In Ireland we have a special relationship with software we see the goodness but politicians dont have a clue how to make sure they get delivery on the sanctioned software systems. There have been a few systems an e-voting system and PPARS(its a payroll system for the medical service) both cost a half a billion to develop and neither are being used.
This is where proprietary software failed badly so why not open source the software (for PPARS not the e-voting) and let the community fix the problem? No matter how complex the system needs to be I cant see how any company can get away with nearly €200 million and not deliver on a product.
Why not open source all failed software projects that wont see the light of day? How many games a year get cut half way through development and never get played? The answer is lots and lots of them. How about really old games (around 15-20+ years old) and open sourcing them? No one makes money on them so who is it harming? In fact we can give a new lease on life for lots of projects and I think its sad that we the community arent being considered at all. A game I would love to have a crack at porting to linux is the original Fallout game.
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The reason cut game projects are not open sourced, has a few reasons. First: they often rely on licensed external libraries and engines, which the company cannot open source. Second: even if they are in a situation where the company can open source all the code, they most likely won’t because the project will contain stuff they are using/will use in another project. Open sourcing this sort of content is from their point of view giving away their competitive advantage.
I do agree that these government projects should at least include a clause where not only the binaries are licensed, but a copy of the code is granted to the government, so that they can at least find a different company to finish/fix it (if not open sourcing it).
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“(for PPARS not the e-voting)”
I absolutely think a voting software MUST be open source. It’s the only way to be sure it’s fair,
and far more secure.
I didnt see it that way good point.
I think all government-contracted software should be open source or public domain. It’s paid for by the people and so the people should be able to get the maximum value out of it.
I also believe governments should use open source software where possible. Choosing to go with Microsoft only supports the dominant OS vendor which doesn’t help ensure there is a fair and competitive IT industry.
Great point we own it so we should be allowed to use it or modify it. In Ireland the schools and colleges all use Windows but in some courses you get thought about open source.
I’ve felt for a long time that government software projects should be run as open source projects.
If you think about something like the PPARS system, first off it is a payroll system. Second it has lots of extra bells and whistles specific to the medical field.
Design it well and you’ll have a payroll system at the core that any Irish business could use (and help maintain). Since you have to write it anyway, and you are using the tax payer’s money surely you should make it available to them?
Well its not a good system the software firm more than likely did a bad job. I could have put together a group of open source devs and done it for a 10th of the price and in a shorter time.
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One of the problems with open sourcing old games, is that the developers want to hold on to the content ownership, so that they can release an iPhone version, or on XBox Live Arcade, or PS3, or whatever. Whether they actually build an engine for those platforms or not, they want to hold on to the ownership with every last breath of their existence. I tried to get the owners of one game to free up the content for redistribution and open source their stuff, but was told they were working on an iPhone port, so couldn’t. I don’t believe they’ll ever actually release a port though.
Also, you might be interested in: http://fifengine.de/
I think it has support for playing Fallout 1 & 2.