I’m no good for the sort of information you need currently, but I might be able to translate it later on (especially if you’re looking to hire, since it sounds like you’re aiming at a rather large document). Canadian French translator for a dozen years :)

One government-specific argument I liked, mostly for countries outside the US, is that using FOSS means you can hire local talent to improve and fix your software instead of relying on foreign companies. So in addition to avoiding licensing costs, you create local jobs, foster those skills in your population, and keep much tighter control over the features you need (you can always fork and choose whether or not to share upstream if the community edition doesn’t align with your use case). In other words, using FOSS is not truly costless (for a government), but the spending is done internally. And if you do share upstream, your contributions also benefit other users of that software in the population (and internationally).

@vv221, I understand. The reason I'm not immediately making this public is that I have mentions of stories I recall by memory, but I don't have a reference for yet. I have a footnote with TODO for them. I wouldn't want to make the document public before I make sure all those references are correct, otherwise there's the risk of some journalist quoting it against the FOSS community. If you are willing to at least take a look at the document and help resolve these TODOs, I'd appreciate the help. I'll make the doc open source as soon as I'm sure there's nothing there that has no basis, that's a promise.

https://publiccode.eu/

An apparently reasonably successful campaign by the FSFE.

I'd suggest you also look at the FOSS model weaknesses. To better know and sell your strength you also have to acknowledged where you fail.

Especially if its so sell FOSS to governmental representative. There will be people who will put every single FOSS weaknesses under a microscope and you need to be prepared for that so you can counter argument.

For example one of the major weakness of a lot of FOSS software are being a one man project. The day said "man" don't want to do that anymore, most of the time the project is as good as dead. And that is not very reassuring for a lot of people to contemplate the possibility that a software they like/need may disappear one day.

Another problem is the famous XKCD "standards" comic https://xkcd.com/927/. Even if forking is a strength it can also be a weakness. Each project doing its little own recipe of the same thing in its corner not looking at others. Completely exploding resources all over the place making things move more slowly than they could be.

Last edited by DerpFox on 27 April 2020 at 3:33 pm UTC

Quoting: DerpFoxFor example one of the major weakness of a lot of FOSS sofwares are being a one man project.

None of the open source software likely to be even considered by a government or a large company are one-man projects. The fact that one-man projects exist isn't really an issue at all. I'm not even sure the proportion of one-man projects is any higher in open source anyway. Remember, there's lots of free or low-budget closed source software out there.

Quoting: DerpFoxAn other problem is the famous XKCD "standars" comic https://xkcd.com/927/. Even if forking is a strenght it can also be a weakness. Each project doing its little own recipe of the same thing in its corner not looking at others.

Traditionally this is more of a problem in the proprietary software world. We all know how much corporations like their lock-in schemes and proprietary file formats. That XKCD strip is not about open source, but about standards in general. Some notable problem cases are mentioned in the subtitle.


Don't get me wrong, there are several aspects of open source that governments and corporations will see as weaknesses. And some of them will be easier to refute than others.

Good suggestion DerpFox, but I agree with tuubi that this is not going to be a problem. I do mention how open source starts with few and if it's interesting will attract more developers and become something substantial. As tuubi said, any project the government wants to use will definitely be pretty solid. Besides, I also emphasize that it works best if the government contributes back (so there won't be 0 devs left).

Also, it's all too common thay the government contracts someone for some proprietary software, then are left with it with zero support and all the bugs. Same could happen with open source in the worst case, so it cannot be worse than how they already work.

Quoting: tuubiDon't get me wrong, there are several aspects of open source that governments and corporations will see as weaknesses. And some of them will be easier to refute than others.

By all means please elaborate.

Last edited by ShabbyX on 26 April 2020 at 6:04 pm UTC

Quoting: tuubiNone of the open source software likely to be even considered by a government or a large company are one-man projects. The fact that one-man projects exist isn't really an issue at all. I'm not even sure the proportion of one-man projects is any higher in open source anyway. Remember, there's lots of free or low-budget closed source software out there.

I thinks you've misunderstood me. I'm sorry I should have been clearer. I know that this kind of project is not chosen by governments. I was saying that as a warning, people who will lobby against FOSS will do anything they can, even going as low as that. One just need to be prepared, because the majority of people are computer illiterate, if some people with charisma manage to convince them that this is the norm they will shut like a clam and push FOSS away for good. I've lived that a couple time and once people who are not tech savy are set on something its close to impossible to make them move.

I had that problem a couple of times "but I read in [a magazine article written by some one who has no clue about what they talk about] that [the thing] is bad", or you should see my country politician when they talk about anything computer related its really really bad, in 2006 I remember the "open office firewall". Even if things has gotten better in the past decade it is still bad

As much as we know and as little it can be compared to some *nix guru out there, we should expect other people to know a 1000 times less.

Same for the XKCD comic I only used it as an example. But I'm sorry FOSS even is not as bad as proprietary softwares in the general mater of creating a separate projects, a separate norm, standard ect. It can do it, and its a door open to attack. And again the average computer illiterate will take that literally.

In the case of pushing governments acceptance of FOSS we should not forget that we are against lobbies who won't hesitate to fight dirty. They will make non issue into issue.

For example in my country there is a law that force any governments related group to open a public market to choose a new software. Unfortunately the law is old and is written in a way that prevent people to present FOSS sofwares. These kind of public market are only open to buisnesses, so simple citizen would would just present a FOSS softwares are out. Then there is not much company that develop the kind of ultra specialised softwares that are needed by governement so most of the time there is no company that would make a FOSS software and try to sell a support plan for it. That let us with the usual couple same softwares since 30 years. And you can be sure there few companies are fighting hard to keep things as they are.

I'm not sure if I've been clear in that tho. We are fighting against companies that have governement contract that they live on for decades without doing any innovation. they won't let there money mine go away easely.

Quoting: ShabbyXAlso, it's all too common thay the government contracts someone for some proprietary software, then are left with it with zero support and all the bugs. Same could happen with open source in the worst case, so it cannot be worse than how they already work.

They can always hire someone to work on it if the source is free and open.

Quoting: ShabbyX

Quoting: tuubiDon't get me wrong, there are several aspects of open source that governments and corporations will see as weaknesses. And some of them will be easier to refute than others.

By all means please elaborate.

I meant that while you'll have some excellent technical, ethical and even financial points to make, there are other complications at play that are not as straight-forward.

You'll face annoying questions in the vein of: "If we're not paying someone for a software license, who takes responsibility" or "Everyone else uses <name-of-proprietary-software>, doesn't that mean it's the best choice?". Some of these assumptions are very difficult to challenge with facts, even if it seems like the answers should be obvious. You will need some serious sales skills to pull that off.

Then there's the fact that decision makers in political entities like governments, large or local, might have various reasons not to rock the boat. They also often base their decisions on different criteria than a business entity would. This last point can be a positive as well in some cases.

I know I'm not being very specific or helpful, but this is all I can manage off the cuff right now.

One catch with the adoption of open source software by governments is the lack of education about using os alternatives by public servants.

QuoteFor example one of the major weakness of a lot of FOSS sofwares are being a one man project. The day said man don't want to do that any more most of the time the project is as good as dead. And that is not very reasuring for a lot of people to contemplate the possibility that a software they like/need may dissapear one day.

I've been doing my bachelor's thesis on the topic of FOSS life cycle and survival and while it is true that the majority of open source projects, even popular ones, have only one core developer, survival rate among popular open source projects seems quite high. One study I have used as my source (https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/8870181) indicates only about 16% abandonment rate and a 41% resurrection rate. Abandonment in open source projects also causes a smaller risk than abandonment among proprietary software (which also happens) because major government entities or businesses have the ability to direct developer resources towards critical components. And, like was previously stated, projects with a single core developer aren't necessarily projects governments etc would make use of. Enterprise-level FOSS solutions tend to also have enterprise-level project management.

Edit: words

Last edited by Samsai on 27 April 2020 at 10:11 am UTC