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A comment on Government Open Source Office deal set to provide major savings. Parent comment

Re:Government Open Source Office deal set to provide major s... by moonchrome on Tuesday October 20, 2015 @10:54AM (#10419536)
>Public money should be spent on open (source) software

I agree but only if the costs are reasonably comparable. For example if there's a commercial product that would cost 10x to replace then I don't think that's appropriate use of public money.

But if the costs are similar then OSS should always be prefered because it creates new value for other users and while a commercial entity can't necessarily capitalize on that value governments don't need to.

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Re:Government Open Source Office deal set to provide major s... by jimktrains2 on Tuesday October 20, 2015 @12:28PM (#10420153)
What's the cost of having fixing critical bugs 20 years from now when that company's folded?
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Re:Government Open Source Office deal set to provide major s... by moonchrome on Tuesday October 20, 2015 @01:28PM (#10420504)
Meh, most software isn't going to be used 20 years from now and the one that will can be licensed with source code - doesn't have to be OSS.
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Re:Government Open Source Office deal set to provide major s... by jimktrains2 on Tuesday October 20, 2015 @03:23PM (#10421184)
Software lasts a good long while in some organizations, even 10 years would have worked in my example (or 5!).

You can only have a license with source if you think about it ahead of time.

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