Paying people to work on open source is good

Re:Paying people to work on open source is good by lolinder on Friday February 16, 2024 @07:34PM (#39404961)

As an alternative perspective—the government currently spends ridiculous amounts of money* on proprietary software, often having chosen the vendor before the bidding process even begins, shaping the RFP to suit only the chosen vendor. The resulting software produced in these contracts remains entirely proprietary even though it was paid for by taxpayer dollars, so the company that built it is effectively guaranteed a perpetual stream of taxpayer funds since only they are legally able to maintain it.

I would love to see a world in which these gargantuan vendors are put out of business because the government is only allowed to buy software whose source code is released to the taxpayers who funded it.

* EDIT: To quantify "ridiculous":

> Each year, the U.S. government spends over $100 billion on information technology. Most of that will be used to operate and maintain existing systems, including aging—or "legacy"—systems.

https://www.gao.gov/products/gao-23-106821

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Paying people to work on open source is good by snowpid on Saturday February 17, 2024 @04:14AM (#39407805)

Which government? There are 194 countries in the world.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Paying people to work on open source is good by lolinder on Saturday February 17, 2024 @08:24AM (#39409200)

The context from the GP comment already made it clear which government, I don't think we need to re-clarify which country we're talking about at every level of the conversation:

> We really should have something like the NLNet in the USA.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Paying people to work on open source is good by snowpid on Saturday February 17, 2024 @09:50AM (#39409903)

Mentioning the American govt once doesn't make 'the goverment' instead the American government. This is specially discussions about such general topics and this particular case THE GOVERMENTs of france and Germany e.g. pay people to make open source.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Paying people to work on open source is good by lolinder on Saturday February 17, 2024 @12:10PM (#39411272)

And what about the fact that I close with this quote?

> Each year, the U.S. government spends over $100 billion on information technology. Most of that will be used to operate and maintain existing systems, including aging—or "legacy"—systems.

I get that people outside of the US wish that US residents would not assume that everyone on the internet lives in the US. I get that it's a real problem. But picking this comment on this thread to make your point just comes off as pedantic because there was no ambiguity within the context of this subthread.

This entire subthread formed in response to someone saying that they wrote their US senator about the complete lack of funding given by the US government to open source. Even if you discount the fact that I linked to a US government website to cite my numbers, no one (besides you?) was actually confused which government I was referring to.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Paying people to work on open source is good by snowpid on Saturday February 17, 2024 @12:36PM (#39411479)

Why is so hard for you just to write "the US government" or "the American government" instead the government?

Also lots of people are annoyed about US defaultism but it doesn't mean they will complain.

[ Parent | on HN ]