Re:Public Money, Public Code
by prepend on Thursday April 28, 2022 @06:19AM
(#31190792)
I work in government (partially improving our use and creation of free and open source software) and I think there are a few different psychologies:
1) there are people who understand f/oss. Sometimes they are in power and choose it for the projects they oversee. This is small, but growing slowly.
2) there are people who don’t understand and the default is to do what their contractor says. This is huge and probably stable.
3) there are people who understand and don’t like it because of the lack of formal support and the chaos and perceived unpredictability. This is the “buy Microsoft/IBM and they will support you” group. This is large but shrinking a little.
4) there are contractors who don’t want the risk to their contracts being renewed from competitors seeing their code and being able to support. Obviously no feds in this group, but lots of feds are influenced by their contractor and take on their position. This irks me the most because its acting in the contractors benefit to the government’s detriment. I don’t understand how people in oversight positions take this position in good faith.
5) there are contractors who have IP and want to resell or reconfigure for multiple clients and would raise their bid price if they had to release under f/oss. Again, not feds, but this is a perceived fear of people with set budgets who want to get best value and their incumbent contractors are saying it’s more expensive if they have to do f/oss.
I’m probably missing some of the tech workers. But I think the biggest blocker is contractors as probably 95% of actual hands on work is done by contractors. Some perpetual who have been in place for decades. Even when the companies change, the individuals stay the same.
1) there are people who understand f/oss. Sometimes they are in power and choose it for the projects they oversee. This is small, but growing slowly. 2) there are people who don’t understand and the default is to do what their contractor says. This is huge and probably stable. 3) there are people who understand and don’t like it because of the lack of formal support and the chaos and perceived unpredictability. This is the “buy Microsoft/IBM and they will support you” group. This is large but shrinking a little. 4) there are contractors who don’t want the risk to their contracts being renewed from competitors seeing their code and being able to support. Obviously no feds in this group, but lots of feds are influenced by their contractor and take on their position. This irks me the most because its acting in the contractors benefit to the government’s detriment. I don’t understand how people in oversight positions take this position in good faith. 5) there are contractors who have IP and want to resell or reconfigure for multiple clients and would raise their bid price if they had to release under f/oss. Again, not feds, but this is a perceived fear of people with set budgets who want to get best value and their incumbent contractors are saying it’s more expensive if they have to do f/oss.
I’m probably missing some of the tech workers. But I think the biggest blocker is contractors as probably 95% of actual hands on work is done by contractors. Some perpetual who have been in place for decades. Even when the companies change, the individuals stay the same.