This is a good idea and while I agree with the principle that publicly funded software should be open source, I have to imagine that it's simply just more complicated than this. I know that in many cases software, government or otherwise, is built upon components that may or may not be Free or Open Source and those may in fact be the right tool for the job. Now an argument that the components built as a result of public funding should be open-source would be a reasonable one in my opinion. There however is the complication that the government might claim it's owned by them rather than the public and closed-source for reasons of keeping it out of the hands of foreign governments, hackers, or whatever. -joe On Tue, Nov 7, 2017 at 11:08 PM, Cecilia Tanaka <[1]cecilia.tanaka@gmail.com> wrote: Public Money, Public Code. # [2]https://publiccode.eu Why is software created using taxpayers’ money not released as Free Software? We want legislation requiring that publicly financed software developed for the public sector be made publicly available under a Free and Open Source Software license. If it is public money, it should be public code as well. Code paid by the people should be available to the people! ------- "Don't let anyone rob you of your imagination, your creativity, or your curiosity. It's your place in the world; it's your life. Go on and do all you can with it, and make it the life you want to live." - Mae Jemison References 1. mailto:cecilia.tanaka@gmail.com 2. https://publiccode.eu/