When I worked for the UK Government I was once asked if we could find a way to pay for all the Open Source Software we were using. It is a surprisingly hard problem and I want to talk about some of the issues we faced. The UK Government publishes a lot of Open Source code - nearly everything developed in-house by the state is available under an OSI Approved licence. The UK is generally pretty…
  • Grandwolf319@sh.itjust.works
    2·
    15 days ago

    Isn’t it obvious?

    Instead of having government rely on tech companies, it should just build its own solutions.

    And those solutions would be open source and use open source dependencies.

    It would then have a budget to donate to different projects given that it saves time by using other foss software.

    • m-p{3}@lemmy.ca
      1·
      15 days ago

      I think a good compromise is to include an open source maintenance fee on projects when used in a corporate or for-profit environment. Another option I like is to offer business support as a subscription.

      It doesn’t need to be super-expensive, but at least that would ensure some continuity for development.

    • biocoder.ronin@lemmy.mlEnglish
      11·
      10 days ago

      No thanks.

      Id rather never install something the government shipped “here ya go!”

      And I think you’re an idiot for suggesting that it would be okay

      EDIT: because your ADHD is out of control:

      what I meant

      “I don’t want the government to selectively fund ANY of my software”.

      What you heard:

      he called the UK idiots, the nerve …

      • orc girly@lemmy.ml
        3·
        15 days ago

        Lol they meant the government should use FOSS, which would also be FOSS, so you’d be able to audit it and all even if you wanted to use their software (which you wouldn’t need to unless you worked for the government)

  • Midnitte@beehaw.orgEnglish
    1·
    15 days ago

    Wonder if you could offer some sort of tax benefit for open source developers - maybe some sort of credit?