This argument can be made against anything the government does.

* Should the government not build roads because it might hurt the profits of toll road companies?

* Should government workers not be able to open source their code or data because it might hurt the profits of software companies?

* Should the government not have an army because it hurts the profits of the private military forces?

You are essentially saying that the government should not be able to provide any value to its people because it might hurt the profits of a private entity.

This argument seems especially strange in this context considering the companies in question are themselves using government provided data for their weather apps, i.e. the government is doing the data collection for those companies. This naturally prevents other companies from profiting from weather data collection as well. I wonder why these companies are not protesting that, and suing the government for providing this data in the first place?

I think the real reason behind the ruling is here:

> ... the German Weather Service, based in Offenbach, Hesse, had exceeded the legal mandate for its activities with this offer ...

In other words, if DWD's mandate had included offering this service to the public then it wouldn't have matter that it undermined competition. Even if you think a service like this ought to be subsidized, it isn't a good idea to have rogue government departments "competing" with privately funded alternatives at public expense on their own initiative.

> It isn't a good idea to have rogue government departments "competing" with privately funded alternatives at public expense on their own initiative.

Why not? Does every minor thing that any government funded organisation or employee wants to do need to be approved three-fold by layers and layers of bureaucracy?

That seems absolutely ridiculous. We are talking about something very minor here: making an app that displays regular weather information, where they already had an app that displayed extreme weather information. This is not some immense initiative they are undertaking here. This was likely done by a single person that thought "hey, we are gathering this data, why not display it in our app".

I am working as a scientist on government funding, should I require approval in three-fold by congress before I publish a paper, open-source any code or do any research at all, because a private entity might want to monetise something similar to that research and I might negatively impact their profitability by putting that in the public domain?

> Does every minor thing that any government funded organisation or employee wants to do need to be approved three-fold by layers and layers of bureaucracy?

You're exaggerating, but yes. Everything which is done through force, including anything funded with taxes or granted special legal status or protection from competition, requires careful oversight to ensure that it isn't using more force than necessary to accomplish the approved goals. Even the seemingly minor things. That's the price for getting your organization funded through the government. Don't like it? Do your work in the private sector where you can manage your budget as you please, since it's your own money.

> ...should I require approval in three-fold by congress before I publish a paper, open-source any code or do any research at all, because a private entity might want to monetise something similar to that research...?

Are these things part of what you're being paid to do as part of your research?

I couldn't care less about how it impacts others' profitability. If you're doing it at your own expense, not taking advantage of special privilege based on your position (such as free access to the data when everyone else must pay), and there is no conflict of interest, then there is no issue. However, if you were taking advantage of government funding or status to carry out tasks that weren't directly related to what you were being paid to do—like developing and maintaining an app backed by data not freely available to the public—then that would be a problem.

And really, does this need to be carried out by the government directly? If the DWD were an ordinary private organization, either for-profit or non-profit, contracted by the government for a set fee through a fair bidding process to provide certain data to the public then the DWD would be free to set their own agenda and develop and maintain this app at their own expense so long as that use of the data was consistent with their contract. The government gets what they paid for, the organization gets to do things their way, competition is fair, and (almost) everyone's happy.

This sounds like a horrible way of running a society. This is like the government intentionally keeping the tax code complicated and making filing taxes difficult so companies can exist that then fix that problem. You are forcing the government to be immensely inefficient, for no other reason than that a small number of people can profit from those inefficiencies at the expense of improving society as a whole.

The government is gathering this data. Building your business on top of what another entity is doing (government or company) is always a risk. The exact same risk is taken if you build something on top of the API or data of another company. If you were to build a Twitter client and then Twitter would make their own client available you are shit out of luck. That is the risk you take when you build something on somebody else's infrastructure. I honestly don't see why the government is so special that it should be completely handcuffed and prevented from making meaningful positive changes in society just so the profits of a small amount of people can be protected.

If the government does something to improve society and you can't compete and make a profit, do something else. Would you start a firefighting service and then complain that the government offers this service for free? At that point, why have a government at all?

It's not fair, that is true.

So I guess that the question is: Does society benefit enough from everyone having access to free weather information, outweigh the harm done by businesses risking bancrupcy because their product is now something that should be free? And also that other businesses start to wonder if it's their product that will be "should be free" in the future?

what if the "free" version is not as good, yet most people will use it because it's "free"? Meaning very few will pay for the best version. All will close shop and bureaucrats will collect their salaries while making so-so free weather apps, backed by tax dollars. Is this outcome better? I use several websites for weather and I know which one is more accurate, they differ.

Why isn't the German government making a government funded car to ruin Volkswagen or Mercedes?

It's not about accuracy, weather data us provided by the government in most countries, the third parties are using the same data. You could make a case for better UI or UX but not really data...

Every government has to have e weather service since it's vital to agro, fishing, daily life etc. But they can release the API or whatever that doesn't drive out of business other weather companies.

They are trade rules: for example, if USA subsidizes Boeing they can be sued and fined in international trade courts, since it hurts, say German companies. (Chinese companies, Airbus etc are routinely accused of having an unfair advantage, due to government subsidies.)

But the cases you mention are about the Government helping a private entity make a profit. In the weather app's case it's the Government (broadly speaking) giving tax payers something "for free". This last case is far more nuanced than your comparison makes it out to be.

And I'm pretty sure most tax payers will pretty much always choose a free app that gives them basic weather data a few days in advance than a paid app that gives them bells and whistles. So the Government is catering for the vast majority in this case.

> what if the "free" version is not as good, yet most people will use it because it's "free"?

Then the market has spoken about where it's priorities lie.

>Why isn't the German government making a government funded car to ruin Volkswagen or Mercedes?

I guess that's just the same question again. Does society benefit enough from everyone having access to free cars, outweigh the harm done by businesses risking bancrupcy because their product is now something that should be free? And also that other businesses start to wonder if it's their product that will be "should be free" in the future?

I wouldn't consider it inconsequent to say "yes" on the first question but "no" on the other...

I mean, if you spent _millions_ developing a weather app, you're just bad at business and doomed to fail regardless of whether there is a government funded competitor or not.

Yeah; it seems like someone should make an open source competitor just to spite these clowns.

Arguably, the German weather service should be forced to open source their ad-supported app to “encourage competition”.

Indeed. Although I always think that any software produced by the government should be Free Software. It's stupid for taxpayer funded software to not be open and extensible by citizens.