[PublicPolicy] Open Sourcing Government Code

[Bastien Guerry]

Hi,

Millo Avissar <milloa at cio.gov.il> writes:

> can you summarize  the French law you mentioned that requires
> publishing Open-source ?

See https://disic.github.io/politique-de-contribution-open-source/introduction.en#objectives

  "Under the Law for a Digital Republic of October 7, 2016, source
  codes are administrative documents that are communicable and
  reusable. In the case where it is possible to choose an Open Source
  license, the decree n ° 2017-638 of April 27, 2017 specifies the
  families of licenses that can be used. The detailed list of the
  licenses and their versions are available on the website
  data.gouv.fr."

> Do you recommend making it an obligation rather than an option ?

Yes, definitely.

Releasing source code under a free license is not an easy step.  We
might be under the illusion that it is, since there is so much open
source code out there, but I'm convinved it's not.

So the change we are working on is a cultural change: the closer we
get to an "open source by default and on the first commit" attitude,
the better it will be for everyone.

Because it is a cultural change, we might be tempted to gently nudge
agencies into going into that direction.  But I think we've learned
from the Open Access movement that this does not really work.  So I
strongly recommend making it an obligation.

For now, "obligation" is still something that most agencies better
understand than "option".

-- 
 Bastien Guerry