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US Government Launches Code.gov To Showcase Its Open Source Software (venturebeat.com)
An anonymous reader shares a VentureBeat report: The White House has announced the launch of Code.gov, a website that shows off U.S. government open-source projects and offers relevant resources for government agencies. By launching this site the White House is hoping to improve public access to the government's software and encourage the reuse of software across government agencies. The launch comes four months after the White House introduced the Federal Source Code policy, which specifically mandates that government agencies "make custom-developed code available for Government-wide reuse and make their code inventories discoverable" at Code.gov, with certain exceptions. The new site already has almost 50 code repositories from more than 10 agencies, U.S. chief information officer Tony Scott wrote in a blog post.
And like just about all open source software, everything will be less than half-finished, crash frequently, not do most of the things it claims to do, and simply not be very useful.
Everything the government touches is a fucking disaster, I can't imagine why anyone would want to use any code developed by them. Does anyone remember Healthcare.gov? Jesus fucking christ.... imagine incorporating that clusterfuck into your project hoping to save a little time and money....
suck it
LOL! Enjoy your 2% market share with Linux on the desktop. Meanwhile, normal people will keep using Windows and keep being productive.
I don't always sell government favors to the highest bidder to my foundation, but when I do I use Linux.
I understand those who use Windows are hacked by WikiLeaks, foreign governments, and end up in FBI investigations because their top aid's husband can't stop sexting teenagers.
E-Mails....what e-mails? We use facebook messenger now...
Is a neat step in the right direction? A giant leap in the wrong direction? A skillful act of misdirection while we circle-jerk our big election?
Whats wrong with Sourceforge George? Whats wrong with the GitHub, Bub? Ready for a hack jack?
Spinup another web-server, upload all the code, NSA and Kremlin notice, now its just a node.
It sends attacks across the sea, and at you and me,
Now stock-up on that food and water, prepare for world war III.
You are being ripped off every second of every day, so that advertisers can help rip you off even more tomorrow.
How is this different then the previous Obama announcement of a government open source software repository, or for that matter, the Bush one?
I looked at several projects and they appear underwhelming and unimpressive.
Hey this is cool and all but if Trump becomes President we won't need it. After all, his 10yr old son is tremendous at "cyber!" He can do it all.
Set up website for this, seriously? They could have just use github. I wonder what this cost taxpayers.....
love is just extroverted narcissism
FWIW, several of the showcased projects are actually hosted on Github.
This one caught my eye - https://github.com/bro/bro - presented to you by the DoE
> Bro is a powerful network analysis framework that is much different from the typical IDS you may know.
source code to some shitty drupal plugins, thanks Obama
Bro has numerous tech videos too on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/user/B...
I see the DoE has an application named conman...
The problem with government software is that it is usually designed to do things only the government handles:
Collect taxes
Plan road projects
Route mail
etc.
Coder's Stone: The programming language quick ref for iPad
BEYOND 5+++++++++++++++++++++++
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I think that this could be beneficial. In fact, in some crucial areas, where there is a public interest in accountability, the government should almost certainly require a contractor to open source the produced software. Of particular interest in the current news, I think that the recently reported issues with voter machines could be remedied with open source and independently auditable software.
Whether or not there is anything interesting, wrong, or nefarious with the software, it would give people a peace of mind knowing that when they use such a machine, the underlying code could be viewed by anyone who knows what they are doing. It would also help to expose errors quickly to ensure that everything is as fair as possible. If the government was to release such code early enough in advance, it could be reviewed and hashed out far in advance of elections.
I am sure there are dozens of other such applications where we could prevent even the possibility of some corruption (or accusations of corruption when a mistake is made) by simply open sourcing some government software products.
Seriously, there in an unlicensed child labor project managed by the Department of Labor. WTF?
So which license do the feds bless? Did they check out gnu.org, go through all the licenses that exist out there? And if yes, which one did they pick?
Can we see the code to stuxnet?
This will last, at most, until the next Republican president, who will certainly claim that code produced by the for-profit paradigm is 'superior'. Microsoft has stopped fighting the open source movement but this policy aims at the deep pockets of SAP and Oracle, who will not quietly accept the competition gaining a foothold on their biggest customer.
Failure to re-use is a bugbear in the software industry and inexcusable for a government. There are a few issues though: Are the design and QA documents also checked in to the code base? Is checked-in code subject to a security audit? What's their policy for rolling-out updates to everyone re-using code? Is there a standardized format for layout and formatting of checked-in files?
Oh boy, a OSS repository for government stuff! Yay! Wait a second, the voting stuff isn't in here.... Oh right, that's all closed platforms that the government barely audits.... Nevermind.
Without an introduction succinctly describing purpose, approach and goals (including target platforms), each of the projects is virtually meaningless. People just aren't going to read the source code to try to decipher what's what. Say a project of interest exists in there... finding it will be completely impractical.
code.gov might as well not exist.
This stuff is published under a huge number of different licenses, depending on the origin.
It is NOT, as some have claimed, public domain just because the government paid for it. Virtually all software acquired by government contractors has some sort of "limited rights" clause - government gets it, but government can't redistribute.
Software developed under a research grant at a educational institution is owned by the institution (Bayh Dole act) and the government gets a royalty free, non-exclusive license to use, but not distribute.
Some software is developed under GPL, and is distributed with that license. Some software is developed with BSD licenses.
And some software has other distribution restrictions (export controls).
Why? Do their web devs suck that bad?