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View Full Version : Government funding of open source development



phrostbyte
July 27th, 2009, 07:04 AM
This thread is a poll and discussion.

starcannon
July 27th, 2009, 07:42 AM
I would love to see the U.S. Government freeze all commercial upgrades, funnel that money back into FOSS, save us money in the long run, and dramatically improve FOSS.

Lobbiests will work very hard to never allow this to happen I suppose.

Ravernomina
July 27th, 2009, 07:44 AM
agreed i can see a apple and M$ lobbyist paying any 1 off for this not to happen. Even though open source is amazingly powerful

Jimleko211
July 27th, 2009, 07:54 AM
It's in the government's best interests to fund FOSS, especially since most governments are supposed to be around to promote freedom! It'll save them money in the long run, and it will certainly cut down on security holes in governmental computers.

Dullstar
July 27th, 2009, 08:10 AM
Make sure good OSes survive! Let the Micro$oft Windwos plague go away... AND NEVER COME BACK!

HappinessNow
July 27th, 2009, 08:16 AM
One drawback I see with Government funding comes Government control, which is not a healthy recipe for Open Source development. All though this is all hypothetical.

moster
July 27th, 2009, 08:25 AM
Well, atleast we know exactly how much intruders we have around here :D Exactly 11%

Seriously, if governments donate only fraction of money that goes for weapons, it would mean great deal.

You do not have to do even that. European union is paying 1 billion to to microsoft. Just take that money and invest in linux. When things start rolling they will never go back. It looks we forget that government exist for serving people, not other way around.

starcannon
July 27th, 2009, 08:25 AM
One drawback I see with Government funding comes Government control, which is not a healthy recipe for Open Source development. All though this is all hypothetical.

The beauty of FOSS is each project can exert what ever control it wants to over it's project. The benefit is, that anyone can then look at the code they release, and improve the original project, or some other project that is similar. No one would end up in a dictatorship; so, while in many scenarios your worry would be worth note, in this situation, the worry would be that the Government projects would indeed release any and all code that did not endanger national security. It really could be win, win, win.

Viva
July 27th, 2009, 08:37 AM
I don't see the point of it. Do any governments fund Microsoft or Apple projects? If not, I don't see the need for any government funding. I don't want open source projects to be treated like some kind of charity or non-profit projects. IT companies save billions by using open source software, so they pay developers to contribute to open source projects, that is how it should be.

starcannon
July 27th, 2009, 08:39 AM
I don't see the point of it. Do any governments fund Microsoft or Apple projects? If not, I don't see the need for any government funding. I don't want open source projects to be treated like some kind of charity or non-profit projects. IT companies save billions by using open source software, so they pay developers to contribute to open source projects, that is how it should be.

Governments fund MS and Apple each and everytime they buy a license from either of the two corporations.

Instead, Governments could fund their own software developement, building on the extensive code that is already freely available, contribute back what is safe to contribute back (all the funding we'd need really) and save bazillions of dollars of tax payer money. Or they could continue buying/subsidizing/funding MS and Apple, and get nothing but more bills for insecure upgrade costs in the future.

Dullstar
July 27th, 2009, 08:42 AM
Linux would save them lots of money! Maybe that will cure the economy!

starcannon
July 27th, 2009, 08:44 AM
Linux would save them lots of money! Maybe that will cure the economy!

Lol, that would be over reaching a bit; but it would certainly allow them to cut some costs.

Dullstar
July 27th, 2009, 08:46 AM
Honestly, Slashdot doesn't say how much the government spends on M$ each year!

starcannon
July 27th, 2009, 08:58 AM
Honestly, Slashdot doesn't say how much the government spends on M$ each year!

I'm sure Government spending on computers and disclosure varies from government to government; but I know here in the U.S. a good estimate could be found using public records as a key resource.

I'm way too lazy to start that project though. I just imagine all the computers our Federal, State, and Local Governments use, and know that its a lot of money, no matter what kind of deal MS did or did not cut them.

moster
July 27th, 2009, 09:09 AM
I don't see the point of it. Do any governments fund Microsoft or Apple projects? If not, I don't see the need for any government funding. I don't want open source projects to be treated like some kind of charity or non-profit projects. IT companies save billions by using open source software, so they pay developers to contribute to open source projects, that is how it should be.

I would look at that in this way. If you do use some even totaly free software for other thing except private use, you should donate money or help in another way. Not seems right?

Let say in entire government everybody use Open Office. Why they should not donate some money to get some bug fix or something. It is for their benefit too, not throw away money.

tsali
July 27th, 2009, 10:23 AM
Government should not be in the business of directly funding software development.

starcannon
July 27th, 2009, 10:26 AM
Government should not be in the business of directly funding software development.

Interesting statement, why not?
Government develops a lot of things, including but not limited to things involving Computer Science; why should government stop directly funding projects that save tax dollars, enhance security, and ween dependence on expensive commercial counterparts?

halovivek
July 27th, 2009, 10:39 AM
Most critical projects government will not opt for open source due to security reasons.

Viva
July 27th, 2009, 10:43 AM
Most critical projects government will not opt for open source due to security reasons.

That is not true. If anything, they should prefer open source software for better security and stability.

Mornedhel
July 27th, 2009, 10:47 AM
Most critical projects government will not opt for open source due to security reasons.

Security through obscurity is not a good idea. It never works. The classic example is a cryptography algorithm : the best one is one that people know and still can't crack.

As other posters have said before, governments just need to fund open source projects by requesting, and paying for, features or bugfixes.

Giant Speck
July 27th, 2009, 10:53 AM
Government should not be involved in business.

Fixed that for you. ;)

Mornedhel
July 27th, 2009, 10:55 AM
Fixed that for you. ;)

Debatable.

Actually, I'd debate with you, but political discussions violate the forums code of conduct.

Garrovick
July 27th, 2009, 01:29 PM
Increased government funding would be okay, if it's okay to get what and only what the government wants you to have.

phrostbyte
July 27th, 2009, 09:05 PM
I just want to let you know the US/EU countries ALREADY fund open source, and they have for decades. So "the government should fund open source" is a bit of a misnomer. :) It's more if the government should fund open source more (or less). This question is especially relevant these days, with Obama and EU leaders directly using government money to create jobs in a number of fields, so it is possible to win some of that grant for open source causes, I think. It would require lobbying Congress though, any have experience with that? :)

The numbers are a bit interesting: 84.2% support increasing funding, while only 5.26% support decreasing it.

moster
July 28th, 2009, 06:58 AM
At least we will know how many windows fanbois we have around here. They think they are invisible :D

Giant Speck
July 28th, 2009, 07:01 AM
At least we will know how many windows fanbois we have around here. They think they are invisible :D

Well, if we go by your definition of "Windows fanboi" or "Windows lover," there must be millions of them on this forum. Because you seem to call everyone that disagrees with you a "Windows lover," regardless of whether or not they actually use Windows.

sertse
July 28th, 2009, 07:25 AM
In a word: Pardus.

Here is a Turkish Govt funded/supported distro with a dev team that is mostly kept independent and engages significantly with the Turkish technical and academic community (http://www.ozgurlukicin.com/forum/ is the main Turkish community, Planet Pardus often details events where it used/talked about at University and Tech seminars).

It has achieved enough significance/impact that the EU Commission mentions it (http://www.osor.eu/case_studies/a-new-kid-on-the-block-the-turkish-pardus-linux-distribution), Google Summer of Code is impressed enough by it to support it.

It produces imo, one of the best OOTB Linux distros period, at least it's quality is comparable to the usual distro we talk about. If you look at it's DW page http://distrowatch.com/table.php?distribution=pardus , you'll find are lot of those reviews are from mainstream Linux review sites and they're generally all positive about how great it is. Here is a Gov supported distro good enough even to be appreciated by the mainstream. Ask your local distro-hopper, it's "mainstream" enough that he'll know about it at least. Sure no different from the dozen of distros your distro hopper tries. but it "well known" enough that it's often tried aside them. This is a Govt distro we're talking about.

What I'm saying is that I have no problem with Govt supported FLOSS development, when I've when a living example that it working, pretty much proving "in relaity" many of your fears wrong .

shadylookin
July 28th, 2009, 08:52 AM
Government should not be in the business of directly funding software development.

The government funds a lot of things, a lot of things that I would argue are significantly less important to Americans than computers are. I think it's worth funding and apparently one of the agencies does as well since they wrote selinux on the government dime.

moster
July 28th, 2009, 10:14 AM
Well, if we go by your definition of "Windows fanboi" or "Windows lover," there must be millions of them on this forum. Because you seem to call everyone that disagrees with you a "Windows lover," regardless of whether or not they actually use Windows.

What satisfaction you and people like you have from putting people down when they experience Ubuntu, and share that good experience with rest of us?

Giant Speck
July 28th, 2009, 10:23 AM
What satisfaction you and people like you have from putting people down when they experience Ubuntu, and share that good experience with rest of us?

Where did I supposedly do this?

tsali
July 28th, 2009, 10:38 AM
While it is a political discussion, I'll simply add that I believe that it's government's role to create an environment where private enterprise is encouraged to develop products.

As I said, the government should not be directly funding ANY business project.

That is not to say that they don't...but what they do and what SHOULD do are always two different things.

moster
July 28th, 2009, 11:28 AM
Where did I supposedly do this?

After 8 hours in testimonials section. After your "remarks", thread was soon closed.

I do not want to waste time with you. I just find this thread interesting because it show how many are like you in here :D Carry on...

Giant Speck
July 28th, 2009, 11:37 AM
After 8 hours in testimonials section. After your "remarks" thread was soon closed.

I've only made twelve posts in the Testimonials section of this forum. Not a single one of them is negative in any way. And what "remarks" thread are you talking about? Only one of my forty-nine threads has been closed and that one was about Jennifer Hudson.


I do not want to waste time with you. I just find this thread interesting because it show how many are like you in here :D Carry on...

Like me? What do you even mean by that? If you're going to say there are a lot of other people like me on this forum, you should tell me exactly what characteristics I share with those people.

starcannon
July 29th, 2009, 08:37 AM
So government funding; yeah? neigh? or somewhere in the middle? Vote, and express your reasoning if you will.

I voted Lots More, and I'll stick with it, whats your view?