Re:Open Source Infrastructure must be a publicly funded service
by Arathorn on Thursday April 04, 2024 @02:12PM
(#39933985)
> Making an analogy to physical infrastructure: it would be crazy if we relied on groups of hobbyists to build a bridge, or if we just grabbed a bridge directly out of somebody’s PhD in civil engineering.
Except this is precisely what is happening… because it turns out the engineering hobbyists often build useful things. At which point, if the government goes and uses it as the foundations of a publicly constructed bridge, it might make sense for the government to invest a bit in ensuring the foundations are maintained.
Re:Open Source Infrastructure must be a publicly funded service
by richardwhiuk on Thursday April 04, 2024 @04:42PM
(#39935565)
If we required that government invested in open-source to use it, the only thing that would happen is that projects would be outsourced to the private sector (either explicitly by the government tendoring, or implicitly by the government offering tax incentives to build the project), and the private sector wouldn't fund it.
IMO we should have an organization to produce publicly funded code (boring infrastructure stuff not R&D), but it should be neither achieved by co-opting existing community projects nor cannibalizing research projects. It should be a new thing.
Making an analogy to physical infrastructure: it would be crazy if we relied on groups of hobbyists to build a bridge, or if we just grabbed a bridge directly out of somebody’s PhD in civil engineering. (I mean the analogy looks ridiculous because the situation is!)