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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.
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.
They're very tech *CEO* friendly, however. The Obama Administration supports giving them all the H1B's they want and are quite happy to help them artificially drive down all tech salaries as a result.
SJW's don't eliminate discrimination. They just expropriate it for themselves.
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.
No. This proposal is already what federal law requires. But it's an election year so they are saying whatever will get votes.
The Obama administration should open source the AHA exchange; let market competitors fix and replace it.
interactive hologram, or it didn't happen.
I think we need to start granting H-1Bs for politicians. We don't seem to have enough politicians with the right skills.
Schroedinger's Brexit: The UK is both in and out of the EU at the same time!
The people who run the Department of Re-inventing The Wheel will get laid off.
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.
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.
Simple answer is YES.
You act at this?
It has worked this way forever really....but is getting slightly better.
But, unless this is for a new department or govt agency....most software is coming in to be built upon or added to a pile of old code/systems of legacy systems cobbled together over the years.
Most of them have at their base, old stovepipe legacy systems, or maybe multiple stovepipe systems that over the years are modified to try to talk to each other and an increasingly modern world.
Now, without getting into functionality and restrictions from old and even new laws....we just talk about how they are done.
A need is found in the govt. and requirements, usually fairly narrow are put out. Said dept uses their money for that fiscal year as budget to pay for it...a contractor bids and wins.
So, then basically the contractor will work on custom proprietary code or use COTS products, maybe customizing them or interfaces to them...or some combo of all of the above.
This code only must match the description and functionality of the contract and that is what is turned over.
Contractor and govt part ways on that one....unless some maintenance is put into place, etc.
But you don't see the govt having forethought to write into the contract that the code must be flexible, or that it must be open sourced, or that it must be able to talk to other systems, or...well, really anything about it. Just that it meets the often narrowly defined need of the contract. There isn't often money for the software to be maintained or modified or anything after contract is overwith.
And for decades now, for the most part the Federal govt has not only not been coding or developing on its own.....they actively got OUT of the tech business and do it all with contracting.
This system has pros and cons....you can get new blood in for work, but if all coders and such were Federal employees....well, they would part of the jobs for life thing, and don't really have that much incentive to keep their skills up. That happened in the past. But you get problems with not having or keeping folks around that know systems or how they're built, etc.
OH...and finally....these contracts are generally won by the lowest bidder.
Quite often, this winner is just a front company, female and/or minority owned...usually a smaller company that "partners" with the big boys, like Lockheed or Northrop Grumman, General Dynamics, etc....they are the ones that provide the talent and real workers, with the front company getting a nice cut to fill out a govt. quota column on a form somewhere.
But anyway, that's how it goes. And so no...you don't see reuse, and you sure don't see release of code...hell if COTS is used, that cans that little idea right off to bat as that it is usually strictly and expensively licensed out for each use and each department.
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
... 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.
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.
That's kind of odd as it's the second to last option, the last being to discard. The terms are reduce, reuse, recycle. There's some merit to that and, as near as I can tell, it applies to code as well as anything.
"So long and thanks for all the fish."
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.
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!
Huh ? Does that mean that right now, code that is developed for one agency, doesn't get reused by another ?
In many cases, yes, though I'm not sure of the number of cases in each. For example, most code developed by the DoD is by default Distribution D, which doesn't allow distribution to other (non-DoD) government agencies.
"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.
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.
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.