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Obama Administration Supports Recycling Code and Open Source
jones_supa writes: The Obama administration is seeking public comments on its open source policy. They have released for public comment a draft Federal Source Code policy to support improved access to custom software code. From the policy document: "This policy requires that, among other things: (1) new custom code whose development is paid for by the Federal Government be made available for reuse across Federal agencies; and (2) a portion of that new custom code be released to the public as Open Source Software (OSS)." Tony Scott, Federal CIO of the US government, mentioned one of the strengths of open source – cost saving. Scott wrote on the White House blog that the U.S. government "can save taxpayer dollars by avoiding duplicative custom software purchases and promote innovation and collaboration across Federal agencies."
... which means that, by definition, it cannot support open source software.
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/03...
Yes, they support recycling code...old code..related to encryption.
Before we crown him (and Hillary), consider his open-borders attitude toward H-1B visas; the White House is not tech friendly.
new custom code whose development is paid for by the Federal Government be made available for reuse across Federal agencies
Huh ? Does that mean that right now, code that is developed for one agency, doesn't get reused by another ?
Sasha: Im all done with my loop, can I return to main()?
Barack: Now, sasha, what did i say about recycling code? check with Malia and see if you can use data from her constructor instead?
Malia: My constructor doesnt handle 32 bit integers, only 64. Sasha wont redo her booleans.
Michelle Barack: And for god sake use a pointer. we're not made of address space you know...
Sasha: Im dereferencing on line 14 dad! god! Malias stupid library doesnt support returning a linked list i think...
Barack: now --let me be clear here-- this, and i mean this code, isnt going to compile in Borland young ladies...
daughters: OMG DAD this compiles FINE in GCC!
Michelle: have you kids been hanging around uncle Richard and his GNU friends again...
Good people go to bed earlier.
Hooray?
SJW's don't eliminate discrimination. They just expropriate it for themselves.
White Houses endorses the word "Recycle".
While I advocate fully for the GOV to use OSS... I really hope they have a transition plan in place, because every app I've seen targeted to the US Gov has been the most bug riddled crap I've ever seen. Making it OSS will put these crappy vendors on blast as any kid will see the glaring security holes all over the place. The fallout from this will be more secure apps and cost savings, but wow, will it be an ugly mess when it first gets rolling.
More important is the license that such code would be released under. I think it has to be either the BSD or MIT licenses. A license from the GPL family can't be used, because they're much too restrictive for many potential users of said code. Most business users, for example, won't touch GPL'ed code. Even most non-commercial and hobbyist users are hesitant about the GPL, because in its quest to promote "freedom" the GPL actually ends up taking away important freedoms. Even if GPL supporters don't like it, the freedom to redistribute binaries based on modified version of the source without releasing the source changes themselves is a critical freedom. Another freedom that's important is the freedom to use code without that code's license infectiously applying itself to all of the code in your product, including code that existed years or decades before the GPLed code itself was even written! The BSD and MIT licenses don't suffer from problems like those. They go out of their way to safely maximize freedom for all, rather than the GPL's approach which is to limit freedom while pretending to enhance them.
Does this mean we get the source code to PRISM?
+10
If only you knew what you are talking about, but no.
Does this mean that any code at a university which was associated with an NIH or NSF or DOE grant has to be provided freely to the govt?
Some drink at the fountain of knowledge. Others just gargle.
Donald Trump has announced that he's going to make Open Source great again by putting the "SS" back in "OSS".
You are welcome on my lawn.
Government Public License
The Obama administration should open source the AHA exchange; let market competitors fix and replace it.
interactive hologram, or it didn't happen.
I was going to flame you in the other thread over the weekend, but you are hopelessly naive. You've even given me some ammo here.
the freedom to redistribute binaries based on modified version of the source without releasing the source changes themselves is a critical freedom
Why? What purpose could this possibly serve? The moment it becomes a binary without source code, it becomes proprietary software. Not bothering to log in, but I have been personally accused of sexism and held accountable for the bugs in proprietary software. I don't know if the code they shitted up was MIT or itself proprietary, but it doesn't matter. I'm the "programmer," I'm unable to fix glaring bugs because the piece of shit is proprietary and doing a binary patch would break our licensing agreement, so some ignorant feminist manages to convince a good number of line workers that the bugs are my fault and I'm refusing to fix them because I just must hate women and just must believe that they shouldn't be programmers because I'm all-men.
The next thing you're going to do is tell me that murder laws are prohibiting your freedom of religion because you can't lynch gays for trying to make Christmas illegal or some equally wacky thing.
The people who run the Department of Re-inventing The Wheel will get laid off.
Freedom doesn't have to serve a purpose.
There's no justifiable reason to disallow the distribution of binaries built from modified source code.
Disallowing that isn't promoting freedom; it's eliminating freedom.
Eliminating freedom obviously doesn't promote or increase freedom!
In reality, it means creating an entirely new bureaucracy to maintain code that might be reused for something, and a 2 month long waiver process to get permission to write code to accomplish the task instead of reusing code that it completely unsuited for the task at hand.
So government is going to have to release source code from some crappy custom HR or accounting application? Really folks think about the business applications you work on.
love is just extroverted narcissism
The Federal government pays a lot of money for research and development in a lot of areas, architecture, bridges, roads, jet engines, custom ASICs, etc etc. I used to design custom racks, brackets, conduit routing, power/heating/cooling systems for electronics. Think Humvees with quarter racks to a full mobile data center. It eventually got to the point where we were only doing something new/innovative every 3rd or 4th deal. Every other deal was use the bracket designed for A, the rack from B, the generator from C, etc. If we had to release those cad drawings we would have had no competitive edge. If they're saying code should be reusable across agencies and parts should be made open, when stop just at software?
Considering President Obama has approval ratings on slashdot that are about even with the Ebola Virus or Kim Jong-Un, I would expect that his endorsement of recycling code would encourage the monkeys that write slashdot to cough up some all-new code very soon. This might be the greatest gift Obama has given to the slashdot community since ... well, likely ever.
Damn_registrars has no butt-hole. Damn_registrars has no use for a butt-hole.
By this logic, if I modded you down, I'd mod you up.
This is a bad idea.
So has he asked Congress to change the law back so all federally-funded work becomes public domain?
Another bin I have to haul out to the curbside every week. Worse yet, they'll make us sort it first. Perl goes in the green one, C++ in the blue (please remove and discard templates first), VB goes in with the compost.
Have gnu, will travel.
There's no justifiable reason to disallow the distribution of binaries built from modified source code.
Which implies that there is no justifiable reason to deny your users the freedom to copy and redistribute those binaries as they please.
You were going to allow that, weren't you?
Microsoft uses BSD code. They couldn't do that with GPL code.
I don't like Microsoft or their products, but I would rather they use BSD code written by people who understand what they're doing than have Microsoft, yet again, reinvent the wheel.
When there's no possibility of the end result being open sourced, would you rather someone commercially benefit from using BSD code, or live with whatever fundamental security holes they can introduce starting from scratch?
Sometimes, "freedom" has to include the freedom to be a douchebag.
Not "sometimes". Always. It's not freedom otherwise.
There's no justifiable reason to disallow the distribution of binaries built from modified source code.
My code. My rules. That is all the justification I need.
If you don't like my rules, don't use my code.
Disallowing that isn't promoting freedom; it's eliminating freedom.
The GPL is about the freedom of the code.
with the BSD/MIT/whatever licenses the code is more Free to start with. The GPL makes sure that the code stays Free.
If you don't like the GPL, don't use it.
You just have to understand that different types of people appreciate different types of freedom.
Death has been proven to be 99% fatal in lab rats.
You're clearly talking about proprietary software, then. You want full control over it, as you consider it your property, even when somebody else is using it.
We're talking about open source software here, however. That means relinquishing control over how other people use the code.
So the GPL may be a perfectly fine proprietary license in your particular case, because your intent is to control others (that is, to remove their freedom to act as they choose). But that's also why it's unsuitable for anyone releasing open source software, where this level of control over the actions of other people is considered unwanted and unacceptable.
... which means that, by definition, it cannot support open source software.
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/03...
+4 Insightful? Look, government's position on backdoors is fundamentally wrong, as almost everyone who works in tech knows and almost nobody who works outside of tech understands or cares about. But that debate has nothing to do with open source.
The United States Government is the biggest purchaser on the planet, and we pay their bills. If they want to recycle code across their organization to save us money, great. If they want to open-source their unclassified software, great.
in order to lower the carbon load on the planet earth. If he has to add something about recycling code to get his 'Kill Whitey bill' passed so be it.
-"Only pedophiles own encrypted IPhones. If you own an IPhone you molest children."
-Barrack Hussein Obama, President of the Americans.
with the BSD/MIT/whatever licenses the code is more Free to start with.
The GPL makes sure that the code stays Free.
This is something that is often reiterated and that I strongly disagrees with, not necessarily the intention, but the definition of the words.
GPL has nothing to do with making sure that the code stays free. What GPL does is that it ensures that any software that is built on top of it will have to be open source.
When it comes to the original source code BSD/MIT/unlicensed distribution all ensures that the original source remains free. You can compile and distribute as many binaries you want, the source is still out there, this makes the "free" claim often put on GPL software a bit dubious since it limits what you can do with the software rather than ensures that you can decide on your own.
For me freedom typically means that you are allowed to do things that someone else doesn't necessarily approve of, and that would include change the software and release the binary.
I feel that calling GPL free software is a bit dishonest. I would rather call it something like "ensured open" or "ensured open derivatives" since that is more that GPL is about.
There is a big difference between open source software and free software, yet people seem to mix them up or use free when they mean open.
If you provide absolute freedom, then you also provide the freedom for some to take away freedoms from others. Releasing binaries without source is just such an act, you are using source which you had the freedom to receive and modify, but you are not extending that same level of freedom to others.
The GPL aims to ensure equality for everyone, which requires to impose an equal set of limits on everyone to avoid a select few from imposing their own set of limits on everyone else. Society works much the same way, you are free to do quite a lot but when it comes to things which harm others there are various laws to stop you.
http://spamdecoy.net - free throwaway anonymous email - avoid spam!
If done in the full spirit of the summary, would that not create a mono culture of code that makes vulnerabilities available everywhere instead of just the agency in which it was developed?
When Fascism comes to America, it will call itself Anti-Fascism, and tell you to give up your guns.
can save taxpayer dollars by avoiding duplicative custom software purchases and promote innovation and collaboration across Federal agencies
No, this is the hoped result of this sharing program, not the primary result of using open source software. The open source software brings knowledge accumulation, sustainability over government length life cycles and the natural multi-source acquisition ability.
Any software paid for by public funds should be made available for public use, duh! We also need to open source all textbooks, and put all the for-profit textbook companies out of business. Seriously, a huge chunk of our education budget goes to publishers, and open source text would be freely downloadable to tablets, making it cheaper, more current, and more correct, sense any errors could be instantly corrected. Put out bounties, and pay students for finding "bugs" in the text, that'll make those little buggers study!
I've abandoned my search for truth; now I'm just looking for some useful delusions.
To me, this means that someone in the government understands what an API is. This is great news!
Next thing you know we'll vote some commie into office.
"We're talking about open source software here, however. That means relinquishing control over how other people use the code."
No, that wouldn't be open source software. That would be public domain software.
"your intent is to control others (that is, to remove their freedom to act as they choose)."
Not at all, others are perfectly free to act as they choose. But my labor and efforts are not free, time is the one truly limited resource humanity has and the only freedom you are granted with a BSD/MIT license vs the GPL is the freedom to save yours at the expense of mine while selfishly refusing to pass that benefit along.
Look at all the commercialized code that have come out of universities.
Some drink at the fountain of knowledge. Others just gargle.
"would you rather someone commercially benefit from using BSD code, or live with whatever fundamental security holes they can introduce starting from scratch"
Commercial benefit has nothing to do with it. You can commercially benefit while complying with the GPL. But would I rather someone is able to take my time in order to save their own without allowing others the same benefit or live with whatever fundamental security holes they can introduce starting from scratch?
I pick option C. I neither allow douchebags to benefit from my work not utilize the swiss cheese software produced by douchebags. Therefore do not have to live with their holes in my face.
If you provide absolute freedom, then you also provide the freedom for some to take away freedoms from others. Releasing binaries without source is just such an act
The source is still out there, just download it and start modifying.
There is a large difference between open software and free software. Please don't redefine the word free just because you aren't content with calling open software for what it is.
GPL has nothing to do with making sure that the code stays free.
Please define 'free'.
What GPL does is that it ensures that any software that is built on top of it will have to be open source.
Ok. That Includes copies of the original source.
When it comes to the original source code BSD/MIT/unlicensed distribution all ensures that the original source remains free.
How is the GPL not ensuring this exactly?
You can compile and distribute as many binaries you want, the source is still out there,
How is this not the case with GPL?
this makes the "free" claim often put on GPL software a bit dubious since it limits what you can do with the software rather than ensures that you can decide on your own.
Its analogous to any system of freedom which states that your freedom ends where it starts to infringe on mine.
If you take a free project, add your 0.02 cents and change the license, then give it to me, then I don't enjoy the same rights you enjoyed. The GPL ensures that I'm just as free when i get your modified code as you were when you got the code from someone else. Not more free; but crucially: Not less free.
The GPL only limits your freedom to put the next user into a cage. Your absolute freedom with BSD is the freedom to put the downstream users into a cage.
As an upstream author, that's the decision I am making when I release under GPL vs BSD. Do I want to give downstream users the ability to put people even further downstream into a restrictive license? Or do I want everyone, no matter how downstream to have the same set of freedoms when they get derivate works of this as the first person who picks it up?
The BSD has certain advantages -- it can be combined with other licenses easier; it can result in the code being used in projects where GPL code couldn't or wouldn't be.
But it has disadvantages as well... it may be that the hardwork I did, gets subsumed into a new work and nobody, not even me can benefit from that and improve it further. Best case, we can go to the original project where it was still BSD and try to recreate all the features that were added to the now-locked-up version.
I feel that calling GPL free software is a bit dishonest.
I don't see that at all.
I would rather call it something like "ensured open" or "ensured open derivatives" since that is more that GPL is about.
That's not the worst idea I've heard. Bu you can have open source software that grants you no freedom to redistribute or derive from it at all. So your 'preference' just kicks the can into a different but equally unsatisfying semantic argument about 'open' instead of 'free'.
For me freedom typically means that you are allowed to do things that someone else doesn't necessarily approve of, and that would include change the software and release the binary.
You can do that with GPL. Just alongside the binary must be the offer to make the source available, under the GPL.
The only thing you can't do is change the license.
Of COURSE the Obama Administration supports "re-cycling" but only those bits of code which have been weakened/backdoored by the NSA.
They'd LOVE to have that code as a fundemental part of major systems such as Oracle/Windows etc.
The GPL is about the freedom of the code. with the BSD/MIT/whatever licenses the code is more Free to start with.
Your explanation is so poor, it's misleading. Here's a better explanation:
GPL ensures that every single copy of the SOFTWARE remains free, even if it means putting restrictions on what PEOPLE can do with it.
BSD/MIT/etc. ensures that PEOPLE remain free to do whatever they want, even if it means that some copies of the SOFTWARE become non-free.
BSD/MIT/etc. has one additional interesting property: Since at least one copy of the software is free, then that one copy can generate a billion more free copies. This is what allows the BSD license to promote software freedom in practice, despite the fact that some GPL advocates claim that it doesn't promote software freedom in principle.
These issues are discussed often enough -- and are confused often enough -- that we really should take care to avoid sloppy writing. I recommend going to Google, finding a clear explanation, clipping it, and pasting it verbatim (like I do) whenever this subject comes up.
My code. My rules. That is all the justification I need.
We are talking about coding funded by US taxpayers. It you accept government funding then its not "your" code. The government should be allowed to put a non-restrictive license on things it funds. Much like code from NASA and other agencies that had been released to the public domain.
If you want to go by "your rules" then use only your money, your resources and your time. "Your" not necessarily being singular, plural in the case of a team of private developers too.
The GPL is about the freedom of the code.
The GPL discriminates against some taxpayers. The government can't give an non-governmental organization like the FSS authority over taxpayer funded code. The only options are government authority or no authority.
If you provide absolute freedom, then you also provide the freedom for some to take away freedoms from others. Releasing binaries without source is just such an act, you are using source which you had the freedom to receive and modify, but you are not extending that same level of freedom to others.
There is a fundamental flaw in this argument. Traditionally the creator of software is under no restriction under the GPL. They are free to dual license the code and use it in proprietary closed software. The GPL really only applies to users, people who modify the code. It allows these users to to re-distribute something they have not created.
The problem with this new context, government funded software, is that all taxpayers are part creators, part owners. The taxpayers paid the developer to write this software for them. So these taxpayers should have the right to use this software in an open or closed manner, as all past creators/owners could do via dual licensing.
And there is a more important problem. The GPL discriminates against some taxpayers. The government can't give an non-governmental organization like the FSS authority over taxpayer funded code. The only options are government authority or no authority.
The government can't give a non-governmental organization like the FSF unrestricted authority over taxpayer funded code since the FSF will selective discriminate against some taxpayers. Also note that the FSF is free to re-write the GPL however it wants, GPL'ing code is a blank check to the FSF.
The only options are government authority or completely non-discriminatory licensing.
Back in my dad's day of the 1970s third parties wrote code under contract and the only people who could support that code were the companies that wrote it. Basically the lesson here is that if you try and force the release of code it may not end in re-use if the code is written in a way that only the original authors can support, maintain, extend, and really utilize it. Think of it like this. Company A writes obfuscated code for government as release of code is a requirement. It might as well have been proprietary. Maybe you could add in some standards, code quality, and usability requirements, but whether that would work or these companies would just find ways around said requirements I don't know. I think what we need is probably just less government. I think the majority could take care of themselves without the government if only the government stopped abusing the people and taking everything we the people have. I could afford to educate my own children if only the government wasn't stealing my money to pay for a public education system. And before you say I'd cruel the system doesn't need to educate every child, it merely need provide funding or loans to educate every child who otherwise could not afford it. As it is now we all cover every childs education (except the rich) at an exorbitant price point.
>this makes the "free" claim often put on GPL software a bit dubious since it limits what you can do with the software rather than ensures that you can decide on your own.
That's the case with all freedoms in all walks of life.
Exactly. It is like that old saying: "Your freedom to swing your fists ends just where my nose starts". The BSD style licenses give you the software freedom equivalent of the full freedom to swing your fists in any direction you want (you have all the freedoms, including the freedom to take freedoms away from people down the line), while the GPL limits that freedom-to-swing to only swings that don't hit anyone's nose.
and then michllle bites the head off a live lobster before ingesting it (WHO said she wasn't humane?)