<html><head><meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=UTF-8"></head><body>I was under the impression that code written by the government was public domain. You and I (and private companies) paid the taxes that generated that code, so releasing it in anything less than a public domain is doing a disservice.<div><br></div><div>Back when I worked for the Department of Veterans Affairs there were companies that took the VA code, modified it for non-VA hospitals, and offered to provide the software and support for a fee. I didn't find a problem with it then, nor do I now. That's what public domain means.</div><div><br></div><div>-Mark</div><div><br></div><div style="font-size:100%;color:#000000"><!-- originalMessage --><div>-------- Original message --------</div><div>From: "Greg Rundlett (freephile)" <greg@freephile.com> </div><div>Date: 3/25/16 3:33 PM (GMT-05:00) </div><div>To: blu <discuss@blu.org>, GNHLUG <gnhlug-discuss@mail.gnhlug.org> </div><div>Subject: Govt Source Code Policy </div><div><br></div></div><div dir="ltr"><div>The US Fed. Govt. is proposing a pilot program to release at least 20% of newly developed custom code as 'OSS'. <a href="https://sourcecode.cio.gov/">https://sourcecode.cio.gov/</a> They're accepting comments now. And since it's hosted on GitHub, you "comment" via the issue queue, and you can also fork the project and issue a pull request.<br></div><div><br></div><div>I forked it and created a pull request. <a href="https://github.com/WhiteHouse/source-code-policy/pulls">https://github.com/WhiteHouse/source-code-policy/pulls</a> proposing to use the term 'Free Software' in place of 'Open Source' </div><div><br></div><div>If the government actually goes through with 'open sourcing' their work, it's actually a giant corporate handout because companies will have greater access to publicly funded works that they can then incorporate into proprietary works.</div><div><br></div><div>What do you think?</div><div><br></div><br clear="all"><div><div class="gmail_signature"><div dir="ltr"><div><div dir="ltr">Greg Rundlett<div><div><a href="https://eQuality-Tech.com" target="_blank">https://eQuality-Tech.com</a></div></div><div><a href="https://freephile.org" target="_blank">https://freephile.org</a></div></div></div></div></div></div>
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