechanisms, including specific requests for proposals, and often through programs devoted to particular public health related goals. Fundees are often at Universities and sometimes have the freedom to release their software under whatever licenses they choose.
I don't want to Slashdot the particular office that funds my work, but if you poke around on the NIH web site (www.nih.gov) for informatics-related programs, you can find some good examples of programs that fund software development. If you poke further, you'll find that some of those projects develop GPLed software.
I don't know that this is the ultimate expression of a government supporting free software as a public good, but it's certainly an area in which you'll find examples of government-funded free software that's designed to promote public health and/or basic science.
then we could bash Microsoft, and the Riaa, and have the whole thing degenerate into a flaming morass, where everone rabidly agrees that open software is a good thing, even though no one's contradicting them.
(note, it's not that I disagree with these opinions, it's just that I don't think there's much chance of an insiteful, drawnout conversation here.)
Now that I've made a calm and hopefully rational, but dissenting point, mod me down for 'trolling'
If the government makes code, the code is in the public domain.
Apparently Australia is paving the way here. eVACS, as I learned from another poster, is open-source and was used in the Australian Capital Territory elections in 2001. I think a great start would be to have some federal or state IT workers adapt it for use here in the states, and test it out in small-scale elections. Maybe by 2008 we'll be able to vote via the web, and we'll see lots more voter turnout and it'll be impossible to rig the election. A guy can dream...
c-hack.com |
Government are the height of beauracracy. How do you get a diverse bunch of divested interests to decide who does what? Who manages the projects? What happens to the developers during slack periods ?
Secondly you may not have noticed but many government services are being moved either partially or completely back into the private sector
Do not try to read the dupe, thats impossible. Instead, only try to realize the truth
What truth?
There is no dupe
So who will benifit from the funding other than open source developers? This will not provide any new software to the public. The same software will be availiable, only more developers will get paid for it.
(or any other word(s) that means Free Software/Open Source, etc)
I don't understand how the poster of this article goes off and talks about how the police and fire deptartments all started and then compares it to FS. Why? Because these were public services that were needed by the people for their own good and for the better of the country and the society. This wasn't something that needed competition to stay alive. At this point it is a basic need. And it was then too, we just didn't realize it.
FS is NOT a basic need and it needs competition to survive as does the entire Computer and Software industry. The Gov't shouldn't make it a "pulic service" type of industry where all most public software comes from the gov't (it wouldn't be public anymore, now would it?)
Sure, the Gov't can subsidise some costs by providing funs and grants to some people/companies/organization for developing software (even it is to be put out under GPL), but this isn't an industry that should be seen as a public need. Gov't shouldn't control this, it shouldn't promote it, nor hinder it. Gov't should use what is best for it, and we (me and you, the programmers, the users) should user/program what we think is best.
"Time is long and life is short, so begin to live while you still can." -EV
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- Calvin Coolidge, POTUS
Corporation: An ingenious device for obtaining profit without individual responsibility.
- Ambrose Bierce, rapscallion
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If Slashdot were chemistry it would look like this:Cadaverine
When security is involved, the US government is sure to foot the bill. NSA linux is a good example of a government developed opensource project that fits this catigory.
Software certainly meets the non-rivalry requirement, but non-excludability is not met given the current legal atmosphere concerning the concept of intellectual property.
That said, there are cases where introducing excludability means that what used to be public goods can now be provided through market mechanisms: toll roads are not public goods, but universally accessible roads are. Government intervention is required to provide the latter, but (ideally) not the former. The same can be said for private security forces as a replacement for police. You could even slap gates around libraries so that only those who pay can gain access. The debate then turns to what resources *should* have non-excludability -- what goods and services should any person be able to expect from their government?
Outside that debate, you cannot eliminate non-excludability from certain items: national defense and global climate quality come to mind.
Commies for Coders?
Ick.
It seems to me that the very idea of paying someone to write free software is the very antithesis of what free software is all about. (Not to mention the practical problems of managing the stable of programmers, ensuring that work actually gets done etc...)
Then you don't know much about free software. Free software is about freedom, not price. GNU and the FSF have sold free software since the 1980s, on magnetic tape and later CD ROM. Some of their products were quite pricy (and available for gratis download besides), but they still made some money selling the media, as the convinience was worth it to some.
Government funded public works is a Good Thing(tm), whether it is highways, the last mile of connectivity (which alas, is privately owned by local monopoly barons in most, but not all, of the US), or basic software infrastructure used to hold and manipulate public data.
We would never tolerate our highway system being held hostage by a single company. Why on earth would we tolerate such a thing with our public information?
As for private funding, that is all well and good, but private funding has limitations (such as the profit motive, which works sometimes but, contrary to right-wing myth, does not always work or yeild the best results). Public funding has its limitations as well, but pulling projects that are serving the public interest because of no immediate exploitable profit generally isn't one of them.
Indeed, the best public goods are those which include both private and public funding, where the limitations of one are generally countered by the strengths of the other. Examples include, but are not limited to, academia and university research.
The Future of Human Evolution: Autonomy
I think it would be a Bad Thing if government became the primary supporter of Free and Open Source Software. I want the government to control my software, via controlling the direction of Open Source projects through funding, even less than I want M$ to control my software. But a National Endowment for Free Software to provide grants to a limited number of projects could be helpful.
Would the NSA's Security Enhanced Linux kernel (http://www.nsa.gov/selinux/) count?
If you think having to fill out forms to requisition a 256M stick of RAM from the IT Department is oppressive...
If you think having to fill out more forms and get them signed by your manager, the IT manager, and the Purchasing Department's manager, and then wait two days for Purchasing to order the RAM is unproductive and oppressive...
If you think having to fill out even more forms the next week when you find that the fuckup in Purchasing bought two sticks 256M of PC133 SDRAM (or worse, one stick of 512M DDR instead of two sticks of 256M DDR for your dual-channel workstation), because "You wanted memory, and we found that PC133 was cheaper"... is assinine, counterproductive, and oppressive...
NOTICE: As a condition of receiving a grant under the Patriots' Freedom Software Allowance Act, I affirm, under penalty of perjury that Software developed under the Patriots' Freedom License will in no way be used to transfer data by Specially Designated Nationals, nor any data in violation of the PATRIOT Act, nor will it be used by any third party to facilitate violations of the Communications Decency Act. Software will not be made available to Migrant Employees of any Railroad as per the Railroad Workers' Protection Act of 1966, except such Migrant Employees of Railroads covered under the Railroad Pensioners' Guarantee Act of 1968 (amended 1972), and will comply with all other ordinances and conditions of local, state, and Federal law, subject to amendment.
Friday Afternoon Paradox: Free Software is a Public Good, but the instant it becomes a Public Goods, it ceases to be Free Software.
you can talk about anything you like, and leave it open for comments and discussion.
The job of the police plays very importantly into the stability of society. A ramped up version of linux is not so much needed. I like the idea of open source developers being paid, but I think O'Reilly has the best example of paying them by publishing their books on their source.
And besides all this, how long do you think it would take before only special needs are looked at through lobbying. How would the agenda of whats needed be set?
Nasa does alot of work with linux, but I am not sure how much of it is in development for the community versus adjusting it to its needs.
Furthermore, who here on slashdot would use a governmentally designed operating system? Please view the paranoia posts of on the rfid discussion if you don't believe me. =)
I have no problem with the government sponsoring free software development, but if they do so, they should use a license that allows anyone and everyone to benefit from the software. That means a BSD style license versus a GPL license.
The GPL is probably the reason that the government would be unable to just take the reigns of free software funding, like they took over the operation of libraries. Simply because it is counterproductive for the government, which has effectively unlimited resources, to compete with commercial entities. Nobody wins in that situation, not the gov't, not the companies, and not the consumer. GPL code cannot be used commercially in a conventional sense, and if the government were to put serious efforts behind it, they could wind up destroying a lot of commercial enterprises, not to mention wasting taxpayer dollars for a while as they duplicate a service which is already being provided to the public. Eventually, once commercial developers go under, they would just be providing the same service more expensively (government is generally less efficient than private enterprise).
Developers who use the GPL have already decided that their software should not be a public good in the sense that libraries are (in that anyone could go to a library, read books on a subject, and then resell what they learned for money). Even though the knowledge to understand GPL code might be expensive to get, and difficult to package in a useful way, they insist that anyone should be able to redistribute such an effort, for free, in exchange only for recognition for the developer. This effectively makes knowledge easy to exchange, but at a cost of making it worthless, unsellable.
A BSD license on goverment developed code might not be much better initially, as what could result would be the government doing work for commercial companies for free (from their point of view), while they continue to charge comparable prices for their work of packaging the software. Eventually, though, prices would be driven down, as the software itself became a commodity, and the knowledge of how to package it was the only way companies could compete. This would be software as a public good, in a general sense. Companies like the initial consequence of this scenario, and fear the second, so they want to make sure that things stay in the first stage, where the government is doing a certain amount of work for them, without eating their lunch.
I think if the government were to step in and make certain kinds of software (starting with the most often used pieces of code, the OS) a commodity, it could have very positive results for society. On the other hand, open source developement is already going on, so maybe they don't need to be involved, except for preserving the legal conditions that allows this to happen.
The "mechanisms" you mention are "services" (libraries, police, and fire). The government provides these for the good of all people
What you want is a "product" and not a "service". What you're asking for is for the government to provide free every product which does "good for the public". This would include, soap, laundry detergent, deoderant (heh), cars, bikes, clothes, scissors, pens, pencils, paper, toilet paper, paper clips, computers, books, magazines (aka toilet paper), etc etc (you get my point).
So what you're asking for is the government to determine what "product" is for the public good, subsidize it to limit business opprotunities to provide individuals who are looking to earn a living and profit from their work. Not to mention stock holders who make money on the profits made by companies who sell these products.
Doing this would not only affect the general moral of workers who provide such services, but will put thousands of people out of work while at the same time increasing our taxes to figures that I don't even want to imagine.
Generally, bad idea. Period. Besides, this "public good" is only to be for the public good of about 1/4 the US population.
Oh and by the way, most towns in the U.S. still have volunteer services where very little money is provided by the town.
I think it would be a great idea to have the government pay for all of the open source development projects.
Come to think of it, the government should fund all such software projects, and then it can be given away free to all its citizens.
While we're at it, we should have the government manufacture all vehicles for everyone to drive and make all the food for everyone to eat.
We'll have to step up taxes a bit though.. might as well step it up to 100% taxes because the government provides everything for you. This is exciting, I think we just came up with a whole new system of government!
Who's with me?
Me, I think Bill Gates should get the Nobel Peace Prize for bringing them together.
Lacking <sarcasm> tags,
Arnold was born in 1947.
How low will the leftists go to try and derail Arnie for Gov?
First off: The government should subsidize Free Software not open source software as a whole, if it subsidizes anything.
Second: I don't think that the governemt should have any direct control over Free Software or the manufacture therof. Police and fire departments, as well as schools and other public institutions, are completely government controlled. I don't want the government to be able to make arbitrary rules for the code that I want to write as Free Software, which could feasibly happen if the government subsidized Free Software in the same way as the aforementioned institutes are.
Another thing to remember: Free Software is Free Speech, not Free Beer. Programmers can (and do) make money off of thier Free Software. Should the government subsidize commercial entities? I don't particularly agree with airline bailouts or other corporate gimmes that the government spends my tax money on; I would disagree just as much if the government was giving me money to write and sell Free Software as a subsidation (if I were selling it for profit as well.)
Now, I do agree that it would be nice to set up something like a grant system for Free Software programmers. I could write the government with a proposal for such-and-such program, get a government endorsement and some grant money, and write the code up. It would also be great if there were government coding standards that participants would have to keep to (think GNU coding standards.) This would garuntee that the taxpayer's money is going to a good quality product.
But I trust the government as far as I can throw it. The implementation I described would be ideal, but I'm sure that if the government got into software, it would just make a mess. The government is already creating enough of a problem as far as intellectual "property" laws and software patents. I don't think I want it meddling with my development plans any more.
Oh well. Just my 2c.
Nah. Commercial software should take frequent breaks and then your screen is then inundated with video of various software personalities asking you to contribute money to their cause. You know, like how PBS does it! And then after awhile, you get tired of watching the video so you send in your donation via PayPal and then the video stops...
"Right now, somewhere in this world, Scott Baio is plowing a woman he doesn't love," - Peter Griffin, *Family Guy*
And long before it became fashionable, too. Perhaps the first government sponsored project under the Free Software moniker was when the USAF awarded a contract to NYU to create a compiler to assist the Ada 9x standardization process, and required that it be placed under the GNU GPL (at least, it's the first one noted here). The commercial publishers of Ada compilers made what should now be a familiar complaint - that it was unfair for the government to fund a product which would compete with, and reduce the market for, their products.
A Virtual-U research group, supported by the TeleLearning-NCE, launched a new Open Source software at a teleLearning conference a few months ago.
It's a software called Course Reader allows people to participate in courses via computer even if they don't have access to a fast Internet connection. It's free of charge.Libraries, Police, Firefighters, etc are supported by their local community and in turn provide support to their community. Software could benefit everyone in the world and so short sighted politicians would see it as our government subsidizing work that other governments will benefit from. You don't just give it to your citizens, you give it to the world.
Why should we pay for other countries to have better software. They can buy from our companies and provide jobs and tax money to our gov.
I'm all for it personally, but how do we get around that argument?
Police departments, fire departments, and public schools are not necessarily public goods. A public good is a non-rivalrous, non-excludable good. Police, fire and school are all excludable and rivalrous, and the market could, in fact, provide them.
A more reasonable example of a public good is a lighthouse -- no matter if you charge for it or not, anyone can see the light from the house. You can't stop someone from using the light.
Software can be excludable (effective encryption). Rivalrous is another story, as the amount of users is only limited by the number of PCs and amount of bandwidth or media to transfer the software with. To declare software (open source or IP) as a public good, you would at the very least need to determine that it could not be encrypted. (In fact, solve P = NP.)
As long as software is encryptable, ergo excludable, the market should be able to provide it at a profit for firms. Where the free market can legitimately provide a good, regardless of "public interest," it should do so. So sayeth the Economists.
is one of the largest sponsors.
Oh well, what the hell...
I don't know if I like the idea of having the California State Department of OSS or somesuch, but government agencies do in fact create OSS. One good example is NSA Security Enhanced Linux.
-Nick Bernstein
RandomAndInteresting.comdefending the world from stupidity since 1979
I would imagine a system sort of like what's now used in medical research. Teams would make grant proposals to federal agencies (and foundations) and the agencies would award money to research/development they felt was most important/most useful/most likely to be successful.
The thing with that system is that in order to receive a grant from the big boys (NIH, etc.) you really almost are required to have a professional grant writer on staff. That's why it's usually universities and large research centers that get most of the NIH money. This is a Good Thing, in my view. The most organized get the best chance at funding their projects and the crackpots (like the raelians, or theiir tech industry counterparts the FSF*) are forced to fend for themselves.
* - just kidding!
-1 Off-Topic
An excellent example is the organization of the police force, libraries and fire department in colonial Philadelphia, in which these services became established in a very grassroots manner, then gradually gained acceptance as something that the state should provide.
As a director of one of the oldest fire departments in the Philadelphia area (Eagle Fire Company - 1822), I can tell you that it is not such a great analogy. Started as a group of volunteers, and it still is. As a matter of fact, our library in town is also privately funded. Of course, the police force is paid for by a combination of local and county funds. But not the rest.
That's the problem with trying to use analogies to compare the real, physical world to technological concepts. It just doesn't work.
Do not fold, spindle or mutilate.
I agree that grandparent was a tad confused, but sending him over to the GNU page probably isn't going to give him the sort of clarity on the issue that he seems to need.
-Looking for a job as a materials chemist or multivariat
Lets subsidize the music industry too because everyone wants free music, hey heres an idea, lets just subsidize everything!
If you use Linux, please help development of Autopac
The Government of the United States of America would like to announce that it has established a Department of Software (DoS). The DoS will work to develop software for the people. What will this mean for you, the American people? Here are some highlights:
The Government is exicted to be your new provider of public software! If you have a piece of software you want written, contact a local lobbiest or special interest group. Others need not submit applications.
I'm an American. I love this country and the freedoms that we used to have.
Police, fire, etc are services which are better funded by government for several reasons.
:-)
First, if funding is from the government then all people should be covered equally by these services (theoretically).
Additionally, government services should only be those things that the individual cannot provide for themselves (roads, police, etc). I think that the individual has plenty of access to software. It isn't like there is no software out there to choose!
Third, let's be careful with the common good argument. It didn't work out to well for the people in the USSR.
On a personal note, I am a small government, low taxes kind of guy. No, I am not a republican (which is not bad). I just don't believe government should be involved in anything that it doesn't NEED to be involved in. Linux (and other projects) are receiving a lot of private funding and support. As a US Taxpayer and supporter of Linux, and would prefer that my tax dollars go to other things. I could probably agree with an occasional grant
Great ideas often receive violent opposition from mediocre minds. - Albert Einstein
An excellent example is the organization of the police force, libraries and fire department in colonial Philadelphia,
Another EXCELLENT example is public education--one of the first quasi-private services that states took over. Soon, it became the state's job to provide some degree of public education. Right now, public education is required in the US up to highschool (but not college), so let's just reflect on the quality of the work so far (i.e., let's exclude colleges for a second, which are not compulsary). We all know what a great job the states have done with K-12 education. All those laws, rules, and regulations; all those education ministries, bureaus; Oooohh! and the state standards boards! They're doing a cracker jack ob.
And let's not forget how all this education gets funded: state lotteries provide for much of the monies, so that education funding is directly tied to discretionary spending that is extremely elastic in hard economic times. In states that follow the "Hope" scholarship system started by Gov. Miller in Georgia, we find that much of these gambing monies are spent on kids from the suburbs, while lottery ticket sales are primarily urban driven. This sort of equity share (taking money from the poorer communities and giving it as scholarships to wealthier kids in the burbs) is fair, you see, because heck, everyone has an equal chance, right?
Yep, private enterprise and individual effort has consistently failed in all areas of history. We definitely need government involvement in software. We just have to convince a few numbskulls that software is not speech, and is not a form of individual expression. That way, we can better create government bureaus to regulate this speec^H^H^H^H^H, er, software development.
Of course, I'm not talking about the sort of evil government censor control. No sir. I'm advocating the "friendly" government involvement in communication. Like selectively funding software projects is agrees/disagrees with. Surely the distribution of public monies for software development will never become politicized and ugly. Why, just look at public funding for the arts as an example: the government funds the entire spectrum of artists: from those that work with paint to create non-controversial art, to those that work with clay to create non-controverial art.
Oh, I can't sing enough the praise of government control (through purse strings)!!! What better way to bring mediocrity and ubiquity to an otherwise intensely creative endeavor. -- That's exactly what we want for open source software development!!! More state involvement, regulation, oversight and administrative entrenchment!!! More regulation for coders who take government monies!!! More direct controls that companies can use over what types of works get funded!!!! Yeaha!!!
Universities receive a lot of government funding. They also tend to contribute a lot to free software. Look at all the stuff that's come out of Carnegie Mellon, like the MACH kernel.
There's even a lot of work done where the project isn't directly government funded on grants or contracts, but the work is mostly done by grad students working on government stipends.
Anyway, while I am in favor of a lot more funding for free software, I'm not sure I'm entirely in favor of a lot of government funding for free software.
"Many of the public goods we now take for granted--such as police, public libraries, and public fire departments--were historically provided either by private enterprises or by loosely-organized volunteers, neither of which have proven nearly as effectively for the common goods as their current government-run equivalents."
Personally, I'm not sure this is entirely true. Police and Fire Departments probably are better under government, but I'd disagree on libraries. I'm not trying to start a flame war, but there are other things government has partially taken over, like charity (welfare), that I think they do a much poorer job handeling than society would without them. If you disagree with that instance, I'm sure you can think of other instances where this applies. Software is a more complex, technical thing to manage, and I think we want politicians managing it as little as possible. In principle they could support it without influencing it, but this usually isn't the way of things.
I think it's easy to imagine how this could be bad. For example, the government could mandate the use of specific technologies or methods in free software. Or they could respond to industry pressure and refuse to fund any free software group that contributed to any peer-to-peer file sharing projects, etc. For some arguments on this, see this book or this article.
Can anyone tell me how to set my sig on Slashdot?
Yes socialism seems to be the answer for dealing with the digital world, its not the answer for the physical world but definately for the digital world.
If you use Linux, please help development of Autopac
Have any national governments taken measures to subsidize open source projects?
Yes, who do you think paid for the earliest work on Linux? The Finnish government, of course! Like in many European countries, the taxpayer gives grants to students, and that's most likely what Linus lived on.
However, in a open source product, the government has less control over what gets implemented, beacuse their power to "lean on" a corporation disappears.
The other high-profile project funded by the German government is Kollaborate. This was done by the "BSI" (Federal Agency for IT security), which is known to be very Linux-friendly (and equally MS-unfriendly).
In Soviet Russia, the public good is free software!
Not everything the government does is done well. Take the USPS. In general goverment paid employees do their jobs badly (every been to the DMV?). I don't see government funding helping out the OS movement much. Corporations spending money to develop COMPETITIVE open source products, now that's what I'm interested in seeing...
Will Stokes Album Shaper http://albumshaper.sf.net
It seems to me that one way in which governments support open source work is through their support of Universities. After all, a great many coders learn their art at State supported institutions. Students, graduate students and university faculty all contribute to open source projects. This is a fact of daily life, in addition to the well-known historical examples. Furthermore, grants provided to faculty often help support open source work (or software that is subsequently released under GPL and similar). So, two conclusions follow, (a) there is already a significant amount of public support of open source work, (b) if there needs to be more, it could easily be achieved through existing funding mechanisms like the NSF.
Many national governments are now promoting oss, like Germany, China, and South Korea. What is probably going to happen in the next year or two is they are going to get together and form an international organization.
They will do this to help each other, to eliminate duplication of efforts, and to fill in gaps in the set of software their nations need. As part of that they will give out grants for projects they need done.
Oh, and anything Microsoft produces they think would be useful, the nations will set up a project to duplicate it. At that point Microsoft will be truly screwed.
The purpose of the government is simple: provide things for citizens that we cannot provide for ourselves as individuals (roads, national airspace system, etc). The very notion of entertaining such an idea of public funding for software indicates that the perpetrator of said idea doesn't pay taxes.
Put it this way: I pay more income taxes each year than I have ever spent on a single item other than my house. I would imagine that if you look at your own expenses you'll see that this is probably the same for you.
The government doesn't do anything, and I mean *anything* very well. Fighting fires is one thing, funding software for the "Public Good" is ridiculous at best. The government should stick to building roads. There is no "Public Good" because there is nothing good about the government (read: IRS) holding a gun to my head and taking 30%+ of my income to give it to other people.
Doesn't the US Military subsidize one of the variants of BSD? That would definitely count.
Next you'll be asking for efficient and publicly funded health care, transportation and education!
An excellent example is the organization of the police force, libraries and fire department in colonial Philadelphia, in which these services became established in a very grassroots manner, then gradually gained acceptance as something that the state should provide.
And they went straight downhill ever since the state took over. We need more grassroots and less government.
We do NOT need government paid for programmers providing "free software" for the masses. I found this idea so shocking and obvious, I can't believe it was posted to begin with. This is the perfect example of communism, and wrought with the same problems.
1. OSS developers develop what they like, not what they get paid for. Often, they are able to make money supporting what they give away for free, or by cross licensing, or other development. This is the why OSS generates good software, the developers do what they like.
2. Govt. programmers, where to start: the potential to become yet another govt. employee, and develop the "its not my job" attitude, will insure that govt. sponsored software will be even less appealing than the MS products. By having programmers as Govt. employees, you will be telling them what to develop, and insuring very low productivity.
3. Software is not a necessary service, thus has no place on the govt. payroll. Police, firemen, librarians ok. But we don't need a communistic system where software developers are being paid for providing a service that was previously done for free. The role of any govt. is supposed to be to only do for the public, those things that they can't reasonably do for themselves. Paving roads, building schools and national defense are good examples.
4. If you think software is expensive now, wait until its free. Just like healthcare, it would become a bloated office, infected with special interests, potentially corrupted by "donations" from certain vendors, and low in both quality and accountability.
5. Since I am not as proficiant as reading code as many, I would be unlikely to use "govt. generated" code, since I could not be sure there was not some type of tracking or backdoor to my system. Frankly, a little suspicion of the govt. is a good thing.
6. There is nothing wrong with the current system of proprietary software, GPL, BSD, and all the other licenses. Its not broke, why fix it? It is controlled by the individual and companies. By allowing govt. into the software business, not only are you giving it an unfair advantage in the market place with this "free" software (which isn't free, its tax subsidized) and you are potentially putting people out of business and costing jobs.
This is a very bad idea on many levels. An interesting topic over a beer, but a bad idea. I can think of 100s of reasons, but I think you get the general idea by now.
Tequila: It's not just for breakfast anymore!
What you say is true, although some of it was originally developed with military uses in mind besides just public good. The problem is that as the commercial software market grew bigger and bigger during the '60s, '70s, and '80s, the government slowly withdrew financial support and left more and more software development in the hands of private companies. What I think the original poster is calling for is a reversal of this trend, which I tend to agree with in many cases.
A really good page which deals partially with the history of this process can be found here.
Here is another good page, also worth a read, which makes a case for government support of open source software.
If I can quit my job, work on free software, and go down to the local welfare office and fill out "free software developer" and get a fat check, then our society will have made some progress.
Seriously though, such a program would require a careful balance between funding OSS and not killing our technology economy. We live in a capitalist society, and if our government takes action that hurts businesses that are considered to be doing an "OK" job (MS) then it seems a little contradictory to capitalism.
Funding and providing Fire Departments is different because not only are these Public Good, they determined that they are necessary for healthy living (not dying.) Software is nowhere near this level of importance to most people. The government has no motivation to stop software businesses from doing what they do. If the government needs something (like TCP/IP) then they commission it and it gets made.
# Erik
The idea that free software be provided by or developed by national governments is one that makes me wary of what amount of control the government can excercise. He who pays the piper calls the tune -- and free software is much more than just adhering to a software license. Things like publicly available bug databases seem to be the first thing to disappear when large dollar figures become involved.
Much like the church is best off separated from the state, so the free software "movement", as a philosophy, cannot survive if institutionalized as a part of government. Free software organizations already get government and corporate grants, support and development through educational institutions, and widespread acceptance from the technical community, all without having a "Department of Public Software"
There have been many free software packages produced by government organizations. Since they're paid for by public funds they're public property. Look for stuff produced by Sandia Labs, NASA, and there's some army stuff too.
-- Programming with boost is like building a house with lego. It's a cool but I wouldn't want to live in it
Now imagine a scenario where there is governmnet funding. Out of work programmers, people who took a semester of pascal in highschool and are now looking for cash, etc., will go looking for projects to do to get in on the funding chuckwagon rather than responding to an existing need. Other hangers-on will attempt to join, not because they know the subject well or feel the same need to create a particular bit of software, but because they want in on the $$$. Arguments over which code to include would be biased by the author's desire to prove to the funding source that they had added the most lines of code, and not on technical merrit. Overall, it would become the opposite of what a good open source project should be.
Just go on welfare, then you can program Open Source all day long.
(though, when you're on welfare they make sure that you're actively looking for a job; I don't know how well it would go over if you told them you were an Open Source programmer)
http://horizon.nserl.purdue.edu/Cligen/
weather / erosion prediction model from the USDA-ARS-NSERL (National Soil Erosion Research Lab)
Scott
No this is a horrible idea I think! Wherever the government spends its money you will always find strings attached. If government fund these projects then eventually they will decide that it 'owns' the the code and that it gets to decide who can use them. You think Microsoft is bad? MS doesn't currently have the athority to perform a dawn raid on your house and arrest pirates like the government can. Bad bad bad stay away! Everything the government does easily and quickly become politicised, they beauty of open source is the fact that it is not funded by a large entrenched and powerful institution.
-RB
-Eddie
Freedom in our Lifetime www.freestateproject.org
And thus, Theo is a terrorist.
sounds like a great idea to me. now if we could get them to subsidize broadband development so my cable modem service wouldent suck so much arse.
Crisis is the rule, not the exception.
First, it depends on whether or not *all* the taxpayers get to use the software. That means Public Domain or BSD, not GPL. As much as you might love the GPL, you can't deny it's unfair for those who follow the software ownership business model to be forced to pay taxes so that their business can be undermined. A PD or BSD release puts both GPL'd and proprietary projects on an even footing.
Second, it depends on whether or not the market is already providing the service. For example, a new government *NIX-based OS is hardly needed, what with all the companies producing such things in a seemingly endless variety. This applies for anything, not just software. The government should only provide a service when the market fails to provide the service, and the services is deemed necessary to the public good.
That said, the question is moot anyway. The government already sponsors free software. Google around and you'll see that grants specify that copyrighted material produced by grant recipients is "retained by the grantee, but must be published in a manner that allows others to benefit from the research" or something to that effect.
In the past, people slapped "academic use only" clauses on their software. Lately, they've been GPL'ing is a step in the right direction, but not quite all the way to PD/BSD.
It's understandable that researchers want to retain their rights, but when it comes to selling licenses under something other than GPL or academic use, there is a culture of $call pricing which really sucks.
You know $call pricing. That's where the cost of licensing is to call the researcher and negotiate some horrendous deal. Typicly, only corporations are invited into such a deal. A price schedule is never published. It's like dealing with embedded board manufacturers. Yuck.
I can understand why they want grantees to retain rights, but they should require the publication of a price schedule for non-GPL usage.
Now, if grantees had to PD or BSD their work, what would happen? There might be fewer grant applicants, which could be perceived as a good or bad thing depending on how you look at it. It's good if you're swinging the budget axe, and bad if you think there should be lots of research. However, with fewer grantees you could pay more to each grantee to offset the fact that they have less control over their work.
It would be interesting to see how many grantees are actually selling their work anyway. I bet a lot of stuff is just sitting there at Universities, getting stale, because it was easier for people to roll their own than deal with $call pricing. Either that, or the researchers left academe and went to work for industry. That's a waste, and obviously not a public good.
So. Is Free Software a Public Good? It depends.
For all intensive purposes, "whom" is no longer a word. That begs the question, "who cares"?
GnuPG has recieved a lot of support from the German government, IIRC. I think there has been a /. story about it.
A problem with your argument is that software is not a physical product like soap or any of the others you list as examples.
That aside, I think that the government competing with private enterprise example you gave could happen, in fact it already does, as the government DOES fund software, both open and closed. It hasn't really put anyone out of a job, in fact, since they are paying people to develope software they are creating jobs.
It's more likely that a programmer would get a *different* programming job than loose a job due to an increase in government funding of software projects, whether open or closed.
Government subsidizing FSF projects would create doughnut eating programmers and a world dominated by windoze.
Not necessarily. Operating systems are one practically the only technological example of a natural monopoly. Whoever controls the underlying operating system, controls whatever software maybe run on top of it. For example, Microsoft has the ability create products which maybe entirely integrated as part of the OS. Through this, Microsoft automatically has the upper hand, since if their product doesn't become popular through normal competition, they can change the rules as they require to make it (see: Netscape).
What the governments of the world should do is support Linux (or any free and open OS), and more importantly a standardised version of it. Which ever programs are produced, run on top of a common base; and, as a result, compete on a level playing field. On the other hand however, Governments shouldn't subsidize products which aren't subject to such a monopoly. This would not only stifle competition, but may indeed constitute unfair competition to those already incumbent in the market.
The Feds don't start up stations, communities do that, but can petition as a Public Broadcaster for some Federal Funds and special programs that help them stay in business while providing services that may go unfufilled in the commercial sector. Take Sesame Street for an example. It's part of Children's television workshop...a non-profit org. They obviously have to get money from PBS to pay workers and actors to make the show...until recently [early 90's], they were the only game in town. Should they have been instantly privatized just because? Of course not...They set the standard for children's televison, and many people have imitated them. They created the Kids TV market when the corperate stuges overlooked it as unprofitable. Why couldn't a similar setup be created for software--actually it is, it would be nice for the Govt. to recognize that it does make a contribution to society at large. Perhaps help pick up the tab on some of SourceForge's bandwidth type things.
Alternately, the Govt. could set up an NEA [national endowment for the arts] type project. DARPA is nice, but they don't really commit to projects without lots of strings attached. They also tend to be a bit fickle. Most of their tech is defence related. That turns some people off, and eliminates other people from contributing. An National Endowment for Software Arts might be just the ticket. It would allow little people to get funds for interesting or critical projects that may not get much attention, or for just plain research. Perhaps there could be a system of voting via SourceForge and other sites so that top rated projects that can't seem to find corperate sponserships can get monies for bandwith and programming expenses to complete/ perfect technologies.
This isn't really unprecedented. The govt gives the large software corps all sorts of tax breaks, incentives, and gravy contracts to develop stuff that remains locked up under copyrights by some already mega-corp. It's just the idea that the Govt should support little people in the quest for software and also support the communities that have already built Free Software projects...rather than leaving them to the corperate dogs of war.
Apparently, your point is that you don't understand the difference between a consumable object and software. Every one of your examples is a physical object. Most of your examples are consumable, and even the ones that aren't would be of reduced or limited usability when you try to split them between people. (eg, if I'm reading the magazine right now, there are a limited number of people who can read over my shoulder, and even that isn't desirable because of the inconvenience.) Software, on the other hand, is non-subtractive. Once a piece of software is written, there is no additional cost to run it on another machine, or fifty, or five million. Any appearance to the contrary is merely a figment of the proprietary licensing model, and nothing more.
There is, of course, a small cost to making the copy - the bandwidth or CD + shipping are subtractive. Perhaps, then, government-sponsored development should charge a few buck to mail you a CD of the code.
subsidize it to limit business opprotunities to provide individuals who are looking to earn a living and profit from their work.
Right now, the software market is exceedingly inefficient in ways that favor software producers. This will change whether we like it or not, and Open Source and Free software are part of that inevitable change. In most cases, government intervention in markets should be directed towards making them more efficient, even though this reduces proffits, because more people benefit from efficient markets than benefit from inefficient ones.
Very little money? All the ones I know of use tax dollars to fund the purchase of equipment, even though the fire fighters themselves are not paid. It's often one of the larger line items at town meeting.
Instead of gov't providing a product (software), why not provide a service (security auditing)?
1. The police/fire/library examples are services. While the gov't sucks at providing services efficiently, they would be even worse at providing products.
2. The Administration bitches about needing a secure national information infrastructure.
3. The gov't has already done a little bit of this already (i.e., NSA).
If we can get dollars and/or support directed towards security audits and contributions to key OSS projects, that would be great. If it came out of the DHS or defense budgets, that would be better. (insert your favorite "Code, not bombs" or "Code, not CAPPS" styled comments here) We would get the double benefit of A.) getting support for secure software and infrastructure, and B.) diverting away at least some funding from privacy-eroding and people-oppressing programs elsewhere.
Things like the Linux kernel, SSH, Apache, FreeS/WAN, etc. come to mind.
The government would need to do something to ensure that the code they produce stays open for the good of the commons. The easiest way would be for them to release their submitted patches into the public domain.
One big hurdle: the gov't needs to get off of the brain-dead, schizophrenic kick about "crypto == munitions". Strong, effective crypto, without gov't backdoors that would eventually be discovered, is the only real way to secure our national information infrastructure.
"Oh, the terrorists might use our crypto against us!" Bollocks. Terrorists use roads, but we don't stop building those.
"Yeah, but we license drivers, so we should license Internet users." Bollocks. Anyone can physically operate a vehicle on the roads without a license, since rigid 100% enforcement is quite impossible in the real world, so licensing does not deter terrorism. Licensing Internet users will NEVER deter terrorism, and would only be limited to people within the US (and maybe ex-pats).
ANY speech could potentially be a signal for harm to be done (steganography, anyone?) Therefore, demanding weak/no crypto to deter terrorism is an empty hope.
The gov't should put its money where its mouth is and promote true security auditing in an open, peer-reviewable way.
Wouldn't that be giving cheaters an easier time though? Yeah it's security through obscurity, but there's never been an open source fps that's current, so it's unknown how programming the client affects cheating.
-Libertarian secular transhumanist
Services like law enforcement, public libraries, roads, etc, generally benefit citizens, however, OSS benefits everyone everywhere. More specifically, a large portion of OSS users are in the US, but there are also many OSS users outside the US. If, for example, the US government started funding Linux development (not that that would ever happen, but let's assume it did), I'm sure some narrow minded congressman (with campaign contributions from a certain large software company in Redmond, Washington) would start asking why the US is funding the development of software that could benefit everybody, including "terrorists".
It's questionable whether some governments act in the best interset of its citizens, but it's out right naiive to expect some governments to do something that would benefit humanity at large.
---
Open Source Shirts
A large number of networking and OS-related research-oriented code is developed by graduate students, who are almost always funded by taxpayer money, e.g., through the National Science Foundation or ONR (Office of Naval Research). However, universities now have the right (Baylor act) to restrict the dissemination of such code or to claim patents on the development. Many biomedical patents, in particular, are thus paid for twice: once by taxpayer money through the NIH and once again by taxpayers through higher drug prices. (European and Canadian taxpayers save on both counts...)
... of Free Software is that it is not under the thumb of any established organization.
It's out of the control of any business, government or church. That is a big part of what makes it attractive to work on. No organization directing the work for its own hidden benefit, to the detriment of the larger community. No one else calling the development tune. That would not be as true with government funding -- we would see conflicts as government tries to get its requirements and ambitions met by the software. TIA in your OS anyone?
And it's a big part of the appeal for many governments and businesses. They don't have to worry about their competitors (other nations or businesses) using the software against them somehow.
Man, if my governments would stop rounding up grants to the nearest dollar, imagine how much money it would save...
=)
The computer is becoming the new method of speech. Whoever controls the computer controls speech. Right now, no one has a lock on hardware, but Microsoft dominates software in the key market that most people live their daily lives with. You could say that Linux is a forum for free speech, a breath of fresh air in an otherwise oppressive atmosphere. I can see how government input can help this. It can provide security and vital services, and protect the rights of citizens from predatory companies or criminals, but central government control should not be a goal. The government is an 'enabler' for our society, not an end in itself.
Conversely though, if a police department does write some useful software, they should release it, so other police departments (or anybody) can use it. I think that should be argued for.
Several others have said here that such stuff must be BSD, I think I agree. The government is not allowed to release GPL code because they cannot copyright it. Apparently though they can modify GPL code and release that, however, as they have done so several times already.
Now, many government contractors happen to be in it more for the fun than making products and reselling them. So many OSS projects are started as a result of government funding. Most of the time one of the US governments goals is to get as much adoption of the work as possible, so they're frequently all for OSS projects getting started from their work. Ideally, many of which use the BSD copyright license since it is usable by both commerical companies and non-commerical companies (lets not debate that please).
Anyway, I've been involved in this process for years now and I personally have been involved with government funded contributions to about 10 different OSS packages. It's a good thing.
However, after 9/11 less and less money is available this way as the government has been shifting more and more money toward classified programs (though even the classified programs can kick out their non-classified publically-usable code, and I'm seeing that now as well).
Another note: many of the IETF protocols had goverment funding of either the documentation themselves or at least initial prototypes.
The next site to slashdot will be ready soon, but subscribers can beat the rush and start slashdotting it early!
Many governments will only fund development work if the government benefits from it directly, or if it's viewed as a good way to disseminate academic or standards work already paid for by the government. In the U.S., in particular, the government does not want to get into the business of competing with business. You might want the U.S. government to pay for development of an application "for the good of its citizenry", but competing companies will be unhappy so it's unlikely that approach would succeed.
I can certainly imagine a government might want to discourage its citizenry from depending on a "foreign monopoly", and thus do more FLOSS work. The phrase "office of open source" (OOOS!) certainly sounds amusing! But since FLOSS would aid anyone - not just that country - it's again the tragedy of the commons at work. A set of governments could certainly do something. You're more likely to get wins in countries where a single person can commit national resources without endless review by committee, and where that single person is unlikely to be bribeable. It's a fact of life: in some poor countries where FLOSS might be helpful, FLOSS developers generally don't have the money to grease the palms of government people - and proprietary developers do. Still, you could argue you only need to do it a few times - just one person could fund improvements in Open Office or Mozilla, with very dramatic results, since the products are already in generally decent shape.
But the problem is that, in some sense, there are a lot of public goods and services that governments are being asked to provide, and software just isn't that high on their priority list. I know of no government complaining that it has too much money. Most governments have other things as a higher priority - if they don't fund software then software will still be produced, but if they don't fund schools or defense and so on, they can end up losing the country. Countries who are in decent shape have some advantage, and in democracies, if you can sell the project as something the country can be proud of I can imagine it working. (Look! We're leading the world in the new FLOSS development techniques, keeping more of our money at home, and growing our local high-tech industry!).
Many will argue that if governments invested more into FLOSS, then they could switch to FLOSS and save even more in the long run. That may be true, but from the government point of view there's a risk that they'll put all that money in, and get nothing back for it. Even if a FLOSS program is a good one, it's difficult to contract or hire developers in a way that ensures that the work done is worthwhile; many studies suggest that most software projects fail. Even if a FLOSS program is successful, the government program might not create successful improvements to it. For example, governments generally favor the lowest bidder..!
One interesting approach that hasn't been tried often enough is to bid on government contracts. Instead of trying to change the government, respond to how governments already work. If a government requests bids on a set of requirements, bid an approach that includes a FLOSS product that partly meets the requirement, as well as the costs of upgrading the product to meet the government requirements. (Think WINE, or importers/exporters for Open Office to work with Microsoft's proprietary formats). This probably won't work for st
- David A. Wheeler (see my Secure Programming HOWTO)
If you want more federally funded open-source software, the solution is not for the government to spend more money. Instead more universities should grant their employess the freedom to publish under an open-source license.
I am lead developer on a project funded by a federal grant (NIH). The software is provided for the "public good", or at least the good of the world research community in my field. That was stated explictly to be our purpose in the grant application and NIH funded the grant.
Both the source and the binaries are given away under free-as-in beer license. Our license does fit the open-source definition, but it is at our discretion to change the license and we will likely switch to GPL or MPL soon.
I had to switch universities to work on this project. Some software developed with federal funds is not assigned open-source licesenses because it is developed at universities which limit or prohibit open-source development. That was my situation until about 3 years ago. The policy was quite strict, if an employeed of the university authored sofware, there was a 1-year waiting period (minimum) while the university IP office evaluated the commercial potential of the software. If they deemed that it had commercial potential (is useful to anyone) then the university asserted ownership and barred the author from publication and distribution of the source. If the software was deemed not to have commercial potential (is useless) then the source could be published and distributed under an open source license.
Under most circumstances that policy did not apply to students, I know of at least one who participated in kernel developement, got some patches accepted. But that sort of activity, participation in development of open source projects, is definitly off limits to faculty and staff. Some secretly break the rules, but of course they are risking there jobs in doing this.
So creating more federally funded open-source software projects does not require more federal funding. In some cases, as was my situation, the federal funding is there, the authors want to GPL, but they ar blocked by their institution, because the authors are denied the academic freedom to publicly express their own ideas if those ideas are written in source code. More freedom will yield more free software.
First off he asserts that government run services are better than private ones as if it's some universal truth. What has government improved by taking over? In the US we have several examples of the government's wonderful leadership in things that should be private: AmTrak, our stellar public schools, the Park Service, and charity/welfare. All are full of corruption and inefficiency and provide piss poor results at ridiculous prices. The more the government fixes them, the worse they get.
Compare the USPS to UPS or FedEx. The private companies do a better job. And when taxes (which the privates pay, but USPS doesn't) and subsidies (the USPS gets them, the privates don't) are factored in the private companies do it cheaper!
Money also means control. If the government is funding much FS/OSS research, some idiot bureaucrat gets to make the decisions, not guys like Linus and RMS.
There's a popular libertarian saying: The government is like a doctor who breaks your leg, gives you a pair of crutches, and then says, "if it wasn't for me, you wouldn't be able to walk."
In a book I read by nobel-winning economist Milton Friedman, he talked about this sort of thing. He used the term vested self interest to describe what we do and disinterested third party to describe the government's role.
We (FS/OSS users/developers) do a good job because we care about it, either because we use it and want it to work well, or because the people paying us will stop paying us if we don't do well, or we just feel a sense of pride for doing it well. We have a vested self interest in making sure we do things well. This is the main reason capitalism works: if you don't succeed, you don't eat.
Government workers don't care. They're not paying for the work (first party), they're not using the work (second party), and because of the laws in place, many of them can't be fired for incompetence! If they do well, they eat, if they fail, they eat. This is the main reason socialism has failed every time it has been tried.
And the most important reason is the ethical one: choice. Why should money be taken at gunpoint (which is what the IRS really amounts to) from companies like Microsoft to fund their competition? I'm no fan of MS: I don't buy their software, use it (except at work), or take jobs where MS is the target platform, but just because I dislike their tactics and products doesn't give me the right to take their money by force.
Why should my mom have to pay for it? She doesn't use it, she doesn't care about it.
The government funds FS/OSS by buying contracts from companies like IBM, and by people like Donald Becker writing pieces they need for government projects.
Socialism is wrong! Free Software is about freedom of choice. If you honestly think socialism is the way to promote it, you just don't get it.
What you want is a "product" and not a "service". What you're asking for is for the government to provide free every product which does "good for the public". This would include, soap, laundry detergent, deoderant (heh), cars, bikes, clothes, scissors, pens, pencils, paper, toilet paper, paper clips, computers, books, magazines (aka toilet paper), etc etc (you get my point).
No, the question is asking whether the government should fund the development of software that's freely available for the public good. There's a big difference between providing copy-able bits and providing physical products. You're drawing an unwarranted parallel between a single government program and full-scale socialism.
So what you're asking for is the government to determine what "product" is for the public good, subsidize it to limit business opprotunities to provide individuals who are looking to earn a living and profit from their work. Not to mention stock holders who make money on the profits made by companies who sell these products.
So? Libraries limit business opportunities for bookstores. Public fire departments limit business opportunities for private firefighting companies. Police departments limit business opportunities for private security firms and private investigators. Any government service detracts from private business opportunities. The question to be asked is whether society benefits from the tradeoff.
Doing this would not only affect the general moral of workers who provide such services, but will put thousands of people out of work while at the same time increasing our taxes to figures that I don't even want to imagine.
I can't tell here whether you're referring to a government program to sponsor open-source development or to your straw-man target socialist government. If you're talking only about government funding of software development, I can't see how that would raise taxes to the enormous levels you seem to think it would.
Generally, bad idea. Period. Besides, this "public good" is only to be for the public good of about 1/4 the US population.
Not true. Software is fundamentally important to the economy. If publically funded software development were to make software more widely and cheaply available, the efficiency of the economy as a whole would improve, to everyone's benefit, even those who never sit in front of a monitor.
Oh and by the way, most towns in the U.S. still have volunteer services where very little money is provided by the town.
Unless I'm very much mistaken, any town with a fire department has to spend a significant amount of money on equipment and physical infrastructure, regardless of whether the actual labor is paid or free.
TheFrood
If you say "I'll probably get modded down for this..." then I will mod you down.
A government subsidy comes from tax money, which is taken involuntarily. The idea of "free as in free speech", as I understand it, is that free software is freely created, freely distributed, and freely used. Taxes are not given freely.
would be a Good Thing
Of course you think it would be a Good Thing, you want Free Software. People who want to sell lots of prescription drugs think it would be a Good Thing if we paid for those. People who want time off to take their pets to the vets think that mandatory leave is a Good Thing. Others think it would be a Good Thing if government subsidized blow jobs.
Unfortunately, it's just another case of taking money from many for for the benefit of a few.
And would it really be more economically efficient? How would they decide which free software to develop? You might want an Outlook replacement for e-mail, but Microsoft's lobbyists might want to have something to say about it. Oracle would squash any attempts at making a better database. Think about it.
It's tempting to think that an "organized" process of development would be more efficient than the seeming haphazard system now in place. But the system's very haphazardness is what makes it effective. People develop the tools that are useful, because that's what they need. Companies happily subsidize open source software when it's worthwhile, but there are a zillion justly unsponsored projects for that one. So the system isn't as haphazard as it appears, and any government planning process would not only become a politcal football, it would also be slow as molasses. Just read your damned tax return form, that'll give you a hint of what a programmer would have to go through to get his project approved.
Remember, we want Free as in Speech, not as in Beer. This suggestion is just free beer.
Of cousre, the natural response is that what you really want is for the government to simply give money to kind-hearted developers who will choose their own projects and standards, and make great free stuff available for the rest of us. Unfortunately, the reality of government is that once it starts giving out money, you find people lining up to collect it who have no business being there, and anybody who would be affected by it, positively or negatively, would be pulling strings and corrupting the process.
If they just wanted to throw a few million a year at some university or something to see what they came up with, then fine. But even that is subject to politcal machinations, and I think you'd be disappointed with the results. Free Software is alive, thriving and prospering, and it's a fantastic phenomenon. That's reality. Suggestions like this are simply dreams.
It's stunning how consistently poor are the sense of humors exhibited by conservatives.
You posted AC at 0, who is going to waste a mod point modding you down further as long as you are speaking coherently (read: not spamming GNAA) ?
If slashdot had a general forum type system, the 3 bottom forum sections could be:
"Microsoft sucks"
"Riaa is evil"
"SCO is full of it"
Which would hopefully reduce the amount of senseless bashing that went on in the upper, more interesting forum sections...
The unofficial
If it's for the public good, let the public fund it publicly. Let the public choose to donate money instead of having lawmakers determine their donation for them.
"Ask not what your country can do for you, because the only tools they have to do it with are the police and the military." - Ken Boucher
No Zen is good zen
Very good point, really.. Where are my modpints when I want to use them!
No, those companies are just a bunch of leeches sucking dry thousands of open source programmers who receieve a big fat $0 in return for their work.
A government should NOT use taxpayer money to support free software beyond fees to actually use the software. It is a direct infringement on a basic freedom to force a taxpayer to subsidize free software. Services such as a police department and court system are necessary govt functions which are required to protect an individual's freedom. A person has no basic right to free software, however, and no person should have to pay so that someone else can get free software. Once a government points a gun at me and tells me I must pay to support free software, that government is stealing the product of my labor and giving it to others who have no right to it. If people want to right software, and give away the source, they have the right to do so. They have no right to demand that tax payers support this effort, however, and to do so is a step towards communism, which places the imagined rights of the collective above the rights of an individual.
Vote for Pedro
Because the FAA also makes sure that planes aren't falling out of the sky on a regular basis and crashing into your house.
So the FAA benefits you, even if you don't fly.
You're asking /. readers if public funding for
software is a good idea? Why don't you
also ask them if the government should
distribute free PS2s and Laura Croft CDs.
What kind of answer did you expect? Why not ask some public policy professionals?
It really depends on what the government's goal:
If it is for a government project and has utility that is incidentally beneficial to others outside the government, it woud be OK.
But, if the government is producing software that is not intended for their own use, then they are competing with private businesses and forcing their competitors to subsidize the development via tax dollars.
An analogy may be made to writing books:
If the government were to employ writers to produce documents related to governance, for example a document aimed at the general public explaining the principles behind copyrights, and how the associated laws work, there would be little controversy.
But, then, if the government were to hire writers to write books on yoga and music theory, I for one, would see it as the misuse of my taxes. It would be better to let me keep the money and spend it on the books and authors that I wish to subsidize.
I don't think he said "every product".
Water. Medicine. There are two products that my government provides for "free" (the reality is that I've prepaid for them with taxes) for the good of the public.
I also disagree with your assertion that software is a product. I think much of software is infrastructure, like roads or water or sewerage, but that's an argument for a different forum.
The same could be said for any government funded service. Full privatisation of all industries is as unviable as no privatisation. There needs to be a balance.
First off, great idea. I'd love to see this happen. I'm skeptical given how tight state and local budgets are these days, but whatever.
I think there are two things you ignore though.
First, this has been happening for a long time, except these "paid programmers" are professors at universities. Universities crank out **TONS** of free software and contribute to the development of free software and they get paid by the government, maybe not specifically to develop free software, but it happens none the less.
Second, the difference between libraries or roads or whatever existing public goods there are is that there were never commercial competition for said public goods. There are not commercial libraries. There are not commercial highways. There are not commercial police units. But there are commercial software development houses. And the state competing with corporations is not going to happen on any real scale.
For example, in the town I live in, Durango, CO, the town build a community recreation center. And it has turned out to be a huge public good. It's a wonderful facility with modern equipment and a natural meeting place for the community to interact. However, it competes directly with other local exercise facilities. And those facilities fought vigorously against the creation of the rec center. Many citizens argued that the government should not be filling functions designed for the public sector. In the end, the idea of building stronger community ties made the rec center a reality, but still, do you think MS or Sun or whomever would lay down if the U.S. started funding open-source development? That directly competes with their products? Unlikely.
-jag
http://starboard.flowtheory.net/
In the U.S., I think that the government should fund Free Software development for projects that the Government is likeyly to use or desires for specific projects. I also believe that the government should not fund the development of closed source projects that are destined to be products for private vendors, as that would be using public funds to enrich private individuals and of course would end up rife with corruption. Perhaps using the BSD license for government funded projects would be "politically correct" enough in the Republican sense as it would not preclude thier supporters from turning the project results into a money making venture if they had the desire, technology, and business sense to do so.
I would not like to see the U.S. government begin funding programming in a more general way, because there is the possibility of uUniversities and Free Software development labs/projects becoming dependant on govt. money and the politicisation of Free Software when a govt. funded project is released that has the potential to be used in ways that some people do not approve of. A group of network security and monitoring tools could be misconscrued as "tools for hackers", or an HTTP server condemned as for "the distribution of pornography". To many, this may seem far fetched, but those who are familiar with the art world know how mixing public funding for museums and public exhibition venues was turned into a Republican "bully pulpit issue" in the controversy over the display of artwork most notably Piss Christ by Andres Serrano and some photographs by Robert Mapplethorpe. The works in question were not specifically created using government funds, but the issues arose when facilities that were partially funded by government grants decided to display the artwork. As it is now, he volunteer nature of much Free Software development prevents many of the political issues that could arise, and it also ensures that political decision making has little or no direct influence on what is developed or how.
I must admit that I do find it disturbing to know that the U.S. government is funding "computer science" education programs that amount to little more than training facilities where people learn to program for a specific and propietary platform, but I'm not sure there is an acceptable policy that could prevent this.
Read, L
This is not a good idea. Anything that the government funds gets messed up. Look what they have done to medical research, especially of AIDS. They fund it but then have requirements that must be met. They institute extra protocols and just make a mess of things, slowing down the research process. The same thing will happen to open source software. They will try to control it. Yes, they have done some good things with some public services, but others have ruined progress. Keep the government away from open source software. Grants may be ok, but the government should not gain complete control of open source software like they have done with many other public services. This is just my humble opinion.
Likewise, posting informative things on slashdot is useful to the 'public' as some ill-defined collective, so why not nationalize slashdot and pay people by the post? Or better still, pay them by karma?
The minute the government claims the provision of a service to be their responsiblity they start working toward the inevitable position of being a monopoly.
You think Microsoft is an anticompetitive entity? Imagine how 'free' software would be once we start taxing everybody to pay for its development, and put the responsibility of that development into the hands of an organization with access to hundreds of thousands of police and military to make sure the consumer 'chooses properly'.
Personal predicition: If the U.S. government decides that it should be in the business of producing 'free software' en masse, within 10 years time it will be illegal for a private citizen to own a compiler without a license. Can't have irresponsible commoners with access to the means of production, who knows what they might create.
So this isn't about whether the government should act or not, but rather whether they should stick a pinky finger on the vastly tipped scales to compliment what the GNU and FSF have ALREADY started, and the people have wished to have.
Says the person with the Dean4Prez link in his signature.
I disagree, there's no violation of the concept of free speech if you pay the developers - in fact it's usually encouraged.
You know what they say, free software is "free as in speech", not necessarily "free as in beer".
Everyone does use Free Software, even if they are not aware of it.
Much of the web is run on Free Software, and most (if not all) packets will cross routers, firewalls or bridges that are running Free Software at some point during thier journey.
In fact, thier own computers may be using code that was directly derived from Free Software, such as the improved network stack in Windows (from BSD, IIRC).
The world of propietary, closed source software has benefitted greatly from Free Software development, and this has benefitted EVERYONE, even if they know nothing about it.
Including you.
Also, there is no precident to a "benefit EVERYONE" requirement for government funding (at least in the U.S.).
One example of government funding for a select few persons would be the funding of natural disater insurance programs for persons who choose to build thier houses on flood plains and on beaches. Government funded flood plain insurance enables people to live along rivers and the same coverage allowed the wealthier americans to ensure that most of us could not afford to live near the beach. (Before natural disaster relief plans covered beachfront property, it was quite inexpensive to have a house on or near the beach, but most chose not to because of the possibility of storm damage or erosion.)
Another would be farming subsidies for tobbacco farmers. I fail to see how one could conscrue such funding as "beneficial to EVERYONE".
Read, L
Here in Scottsdale, AZ, we have a private Fire/Ambulance service, Rural Metro. They're widely used across the United States these days, but started here.
They're very effective and less expensive than government run equivilants.
When has government ever managed to do something more efficiently than private enterprise? Those clodding bureaucrats have no interest in doing anything cheaply, or even doing anything well.
I would think that the line to take when arguing is this: Infrastucture such as trains (the great railway monopolies that were granted in the U.S.), roads (The Interstate Commerce Commission), (I am sure that Non U.S. examples exists as well) etc. All help to promote commerce by making commerce possible. The existence of free internet software has helped the internet age, and all the associated businesses thrive. By arguing in that way as opposed to the "it's just the right thing dammit" manner you can make a bigger splash with economy-minded people.
You forgot about the most important property of free software. It is free. It gives you freedom to contribute, to use, to develop.
Government financing removes the most essential freedom, the right of not being involved. 90% of people do not care about free software. If the government participates in financing it they will pay for it from their taxes. Don't you think that it depriving from freedom in its name.
We should urge government to buy free software instead of proprietary but ONLY if it is more cost effective.
As nice as this sounds, it's not really appropriate right now. Public funded institutions generally serve a use for the community as a whole. But in North America, there are still many, many people that don't own computers. Considering there are some 40 million people living in poverty in the US alone, I think there are better things that funding could be put towards instead of open source software projects.
That's not to say this is a bad idea; but there are much higher priorities that need to be addressed. Besides, right now the volunteers are doing a pretty kick ass job.
This is left as an exercise for the reader.
What you are arguing is that the govt should put the rights of corporations above the rights of individuals. A small group of people have choosen to create Free Software. Why should that group not be encouraged and supported. Why must government only encourage greed?
I do think that the original example it too biased toward Free Software. [I have a post below] I do think that free projects should be given some support, with equal access to the code for free and corporate interests. Although, I would encourage sponsorship of projects too eccentric or narrow to be of commercial interest. I would like to see and analog to PBS or NEA where already successful projects can get "help" for improvement, or where independant minds can develop ideas and give them to the public outright.
The govenment has already stuck it's nose into the "free" market by allowing monopolies of copyright and patent. What about the huge tax credits for developing "accessable" software and "healthcare" software..the benificaries are huge corps, not hte little people. What about defence contractors paid to develop stuff. Then paid again to build it...and again with patents? Why can't little people be paid to just create stuff he wants to give away to everyone? Why only mega-corps that take our tax money and then outsource the production overseas?
Actually, I know the Idaho state government does develop software that is publically available. Occasionally, some lines of source are censored due to legal issues. So, other than the censored lines, anyone can request the source for publically available programs written by state employees. The only problem is, is that nobody would probably care to use these programs as they are all designed for a purpose useful to the government. The other problem, is that it may take some time to actually get the source as the government agency determines the motivation behind the request. I find many other people on Slashdot seem to be very negative about the government developing software. I think it's great. In fact, I think they ought to develop a usable OS. Design the infrastructure that people, businesses, and the government needs.
If the parent of this post isn't flamebait, I don't know what is!
I have been developing jahshaka for over 1 1/2 years now and would like to find out how i can get some cash to help move the project ahead...
I figure while i 'm at it i could use some of the cash to get a new mercedes to help move myself ahead as well
Think my criminal record will get in the way?
Sounds like we are selling out the revolution... the government doesnt give you anything for free...
The flip side:
As a govt contractor for a small company paid to support govt projects, I am also allowed to work on open source projects. Since I work for a small company with no overhead, my workstation is a 2 CPU Linux box with 2 GB of RAM which I purchased after my boss' only guidelines were to "keep it under $5K".
I agree wholeheartedly with your analysis of the suggested Dept of Software foulness, but pls recognize that some good OSS gets written under govt auspices, and it can work out well for everyone.
The Army reading list
While the GPL can't stand above IP law, it says if it is discriminated against (e.g. patents), the GPL is no longer a valid distribution licence. So you can't take GPL code, and control its distribution by only issuing patent licences to those you want to.
Kjella
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
Government provided / controlled software is a horrible idea. Again the inept myrmidons from the former Soviet Union belch forth their socialistic rhetoric. /.'er remarked many townships across this country are staffed privately or by volunteers already. Having been involved in Government bureaucracies for many years I can say with certainty I have never worked with or against a more inept bunch of degenerates. I have never seen more money wasted, more payouts (bribes), more corruption and more crime committed by one group of individuals. If those are the kind of people you want developing your software please leave this country now or at least don't vote. There are plenty of other socialistic countries in ruin from that type of thinking to go live in. Dont' destroy this one too.
There is no reason to expect Government software to be any better a "product" than any other Government service provided to date. I haven't seen any government service that is superior to a privately operated one (Education, Public Services, Transportation, etc). As a previous
There are too many bums leeching off of the American taxpayer, as well as too much Government control of our lives already. Try living free and taking responsibility for your own life for a change and stay out of mine!
Computer software, for the purposes of determining whether or not it is a public good, is like information.
Many publicly funded institutions and agencies provide information at little -- and usually, no -- direct cost. The providing of this information is widely considered to be a public good.The particular purpose and sort of this information varies:
- Some of this information is the sort of information which enables private citizens and land owners -- private citizens granted temporary, revocable, and limited authority over some portion of our natural resources -- to steward our nation's -- and our world's -- shared resources in a responsible way, consistent with the duties they as such have to each and every one of us.
- Some of this information enables private citizens to do with these resources over which they have this temporary, revocable, and limited authority, that which they have a legitimate expectation to do.
- Some of this information enables citizens to evaluate the risks they face by engaging in certain behaviors, or by living in certain ways or in certain environments.
- Some of this information enables private citizens enables citizens to carry out tasks and to obtain certain other goods which they as people in these modern times have a legitimate expectation be able to do or to have access to, regardless of their social, political, or economic status, situation, and circumstance.
One example of this type of information is that provided through "extension services":
Many counties, states, as well as public universities, provide publicly funded information services. This often includes providing information about agriculture, livestock, landscaping, land care, building, wildlife, codes, and drainage systems.
Another example of this information is personal health care related:
We provide information to expecting mothers, to those citizens -- and non citizens within our borders -- who face an increased health risk due to their behavior, life choices, or environment,. We provide to everyone information about their bodies and life changes, to the extent that they as people in these modern times have a legitimate expectation to know about their bodies and life changes regardless of their education or their ability to pay for it.
Computer software as a public good is similar in many ways to information as a public good:
- Computer software, like information, once obtained, is an unlimited resource. Distributing one copy of it does not limit or otherwise affect our ability to distribute another identical copy, and this distribution may be done at very little to no cost.
- Computer software, like information, requires both an initial investment to organize, verify, and to be put into an accessible form, as well as continuing costs to maintain the accuracy and relevance of.
- Computer software, like information, provides the groundwork which enables private citizens to be good stewards of that portion of our resources over which they have some temporary, revocable, and limited authority.
- Computer software, like information, provides the groundwork which enable private citizens to carry out the tasks and to obtain the additional goods which they in virtue of being citizens have a legitimate expectation to carry out and to obtain.
One example of this is access to electronic communication:
Increasingly, modern people have a legitimate expectation to be able to communicate with friends, family members, their representatives, and appointed government officials, electronically, and from the privacy of their own homes. Software provides the groundwork which enables these citizens to realize these legitimate expectations. It is unacceptable for the realization of private citizens' legitimate expectation to use secure, reliable, and comprehensible, and usable, electronic communication in the privacy of their own homes to be dependent upon their acceptance of a draconian set of terms of use and limitation of rights such as m
.sig Realistic fines for copyright in
The smart goverments will look upon the dumb goverments spending money on free software, and then just use it. Thank you very much. Why spend money on software which your competitors can use with 0 research and development cost?
Think about it.
"What you want is a "product" and not a "service". What you're asking for is for the government to provide free every product which does "good for the public". This would include, soap, laundry detergent, deoderant (heh), cars, bikes, clothes, scissors, pens, pencils, paper, toilet paper, paper clips, computers, books, magazines (aka toilet paper), etc etc (you get my point). No, the question is asking whether the government should fund the development of software that's freely available for the public good. There's a big difference between providing copy-able bits and providing physical products. You're drawing an unwarranted parallel between a single government program and full-scale socialism."
The parent's example are much more basic necessities than software. Why do you think taxpayers should pay programmers for software put have to shell out their own money for soap? If you want to make the US a socialist country, I'd think you'd put soap before software?
Vote for Pedro
You let government in on the act and the whole kit and kaboodle goes down the gurgler. Keep it free.
I download all my ISOs and files from this server for its reliablity and large amounts of bandwidth. Its a federal gov't entity, so it is a contribution in some way to the open source movement. I feel like I am getting something back for my taxes that doesn't involve bombing innocent people in other countries.
Clothes, shoes & Gasoline.
Shouldn't the government take over those areas
also ? I think everything which is good for the public should belong to the Government. And everything bad is not needed anyway, so those
areas can be killed off
-Karl Marx
In America, what's good for big business is good for the public.
If you're trying to preserve the Free in Free Software, why involve the government?
Every monopoly in American history was formed by intervention (favoritism) by the government.
The more police, fire, and libraries became under the responsibility of government, the less efficient and lower quality they became. Think about it and look into it.
It just seems that everybody in business wants government intervention on their side to silence competitors. That hurts the quality of the product and the rights of the consumer in the long run.
- my password isn't working...
hmmph
This means that free software is a public good.
Kroupware Server is an open source project that was funded by the German government - Bundesamt fur Sicherheit in der Informationstechnik (Federal Agency of IT-Security).
NOTE: Despite how it may seem, this is not sarcasm. Please don't mod it funny.
Oh c'mon. We all know that leftist radicals are communist pigs. If anything it's the conservatives who should be afraid. Communism has always been a phantom threat that they used to dominate the world and oppress their citizens.
Second, the concept of free software merely allows the software to be distributed gratis. It does not require it to be. It is entirely possible for a free software project to be created that is in fact not available to anyone gratis. But that does not mean it isn't free software.
http://www.nsa.gov/selinux/
The US government is getting into it, and, quite frankly, kicking ass and taking names...
Do you have ESP?
(Warning: the following post is very glib (but not really funny). It doesn't take itself too seriously so you shouldn't either.)
Proprietary software sucks. Don't take my word for it. Just read the article.
I mean, after all--if the proprietary software is already buggy, if the companies charge for the tech support as well, then what is the company really providing for the user? Clever marketing? Ease of aquisition of software (can be downloaded or purchased from a store)? Easy installation?
Okay, that's it guys. If the proprietary software really does suck that much, then all the Open Source community needs to do is (somehow) run a huge marketing campain and make the auto-installers work better. The tech support might suck, and the software might be full of bugs, but that's not any different from commercial software. (at least according to that one, rather short, CNN article) The only remaining barriers are lack of knowelge from the general public and difficulties with installation.
Furry cows moo and decompress.
When some government agency needs, it'll commission it. In Germany, Kroupware (Exchange replacement) is the prime example. They commissioned it, and the winner of the bid just happened to be doing Open Source.
For OpenOffice.org, here in Denmark and in Norway, public institutions at a lower level have hired people to coordinate or make translations into our languages.
It's small scale yet, though.
I'm in a Unix state of mind.
Despite what Bill Gates wants you to think, software is a service, not a product.
The purpose of free software was to build a library of software that can be reused. The best thing about computers is you teach them how to do something once and they will remember and repeat it forever. The GPL was written to prevent code from being locked into commercial applications where it could not be reused.
Yes, many open source developers are writing Yet Another Text Editor. They write software because it is fun and expect that everybody else wants THEIR version. So what? If someone does write code to implement a new feature, the popular versions can use that code. Effort is saved.
- But there is a chasm today. MSWord cannot use GPL'd code. And "free" applications cannot use any of MSWord's code; they have trouble just working with the file formats. This is an unstable situation. Everybody's productivity suffers. Since most companies want the best productivity from their applications, and open source applications help all programs while closed source applications are useless except for their stated purpose, it is very likely that hidden code will disappear.
All software written for the US government is public domain, unless declared secret. The GPL does not apply, because anyone can use that code without needing the special rights for distribution granted by the GPL. So if the US gov releases a library, it can be used by any project, commercial or "free". If code is released specifically for a GPL'd project, then the project is still GPL'd, but that particular code is still public domain, and could be used by a commercial project
The government requires much code to be written. Having that code available to everybody else will not cost jobs:
1. The government will be hiring programmers.
2. (Non-software) companies will be able to use that code for in-house projects.
3. Some of the code will be used by "free" projects.
4. Programmers will be hired to implement, extend, and support projects that use this code.
5. Some companies can provide the service of knowing all the code available. They could quickly deliver tested code for specific purpose. You still need your in-house programmers to integrate it.
The goal of free software is to continue building the library of available code to reduce the effort of all programmers. The government needs code; there is no reason for it to not release it for the public good. It will make both "free" and "commercial" software better. (Imagine if MS used government-written code: security must improve. Of course it cannot get worse.)
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The ultimate goal of every programmer is to reach the day when every program has been written. (See the first paragraph.) This will probably take a few millennia, and we can make much money in the process. But someday we will have written the best OS and the best data storage system and the best communication system.
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People are mentioning how this will affect the software "industry". The software industry is an anomaly. They are providing the tools so the actual workers can implement better applications. Instead, they are making it more difficult to write applications by keeping some of the code hidden. When Windows crashes, nobody can fix it. When Apache crashes, the reason is discovered and the code is fixed. Many companies that hide code will probably disappear during the Crash of 2004, and our jobs will become a little easier.
I spend my life entertaining my brain.
The German government has paid for a number of applications that have been implemented as GPLed software products. In particular, there have been several high profile projects such as Sphinx (gpg and kmail integration) and kroupware (now transforming into kolab and kontact).
But there is a lot of OSS activity at lower levels, for example the Java Anon Proxy (JAP) project as a joint venture between Dresden University and the privacy commissioner of Land Schleswig-Holstein, several School Linux Projects, a large scale Linux deployment for schools around the city of Moers (serving 250.000 users), and many more projects at a similar level.
In studies on Open Source Development, many European countries come out "on top", that is the number of developers from European countries is higher than it should be according to their proportional headcount. Such Government subsidized OSS projects and deployments are a strong factor, creating a climate where OSS can flourish and produce many good projects and products.
Interesting thoughts, but "the third way" represents an approach where the public and private sector indeed have a third and effective companion - the civil society. A governmental approach must thus be to support and make room (e.g. in legislation - Software patents ring a bell?) for the civil society. Funding is not the primary concern. It shouldn't be because the public sector is trying to cut down the public funding of non-core public responsibilities. (Criterias for core vs non-core is still debatable though.) Tony Blair used Anthony Giddens term, "the third way", in his political campaign to make people believe that he could make everyone happy - the socialists and the conservatives. But the trilateral understanding of society is nonetheless interesting when thinking of Open Source. Here is a link to a paper I wrote about this issue a few years ago and before I really understood Open Source. (so please be gentle!) - http://opensource.mit.edu/papers/pedersen.pdf
I believe the main things here are
a) efficiency and
b) reliability
A lot of government services are not handled by private companies because we want rock solid reliability, even if it means bad economical efficiency.
I guess there are some areas of software engineering where it would be better that market conditions didn't have large effects (like firms going bancrupt) on the delivered services. In most cases however, the important point is economical efficiency, and that is best delivered by a free market.
Cool, cool idea. I might add that public domain and BSDish licenses are ideal for this purpose. Just imagine, DARPA going along with OpenBSD, maybe another gov't decides to make its own desktop (sounds like Germany), maybe Japan will fund an open source game engine... I can dream can't I???
A bit like (government funded) university research that's just let out in the public. The fools! All the 'competitors' are going to steal it with 0 cost!
Seriously, this is the same argument that is used against free software in general: That you can't benefit from it financially. Still, there are quite a lot of companies making a living on Linux and such...
You think about it: If a government funded software becomes popular (because it's free) it might not only drive costs down, but might also create jobs on the side. So, if these benefits are more than equal to the costs, why would the country care if some 'competitor' does the same?
I'm not sure that government funded free software is a good idea myself, but I find your points both merchantilistic and moot.
BSD licenses can be extended with proprietary additions.
The problem with BSD is that it allows people to extend a body of code in a way that makes that body of code less free as a whole- it's called embrace extend extinguish. They take free software and hijack it with proprietary protocols and manipulation of standards processes for their own gain.
If the market could be trusted to prefer free software on its own the BSD license wouldn't matter. Since people don't demand free software largely because they don't understand what's at stake, it's important for governments not to leave the playing field slanted in favor of corporations who make non-free software. That's what releasing BSD licensed software does.
microsoftword.mp3 - it doesn't care that they're not words...
There is an old saying, "your freedom to swing your fist stops at the end of my nose". The freedom "to swing your fist" is a `freedom to'; freedom from being hit is a `freedom from'.
Let's use these notions to compare a modified BSD license with the GNU General Public License.
Alice pays taxes that enable Bob to write software under the modified BSD license.
Charles takes that code, fixes a bug in it, and publishes the result. He then has the legal freedom to prevent Alice, Bob, Doris, and Edward from using that bug fix.
Alice, the taxpayer, may fail to benefit from all the programming.
Alternatively, Alice pays her taxes to support George to write software under the GNU General Public License. Fred takes that code and fixes a bug. After publishing his work, Fred may not prevent anyone from using the bug fix. Alice, Bob, Charles, Doris, Edward and George are legally free from being harmed.
Alice, the tax payer, benefits.
A modified BSD license is a `freedom to' license. Under it, a bully may both legally swing his fist and also legally punch you. You may feel this is unethical and immoral, but under the license, the bully has the legal right to do so: specifically, under a modified BSD license any one may take your code, improve it, publish it, and then prevent you and others' from using an improvement to your own code. He or she may not, just as a bully may decide not to punch you. But legally he or she has the freedom to do so.
On the other hand, the GNU General Public License is a `freedom from' license. The bully may swing his fist, but he must stop before he hits your nose. Under GNU General Public License, you are protected against someone who takes your code, improves it, publishes it, and then tries to prevent you from using the improvement to your own code. The GNU GPL vaccinates you against being harmed.
Robert J. Chassell
The European Commision last year poured some money into studying whether government computers in member state could be migrated to open source. Although, I'll concede that this isn't quite the same thing as actually funding open source development.
Go and read about gift cultures. A far superior model for software production.
"Many of the public goods we now take for granted--such as police, public libraries, and public fire departments--were historically provided either by private enterprises or by loosely-organized volunteers, neither of which have proven nearly as effectively for the common goods as their current government-run equivalents. "
Every study of public services shows them to be 25% as cost-effective as the same service provided by a private organization. This includes fire departments. At least some cities contract out fire departments as a result.
Lew
"The Constitution, the WHOLE Constitution, and nothing but the CONSTITUTION."
i wish i could give yall better links but if you search google for "brazil government linux" you'll find quite a bit about how the brazilian government. it was also mentioned here, here:
2 21 2
http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=03/06/14/142
we'll see how thing go down in LulaLand goes....
MOD UPP PARENT!!!!
Remember, folks, what the GPL is about. It was explicitly intended, as stated in Stallman's "GNU Manifesto," to see to it that good-paying jobs for programmers are "banned" (his own word) and that software companies are destroyed. And, as we've seen from the experiences of companies which have been wiped out by the GPL, this strategy works if the GPL is allowed to stand. This is hardly what these nations and the programmers who live there need. The answer? Insist that "free" software be truly free, without the GPL's nasty, anti-programmer "poison pill" which prevents programmers from being rewarded for the incremental improvements they make to software. I'd like to see every nation adopt such a policy.
Software is not a publiv good and should not be subsidized by the government.
Public goods are an economics concept, they are both non-rival and non-excludeable; software does not fit this bill. Therefore they are a private good and should not recieve public funding.
Additionally the only public good mentioned in the article I am replying to is the police force, all the others should be privately provided by the free market.
Open source is supported by "a" community, not "the" community. I don't want my tax dollars supporting a software development model any more than I want my tax dollars supporting a model airplane.
Fire, water, roads, etc., are examples of universal requirements. Using open source software is not.
Besides, you need to justify your contention that open source serves the public welfare.
-- Slashdot: When Public Access TV Says "No"
Open source software or whatever you would like to call it is *ours* ! No government, no privately owned business has to meddle with it. We must not loose the precioussssss !!!