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."

Comments

SkoleLinux (School Linux)

[nordicfrost]

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.

Re:SkoleLinux (School Linux)

[nordicfrost]

A link could be useful... Sorry!

There won't be some "Office of Open Source"

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Government funding

[KillerHamster]

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.

Who funded BSD? TCP/IP?

[brentlaminack]

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.

Re:Who funded BSD? TCP/IP?

[Jungle guy]

Very good point. It is also intersting to note that BSD and TCP/IP can be used by private companies any way they want (like, putting it on free software or on a proprietary software). An interesting point would be: shuold government fund GPL-licensed software? Only OSS software companies may benefit from it. Microsoft oposes it strongly, but professor Lessig thinks this kind of funding is OK, as governmenta also funds proprietary software and software patents, that can't be used on OOS.

One day, though, governments might find interesting to fund software that are essential to the internet (like, servers and clients for DNS, http, e-mail, etc).

Re:in short, no

[Simon (S2)]

Public goods need to benefit EVERYONE, not EVERYONE uses linux or open software.

and not everyone is driving his car on that road, but the gov payed for it. and not everyone is going to the public library, but the gov payed for it, and so on.

oss is just like a library: free information for everyone.

Careful with the term 'public good'

[madro]

There are goods and services provided by the government and there are public goods. There's some overlap between the two, but in terms of market-based economics, there's a limited definition of a public good (from http://www.bized.ac.uk/stafsup/exams/revec_mfail.h tm)

A pure public good is a good or service which is consumed by everyone and from which no-one can be excluded, defence is a good example. It has two characteristics, non-rivalry i.e. one person's consumption of the good does not reduce the amount available for someone else and non-excludability i.e. no-one can be excluded from consumption of the good.

This brings in the problem of free riders, which is someone who consumes a good or service without paying for it. This problem arises with public goods because why should one person pay when everybody else will contribute to the cost. If everyone took this attitude the good would not be provided hence the need for government intervention.

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.

Public AND Private Funding are both Appropriate

[FreeUser]

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.

Re:Public AND Private Funding are both Appropriate

[urbazewski]

Public funding is nearly ALWAYS a bad thing. It distorts the market place and a distorted market place means inefficiently allocated recourses. That's economic 101. It's a BAD THING.

What's missing from this discussion is a definition of what a public good is:

...a public good is essentially a good that is difficult to exclude someone from using, and that one person's use does not deny someone else the use of that good. A public park or clean air are typical examples of public goods. (read this article for typical incorrect definitions of public goods provided by econ 101 students)

Free software is indeed a public good because by definitoin it is difficult to exclude other people from using it and other than the cost of bandwidth to make the code available my using doesn't prevent anyone else using it. The problem with public goods is that most people want them, but no one has much of an incentive to provide them individually --- which is why public goods are typically provided by the government. Public funding of public goods does not "distort the market" because the non-excludability of public goods means there's not much of a market for them in the first place.

Anything that can be copied digitally becomes more and more like a public good everyday...

Re:KDE and Germany

[cabalamat2]

The German government is funding open source email encryption software under project Aegypten. Some of this is KDE software, for example work on the kmail mail client.

See Project Aegypten Home Page for details.

Re:in short, no

[Anonymous Canard]

Public goods need to benefit EVERYONE...

First of all public goods only need to benefit enough people to enjoy a majority support. Does the military benefit everyone? How about the people who disagree with how the military is being used? Does the bus system benefit everyone? Does welfare benefit everyone?

Arguably all of these do support everyone; that is, everyone benefits by living in a country where the destitute don't have to resort to theft to avoid starvation, everyone benefits from living in a society which is well protected from foreign aggressors, and society as a whole benefits from having people who are incapable of passing a driving test, or unable to afford a car, never the less able to hold a job and be productive so that they won't have to live on welfare.

Likewise open software benefits everyone -- if not directly then indirectly -- in lower prices for services, in greater productivity, resulting in greater general prosperity, in better and cheaper communication technologies, and greater efficiency for those areas that open software is able to cover.

Where would we be without open software. Let's see. No email, no Internet (no DNS), no TCP/IP, no world wide web, no interoperable software. Novell, Microsoft, MacOS, and the mainframes would all still be separate islands.

Yeah, I guess that doesn't add up to squat.

Software as a Public Service

[Dr. Transparent]

New! Public Service Software (PSS)

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:

• Software Developers provided with unlimited supply of non-fat snacks and low-sodium Soda Pop at no cost to Developers
• All software to be developed on new Government Operating system: GLOSS (Government Licensed Open Software System). Because GLOSS is still in development, no software can be developed at this time. Estimated time of development is 10 years. Cost: only $100M per development month! What a bargain!
• All development will take place at new DoS headquarters in DC. Headquarters building is now beneath the washington monument, which has been wired with 802.11g antenna to provide free internet access for all of DC.
• All development will take place using the new Free United Development (FUD) language. This language combines all languages into one. A true celebration of language diversity. It's procedural, modal, object-oriented, iterative, and recursive all at the same time!
• To protect the environment the DoS developers will use new state-of-the-art environmentally friendly computers. The keyboards are a bamboo-syrup composite, and the processors are made entirely of nitrogen, cooled to a solid. To further protect the environment no upgrades will be allowed until environmental impact studies can take place
• New development at DoS will use the new ISO standard Government Unlimited Model (GUM). The GUM incorporates the opinions and psychological evaluations of each developer to create a project that everyone will enjoy working on, but will not be offended by. Because of their controversial nature, the following areas will be considered "off limits" to DoS programmers: any development for the military, any development for organizations who sell, lease, rent, or offer for free any object that might possibly contain a religious quote or a quote by any founding father of America, anything that can "play mp3s".
• Also, the DoS will be instituing a strict policy of comment appropriateness. All developer comments will be checked for offensive words or slogans. The following are strictly off-limits:
  • Rush Limbaugh
  • Pro life
  • Christian
  • Fox News
  • Matt Drudge
  • Republican
  • Free Enterprise
  • Corporation
  • Opportunity
  • Liberty
  • Justice
  • Conservative
• Finally, the DoS will adhere to strict OSHA standards: only 500 words may be typed before a mandatory 5 minute break must be taken. Any more typing that this may require a pay raise and/or paid leave.

• 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.

Its called socialism.

[HanzoSan]

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.