LinuxSA Mailing list archives

  From: Dan Shearer <dan@tellurian.com.au>
  To  : John Edwards <isplist@adam.com.au>
  Date: Wed, 14 Nov 2001 13:45:26 +1030 (CST)

Re: Good news maybe ?? IT Minister

On Wed, 14 Nov 2001, John Edwards wrote:

> Glen Turner wrote:
> 
> > This really isn't a major issue.  A lot of government-written
> > software has no potential for reuse.  Open sourcing a customs
> > application doesn't really help anyone.

I don't know who wrote that (#include "lehey-email-lecture.h") but I think
it is very badly wrong, and misses the main points of free/open software.  
The following is a cut/paste from an old msg, hope it is all in context.

1. Reuse. Reusing someone else's software is often very hard. But even
assuming that all government code is shockingly written, there is still
the possibility of reusing ideas or particular workarounds or tricks -
that's a completely different story. Ever done a google search for SQL
code that avoids a bug in a particular brand of database? Exactly. Imagine
you are employed to write an application for a government department that
talks to an obscure Wang system. It would be nice to find some Visual
Basic spaghetti code designed 5 years ago to talk to the same system that
tells you just what you need to put in your Python routines. You might as
well assume right now that government departments (as many businesses) are
very poor at keeping source code. As Linus said many years ago, the best
form of backup is a public ftp site. Someone somewhere will have a copy
even of obscure stuff.

2. Safety. Someone has a dispute about whether system X or Y is working
properly. Who cares if it is the worst code in the world - computing
forensics can still be applied. A good way to protect people from
inadvertent abuses is to make sure that this mysterious source code stuff
is forced to be available so that people can at least raise a voice when
some consultant does a shonky.

3. Motivation. It can be a motivating factor, knowning that your
professionalism is on display for peers to see even if the direct customer
has never seen a line of code in his life.

--
Dan Shearer
Open Source Manager
Mob: +61 411 49 1800
Tel: +61 8 8130 3104
dan@tellurian.com.au


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