Government-Funded GPL Software

tgw writes "Tom Adelstein has an article in 'Linux Journal' on how a major milestone in US government-funded OSS recently passed - virtually unnoticed." Slashdot has mentioned this company earlier.

Comments

I do see the down side

[blue_adept]

it's bad enough that the government robs me of my money (taxes); it's adding insult to injury to use that money to create free software, that will potentially compete with the way I make money in the first place! (writing/selling non-free software)

Was it Ronald Reagan that said the nine scariest words in the english language are "I'm from the government and I'm here to help"?

Re:It just makes sense for the government to do th

[medelliadegray]

I am completely for government funded GPL

I do not agree with your statement of "who better to fix the bugs and modify (in a positive manner) than the public"

Sure, if the public wants to take the software and modify it--they can fix the bugs they create--but the government i hope would take the time to fix their own bugs--rather than rely on 'the people' to.

I would be more in favor of said government software (paid for by the people) to be completely in the public domain--BSD style license. No strings attached.

Re:Public Funds, Public Software

[nwbvt]

Well why the fuck do you think I said "Except the public includes corporations who sell proprietary software" if I wasn't talking about their proprietary projects?

If I said "The prosecution's lawyer cannot bring up the defendant's past record", you claiming "Sure he can, just not in court" would not refute my point.

You can nitpick all you want, that does not change the fact that funding GPL code discriminates against commercial companies who sell proprietary software as they cannot use it in their products while OSS developers can.