Japanese Govt Boosts OSS Developments

Final Samurai writes "Information-technology Promotion Agency(IPA, in pdf), an extra-departmental organization of Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry of Japan has been supported open source software development. Some efforts are now available: framework for printing, Samba internationalization, a tool for hacking Gtk+, ssh in Java, manuals for OpenOffice.org, and GRASS internationalization. Though IPA doesn't announce the support program strongly, we can find the name, `IPA' in each project page. Does your government have such a plan to fund OSS developments? How do you think about governments' funding OSS developments(by tax)? If you have a chance to be funded, what kind of software will you develop?"

Comments

Government should not be funding OSS

[Shivetya]

Unless it is under contract to provide an immediate service that is needed. Just putting money out there for funding development would be wrong and we would have nothing more than the waste of taxpayer money that funds "art".

In other words, if there is a purpose/need for the software then by all means fund it under contract for that purpose. This could include changing educational programs to only use OSS for teaching of students on how to program. If however the reason is just to buy votes, keep unemployed "artists" from starving, or there is no need then do not use the taxpayers dollars on it.

I just want to avoid a situation like what we have here in Georgia where one local county spent more on art than their roads. Boy does it show. Want to find a government building - just look for the ugly art or a building that looks more expensive than a bank. I used to think it was just a saying.

As a citizen I am concerned

[briancnorton]

Not to disrespect the OSS developer, but I have serious concerns about the level of professional financial management that these projects have. I don't want my tax-dollars going to buy a foosball table for an OSS company that will go out of business before their product is delivered. No offense, but follow-through has been a serious problem for OSS. Look at how many projects in freshmeat are at at version 0.5 and haven't been touched in a year.