The government is funded by tax to serve the whole public. If the gov must spend public money on software that the public will execute, the software is inherently created from involuntary contributions. Therefore the government has a duty in the very least to ensure that the software gives maximum utility and value back to the public who funded its creation.

So new rule: Gov-distributed updatable software must grant the four freedoms to the public.

JavaScript counts

When a website pushes JS to your browser that you must execute for the site to function, it’s not a document. It’s an application. And if it comes from the government, it must be FOSS.

Browsers count

If the government is going to put public resources on the web, the government has a duty to some extent to equip the public to use it. A service that demands people use commercial software is bundling and illegaly circumvents this new rule. Therefore the gov. must ensure that a FOSS toolchain exists by which their resource is accessible. If they merely direct/suggest use of Firefox, that’s fair enough so long as the gov ensures their web app is always compatible with FF and the gov picks up the ball to maintain FF should Mozilla fall.

Phone apps count

The gov. shall not put a non-FOSS app on Google Playstore because it’s an abuse of public money. The phone app must be FOSS and must be accessible to all people including those without Google accounts (which needlessly requires mobile phone service).

Social phones

The FCC in the US provides discounted phones to low-income households through a “Lifeline” program. The discount shall only be available on the purchase of 100% FOSS phones, or dumb phones (where the software is not updatable). If no 100% FOSS phones exist, the government must do the necessary to make one available. If the cost of a FOSS phone defeats the effect of the Lifeline, it’s on the gov to fix that by introducing a cheaper FOSS phone or increasing the subsidy.

Italy is the only wise adopter

Italy has a “public money → public code” law. AFAIK, no other country has been so wise. Though Italy is still too relaxed. All code efforts financed by public money must have published code, but the gov can alternatively use public money to buy licenses on existing proprietary COTS software. So Italy has not progressed enough.

  • greengnuEnglish
    1·
    1 month ago

    currently there are a few gaps for software to fill if you want 100% source code availability:

    1. there are no crystal reports drop in replacements

    2. no actively supported Epplus forks

    3. more experts for Oracle to PostgreSQL migrations are needed

    4. no informatica drop in replacements

    There are a few thousand other proprietary crap programs/libraries used in government and usually the technical people can’t justify a port even from .Net (Microsoft proprietary) to .Net-core (Respects your freedom) because of those things lagging support.

    • activistPnkOPM
      1·
      1 month ago

      I’m not familiar with those programs but IIUC you’re talking about software used internally within the gov, not software the gov distributes to the public or demands the public use on their own assets. But yes, certainly it would be sensible for governments to also use FOSS internally.

      • greengnuEnglish
        0·
        1 month ago

        The internal problems exist in the externally distributed programs as well.

        The government doesn’t even have the source code nor a mechanism to get the source code for many of the programs distributed, even in the cases were Government money was used to fund those very programs development.

        So although I agree with the general idea, you will need to take into account that it will take a couple decades of unwinding to actually achieve.