Hacker News Reader

Comment by Maxburn | Hacker News Reader

If I was the software developer forced into this I'd just raise my price knowing I can no longer sell it elsewhere, IF I even agreed to it. That's going to hurt tax payers. It's a catchy title but just doesn't take more than a moments thought to see how it's going to backfire.

View on HN

What do you mean? If you are a software developer working for a state or city you expect to sell the software you develop for them and collect the money yourself?

Good point, I was only thinking about outside contractors.

Contractors are no different. Typically you don't get to sell the software someone else paid for.

If you want to sell it then develop it on your own.

Right, and I am all for that to remain.

This reads way broader, as you describe it "develop it on your own", but can sell it only once to public sector.

If I develop software specific to the public sector and sell it to the government, it is "publicly financed software developed for the public sector".

What is my incentive to develop any software at all for public sector, since potential client no. 2 will just take the code that I released?

The ask does not state employed by... it just says:

“Implement legislation requiring that publicly financed software developed for the public sector be made publicly available under a Free and Open Source Software licence.”

I would be fine with

“Implement legislation requiring that publicly financed software developed by employees of public sector, for the public sector be made publicly available under a Free and Open Source Software licence.”

Your incentive is that you are being paid.

Imagine "Microsoft Office"-complexity software developed specifically for public sector.

Then, sold to public sector once, then everyone else is free to use it.

Would Microsoft still develops Office? Unlikely.

What would happen then is that the next public sector organization would want to pay someone to either fix bugs or to specialize the program to fit their needs better. And the more installations, the more this would happen. Maintenance is not free and the public sector would still have to pay the bill for it.

Why would that be unlikely? If Microsoft's business model was to get paid to develop Office, then of course they would.

(Obviously, Microsoft's actual business model is to capture and lock in, that's what makes your example look odd.)

The money is in the maintenance agreements.

I mostly want the code to public as a matter of transparency. I'd be fine if it was released under a fairly restrictive license which would prevent this kind of re-use.

They would develop Office because they were paid to develop office.

Also, government custom developed software is really wonky and the odds that the IP is sold is very low. The greater odds are that maintenance and follow on contracts will only be possible for the company that first wrote the software.

This is already very common in the private sector. Most businesses that require custom software will insist (via contract terms) that they “own” the software.

There’s also licensed deals and subscription services etc. sure, but there’s a ton of custom proprietary software that consultants build (which often contain proprietary business logic).

Custom always costs more of course, but this isn’t a new model by any stretch of the imagination.

Go ahead, take your toys and go home. I don't care if the rent-seekers stop trying to waste my tax dollars - in fact contrary to your implication, this is a feature!

Seriously, dealing with government entities is a PITA. Life is much easier in private sector.

You can still sell the code, you just have to use something like the Red Hat subscription model after the first contract. This is how a substantial part of the tech market already operates. How does it 'backfire' here?

Why would I change my entire business model to deal with this? Just skip this customer and move on.

Because "this customer" would presumably be the government. If you're a government contractor bidding on RFPs, not meeting the basic requirements is probably a bad way to stay in business. No one's forcing you to do it, though.

You are bidding for a contract that asks you to release the code, bid accordingly, if you have super secret code then don't bid at all or increase your bid. The hope is the public will get some open source code they can fix in future if there is a need and not have to beg you years later to please fix stuff or add a new feature.

As I private person I can offer a programming projects but demand access to the source code , you are free not to bid for my project but I think I am the sane one that wants the code so i am not locked into a corner.

If you develop the software completely at your own expense, and then sell the product to the government, fine.

If the government is paying for the development, the government should own the product of that work.

AFAIK, most devs contracted to develop proprietary have much less rights about the code they write than FLOSS devs.

I believe this is directed more towards government-developed software, not explicitly contractors.

I stand corrected.

Although, where I live (in a well-off EU country dominated by socio-liberal politics) I've never heard of a governmental organisation developing their own code (outside of the defence department).

When there is a need for a system, there is a public procurement process wherein contractors submit bids, and the "best" bid wins. ("best" by some criteria, usually price)

If it only applies to that case, it's possible there will be a perverse incentive for the public sector to outsource the code development.

If you tried that with a private sector customer you would get nowhere.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com