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.

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: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.

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...

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.