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Should Obama Give Stimulus To Open Source?
snydeq writes "InfoWorld's Bill Snyder posits a deeper relationship between government and open source than was proposed in last week's open letter to Obama calling for broader open source adoption: economic stimulus. Since software vendors urged the president to go open source last week, security companies 'have raised scary points about vulnerabilities in open source,' suggesting they could step in to help secure an open source switch. Rather than opt for this kind of security through obscurity, Snyder argues in favor of earmarking funds for open source development to instead ensure security through transparency. 'Once the government expands its use and support of open source, venture money — which is drying up in the current recession — would again start flowing to those small companies, allowing them to hire or rehire some of the tens of thousands of unemployed IT workers,' he argues."
That's like an ANTI-Stimulus to us software developers trying to make a living.
No. Why? Because open source isn't typically a large lobbying group.
Next.
The open source movement is exactly what should be funded. Create a grant application program for open source projects.
I had an argument with a microsoftie a while ago, who was convinced that open source was destroying the software industry. I countered that all it was doing was creating a rich infrastructure on top of which other industry could be built.
The open source infrastructure is a national (international) treasure that, by making infrastructure basically free, like roads and bridges, makes other projects that would have been too big and expensive to develop from scratch, almost trivial to develop.
1: You don't create jobs by adding unfair competition to struggling companies(how can companies compete with someone getting guaranteed money with no need to turn a profit?)
2: I'm pretty sure there are international laws in place which don't look too kindly on this.
The fools in Washington are led around by their nose (and their peckers) by lobbying dollars. Open source in the government is never going to happen...especially with "quality" vendors like Diebold and SAIC jumping in to "fix things."
Well not quite as far but it will devalue the work of software developers and put money in the wrong hands.
Open Source at least the GNU variation of it, doesn't value the creators of the work, and assumes their time making such device is such a joy that a job well done is pay enough per say. Sure you can make money off of supporting your code consulting services etc... But the value as a developer is reduced (As there are people who just want to code, and eat, but not run small consulting businesses or deal with people saying I want X or Y etc...) By putting a Dollar Price tag on this I could see companies firing their full time developers and pay table scraps to many Open Source Developers (Which would make you wished they outsourced to India) to get their code done. Then pay the real bucks to full time people who will support and consult the product.
Without the money for Open Source most companies yea they will stay closed source but they will be paying software developers more to make the software. So that will be more money going in the Middle of the economy so it can Trickle Up and Down and a lot faster too.
But putting large funds for Open Source will mean companies who really don't care about software will get a lot of money pay some open source developers pocket change and state they are open source and keep the rest of the money for themselves.
Republicans they want to tax the rich less even at a loss of services.
Democrats want to tax the rich more for services that have so many rules and loopholes that only the rich are able to get resources to correctly apply for.
It reminds me a 5/6 years ago My state had a grant for "small" tech companies to funding for education for their employees so my boss tried to sign me up for .NET, CISCO, and/or Red Hat certification training. The first time it was rejected because they wanted more detail on each of the training, the second time it was rejected because they were Out of State classes (We live near the border of other states and you will actually travel a lot further to the In State classes. But every it gets rejected for some reason or an other we had to go back and redo everything as class schedules changed and pricing as well we had to find different classes all every time. We later gave it up as the process of getting funding for these classes cost more then just going for the class itself.
And who got these grants the large consulting firms (as many large consulting firm is often technically a small business as they are usually under 100 employees) Who have the resources to do all the legwork over and over again as it would benefit hundred workers not 3.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
For most businesses, the cost of software represents a substantial portion of their cost structure. With open source software, the businesses will be better able to retain employees, which will strengthen the economy.
The beauty of open source software is that its value to society far exceeds the cost of the effort consumed by creating it. While it does require a fixed, up-front effort, the payoff is limited only by the number of people able to use such software. Contrast this with the closed source model, in which, in an effort to maximize vendor profit, always leaves out those unable or unwilling to pay.
Most Americans work in low-margin business - doing things like agriculture, retail, etc... - providing the goods and services necessary for civilized life. It is these businesses for which the cost of software means the difference between laying off, and retaining employees. Funding OSS development is like giving them an interest-free loan which never has to be repaid. But better yet, the benefit to the economy as a whole far exceeds the cost of creating OSS.
The society for a thought-free internet welcomes you.
He should determine what's in the best interest of the contry and set policies based on that. I'm sick of people talking about how Washington GIVES to this group or that group. If we need to stimulate the economy, the result is that certain groups will receive money. The result is the same, but the mindset of "Washington GIVES" vs. "Washington does what's in the best interest of the country" is very different. The main problems with the stimulus is that much of it was about GIVING to certain groups then justifying how it would stimulate the economy rather than figuring out what will best stimulate the economy then figuring out where to spend the money.
Give money to people for Open Source and you'll have a ton of shitty projects designed solely to get money from the Government.
Most of the rest of the projects will be companies claiming free money for projects they would have paid for in-house, but they could get the government to pay for a portion of it instead. The projects won't be useful to anyone else, and especially won't be useful without the in-house project that goes with it.
And no, GPL'ing all the government-funded software isn't the answer, either. At the very least, the companies will just find a way around that license.
"If you make people think they're thinking, they'll love you; But if you really make them think, they'll hate you." - DM
All economists agree that government spending is important during times of contraction, as it helps to make up the shortfall in the economy from the side of the consumer, and helps "stimulate" the economy. Another advantage of government spending is that it's usually an investment in infrastructure that will last many decades and provide a platform for future growth in the economy.
However, the United States has not taken advantage of the good times. They have failed to reduce their debt during those times- and in fact have increased it to record proportions. Not only that, but they have not even managed to maintain their infrastructure. This is at both the state and federal level. So we went INTO this mess already up to our ears in debt.
People fail to understand that every dollar the US prints reduces the real value of all the other dollars that currently exist by a tiny fraction - because after all, fiat currency is only hard to forge pieces of paper. Once the shared belief in the value of that worthless piece of paper is destroyed, it will quickly return to its intrinsic value - ZERO. Ask Mugabe.
Printing trillions of dollars at a time when you are already close to 60 trillion (when you count social security) in debt, and the WORLD GDP is only 150 trillion, will destroy the currency in short order. The US can't afford to bail ANYONE out - they are too deep in debt already. Yet the political temptation to appear to "do something" is too strong - despite the fact that it's already too late. The "stimulus" is currently designed to put almost $300BN back into the pockets of the consumer in the form of tax relief - consumers that are already deep in debt. That 300BN will disappear in a couple months, as people pay their overdue credit cards, mortgage payments and utility bills, or buy houses thinking that this is "the bottom" (HAH! The "bottom" will be in 2015 or so, because all bubbles are V shaped and this one started in 1998) - and THEN WHAT?
Well, $126BN will be spent on infrastructure - great, let's do what FDR did and build, or re-build, interstates. Surely a plan that worked 70 years ago is still valid today, right? So after giving jobs to all the immigrants again (because who ELSE works with a shovel nowadays?), what's left? A few hundred billion to be spent giving cheap drugs to the elderly and other programs to win political points. Oh and NASA is going to get $2BN, so that should cover the fuel for 2 shuttle launches...
Frankly by the time enough "infrastructure" is built that the government begins to require turbines from GE for their wind farms, or technological equipment for the new "smart grid", we will all be out of a job already, burning money by the bucketful in winter in order to keep warm.
Oh and don't forget Chrysler and GM's "recovery plan" is to apparently ask the government for more money every quarter.
America still hasn't woken up and realized that this is not just another "recession". This is the breaking of the previous consumer model, and a complete dissolution of the "American way of life". We can't ALL have SUV's, we can't ALL have big screen TV's, and we can't ALL live in dream houses. Especially not when it's bought on "credit". Well America, the credit has run out.
Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
Obama is an elected official, he is obliged to serve the will of the people of the United States.
To be isolationist about it: this is a stimulus from US taxpayers for the recovery of the US economy. Open Source knows no borders, stimulus into open source will benefit the whole world, not just the US.
To be union-minded about it: open source is a disruptive technology, it destroys established highly profitable service industries and replaces their products with free alternatives. It reduces the scale of the software economy from one that includes compensation for development, sales, marketing, investor returns and support to one that only generates significant revenue in support. In short, open source is a short-term net destroyer of jobs.
To be PAC minded about it: open source doesn't have the deep pockets of the established software industry. There are 25 closed source lobbyists in Washington D.C. for every open source one.
In summary: the American voter doesn't think beyond next week's paycheck, whether or not they can afford the next larger flat-screen TV, or to keep that 4500 sq. ft. McMansion they bought 4 years ago when the balloon payment comes due. Obama is up for re-election, and he has a mandate to make Joe the Plumber happy before November 2012. Investments in Open Source have long-term global returns that are difficult to demonstrate during a 30 second sound-bite on the nightly news. Regardless of how massive that ultimate ROI might be, it's not something that will put Barack back in office in 2012.
Sorry OSS, you are noble, just and worthy, but you've just got no chance of making it on American Idol.
to think of ways to set aside funds for small businesses; ways that would encourage them to adopt and develop open source software.
We might take the Depression era grants that went to artists to decorate many public spaces as a model. Modest grants to people who work in information technology to create freely redistributable solutions public informatics problems would have several important advantages.
(1) Such a plan maintains a domestic informatics workforce in the face of increased pressure to move jobs to low wage countries. Maintaining and increasing the skills of this workforce will make it attractive for industry to turn to it when the economy improves.
(2) Mandating interoperability with open, non-proprietary standards improves the competitiveness of the domestic IT industry, where businesses are too often driven by premature efforts to create some kind of market niche where they ar protected from competition.
(3) The grants should require that the small businesses have a plant to use the work to increase their capabilities, and particularly favor the development of new kinds of technology or application for technology.
(4) Focusing the stimulus money on small businesses allows technology bets to be spread across a greater variety of approaches; it is less likely to introduce what is in effect central planning into engineering decisions. It is also unlikely to strengthen the hand of one big player against all the others because of its skill at obtaining Federal money.
(5) Low margins and ready sweat equity will encourage greater adoption of free software.
(6) There is already a Federal mechanism for doing this; the Small Business Innovative Research grant program.
SBIR currently pays for mostly a lot of boondoggles, although even boondoggles if they are kept close enough to home can be stimulative. However, with the right requirements placed on grant applications the value created can be maximized -- important if we want to avoid the inflationary effects of stimulation. Favoring free software would mean that nearly any work done in an area results in public value. Even bad or poorly implemented systems contain lessons that can be studied and built upon; when the system is proprietary, those lessons die.
Often the problem with SBIR is that work doesn't really result in something that can be commercialized. Even if the system is good, often people can't market it. So perhaps the most politically effective way to do this is to require that if the developer does not make a commercial success of the software within a fixed period, that it be released under a free license.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
Not exactly. The point of open formats / protocols is that anyone can use them in their software including closed, proprietary products. E.g. there is no legal reason Microsoft Word cannot include a Save to ODF option amongst their file type options. Thus it *is* a level playing field in that everyone can compete. If you're saying that Microsoft in our example could say "we don't want to play anymore and we're going home," then they could, but it is their choice. If you're arguing that OpenOffice.org or KOffice have an unfair advantage because they already support it, then I'd have to say it's less of an unfair advantage than using Word 2007 format is against non-Microsoft companies. We thus have increased the levelness of the playing field by mandating open and free formats. As to your suggestion that mandating "compatible" is a better approach, I would prefer open because the latter already enables the former plus merely mandating "compatibility" is open to a lot of abuse. E.g. OpenOffice can produce Word documents (and very well), but it will always be playing catch-up so long as Microsoft controls the format.
Regards,
H.
Aide-toi, le Ciel t'aidera - Jeanne D'Arc.
"You are in competition with everyone, and if you don't get in there and fight, well, you're not gonna get a very big piece of the pie."
The assumptions being made here are where I think you're losing the GGP. It's entirely possible to compete without 'fighting', or more importantly, as you insinuate, 'fight dirty'. And, frankly, having a 'very big piece' of the (mythical) pie is not necessarily the best goal to have in mind. Finally, you are assuming a discrete world with discrete resources - that there is a pie, and that pie is only so big and does not change.
Now, one could argue that the pie is actually shrinking, what with the economic and environmental disasters we're facing. But our ability to increase said pie is not gone. Further, you can act virtuously while you do this. It is not unethical to not tell anyone else about a job you're looking at getting (it would be unethical to hide it from them, though, or lie about it when asked) - but the comparison of doing a job (delivering a service in exchange for money) to sharing code is not there. Simply because code is 'open' does not mean any monkey can use it, or use it well.
In fact, open source very likely expands the pie faster - and while it may seem against the individual best interest to open source, it is very much in the common interest to do so. Code gets better, faster, when it's open. It's far more likely to get into the hands of people passionate about the task at hand, rather than just into the hands of people being paid to do the task. This is good, because ultimately you, as a human being, don't care about the value of the code (which, outside of a context, is equal to nothing). What you care about is the value you get from what the code does.
And, ultimately, what code does is remove redundant tasks that are inefficient to do manually by a human. This removal of redundancy means more things can be made faster, and humans are freed to do more sophisticated tasks - or nothing at all, if they so choose.
In the aggregate, this is a good thing. In the specific, the difficulty is having the end value pass through to the people doing the work. That is one of the sophisticated problems I wish we had more time and energy to address. But deciding to limit open source is to decide to limit the pie growth - and that's ultimately self-defeating, keeping you 'in your place'.
The fact is that the impression you're implying of the 'real world' is one we're habituated to. We expect it to not be all puppies and ponies. But the people who get ahead choose to rework some set of assumptions that free them from a system that is very, very good at keeping wealth and knowledge in the hands of the few upon the backs of the many. The ethical person should start by rejecting those premises and finding ways to accrue wealth, knowledge and anything else of value through means that do not screw the people around them.
Of course, if all you actually care about is the Benjamins, then all of that is meaningless. But I'd posit that such a mindset is actually terribly regressive - it's a primitive thought pattern barely worthy of your average mammal, nevermind humans. There has to be something more to it.
[Ego]out
>>Good fortune is where you find it... if there are talented OSS developers who are presently standing in soup-lines, I'd rather give them a salary and have them spend time developing code.
And you are free to do so from funds you control. But why would you want to force others, perhaps against their wishes, to "give"?