Hi,

On Fri, Aug 20, 2004 at 11:44:32AM -0500, Brian Kelsay wrote:

> Some software is developed while working under a grant from the government, e.g. in universities, 
or government funded projects.  Don't you and I as citizens already own that software?  I think we 
could consider it already bought and paid for.  I expect that software to be made open source 
unless it poses a nat'l security risk.  I also think that same software should be used everywhere 
it is suited to, to take full advantage of the dollars spent on development.   Now the company that 
programmed for the government is not required to support any users that decide to adopt this 
software after it is made open unless this is covered by their development contract.  They only 
should have to provide access to source.  They really only have to provide source to the government 
and the government could handle redistribution.
> 
> But this is just me talking here.  I try to make sense.

If you think this makes sense then you should worry because your government pretty much
agrees with you.  I don't know about a government grant but software developed under a
government contract is generally available to the people that paid for it.  The contractor
that developed it is only responsible for getting the software to the government.  It is
the government that will give it to you.  They don't look at it as open source but rather
more like public record.  It's there if you know how and where to look.  Years ago I saw
catalogs of government software they were making available to business.

The government has also worried about re-inventing the wheel.  They have tried to reuse
software.  The first thing they noticed was that they had projects in C, FORTRAN, COBOL,
an assortment of assembly languages, and probably some ALGOL and PL/1.  They decided that
the first step to reusable software was to have a common language so they invented Ada.
It did what they wanted but it didn't seem to catch on.

And the software that might pose a national security risk?  Well, ... it just doesn't exist.
-- 
Jim