Slashdot Mirror
Government Code Collaborative Falls Short
Tom Adelstein writes "This story starts off singing the praises of the Government Open Code Collaborative, then reminds the reader: you discover that it has built one more bureaucracy to oversee its existing bureaucracy, with oversight over the new bureaucracy. Have you ever heard the cliche about prisoners running the asylum? Well, this gated and restrictive open-source government repository fits."
did we just Slashdot a government site?
The govenrnment does not need to do more iota more than this: make it's code open source; be receptive to using open source and accepting open source contributions.
We the open source community get the fruits what we paid tax dollars to produce, and the government doesn't waste money on redundant proprietary code. Everybody wins. Adding bureaucracy to something that is clearly a partnership with the community is just dumb.
When things get complex, multiply by the complex conjugate.
Not really all that offtopic...
The 'software' I looked at had bits in the blurbs about "To be released Summer 2004" and "Available September 2004". Now, tell me if my clock is wrong, but aren't they like 3 months behind there?
How many people can read hex if only you and dead people can read hex?
then reminds the reader: you discover that it has built one more bureaucracy to oversee its existing bureaucracy, with oversight over the new bureaucracy. Have you ever heard the cliche about prisoners running the asylum?
/raises hand.
Everyone who works in a Fortune 1000 company, please raise your hand. Anyone who thinks that their employer COULDNT be any more bureauratic please raise their hand.
Implying Governments are INHERENTLY bureaucratic is a myth, conversly, arguing that a PRIVATE firm (of any notable size) isnt just as complex is silly. The Short: All big systems are complex and byzantine.
No, I did not. I thought it was the inmates running the asylum. Or may be I am mistaken and Ken Kesey was more accurate regarding conditions in American mental hospitals.
Yes, there are only five pieces of software. But they are under an open source license and you can download them. That's all as it should be.
Yes, you have to go through paperwork in order to participate in the project. So what? Every open source effort has some gatekeepers that decide who can participate and what they can contribute. When it comes to government, you can't have a Linux or Theo just making decisions, you actually have to have paperwork, because we have open government that needs to be transparent, not a monarchy. See the connection? Democracy, openness, record keeping? Records and paperwork are the price we pay for openness. In most cases, that paperwork is not just a good idea, it is required because we, the people, passed laws to require it.
GOCC probably will not succeed in its current form. But people are at least interested and trying and that's a good thing. If you have good ideas and are interested, I'm sure you could find a way to participate.
Instead, of course, you are just using this effort as a soapbox to complain and whine. Ditto for Tom Adelstein, the author of the LJ piece, which is also full of tirades and platitudes, but empty of ideas and solutions.
The open source movements needs contributors, not whiners. If have ideas for how to improve GOCC or build something similar with less bureaucracy, present them. Even better, get involved in the project: talk to your local government, run for office, get something on the ballot, etc. Government really is no different from an open source project: things only change if you contribute. Whining and complaining will just piss people off, and if there is too much of it, you endanger the entire project.
The whole idea behind open source is "open," and that's the part GOCC lacks. Nobody can contribute to it without significant restrictions like accepting liability for the code. Open source has NO WARRANTY for a reason. You want a warranty or technical support, you buy it. In addition they have provided no way to build a community around their offerings.
GOCC is virtually unchanged from when I looked at it six months ago, and I wouldn't be too surprised if everybody just kind of ignored it.
How am I supposed to fit a pithy, relevant quote into 120 characters?
When we hear rumors of someone elses code that might possibly be useful (and this happens infrequently, and unofficially via the grapevine) we have to make "official" requests through an unfortunately large hierarchy. We are usually met with "why do you want this? This was developeed with funds from program XYZ and you can't use it. This model has not been validated and we can't release it...."
And this is internal to ONE organization! When we make similar requests to our external sister labs of equal size and bureaucratic depth the problem scales exponentially.
It's very frustrating and I wish I could come up with a way to fix it.