Asklemmy

50700 readers

510 users here now

A loosely moderated place to ask open-ended questions

Search asklemmy 🔍

If your post meets the following criteria, it's welcome here!

Open-ended question
Not offensive: at this point, we do not have the bandwidth to moderate overtly political discussions. Assume best intent and be excellent to each other.
Not regarding using or support for Lemmy: context, see the list of support communities and tools for finding communities below
Not ad nauseam inducing: please make sure it is a question that would be new to most members
An actual topic of discussion

Looking for support?

Looking for a community?

Lemmyverse: community search
sub.rehab: maps old subreddits to fediverse options, marks official as such
!lemmy411@lemmy.ca: a community for finding communities

~Icon~ ~by~ ~@Double_A@discuss.tchncs.de~

founded 6 years ago

MODERATORS

161

What do you think: should all government software be open source? (lemmy.world)

submitted 1 week ago by fajre@lemmy.world to c/asklemmy@lemmy.ml

48 comments fedilink hide all child comments

I’ve been thinking about transparency and security in the public sector. Do you think all government software and platforms should be open source?

Some countries have already made progress in this area:

Estonia: digital government services with open and auditable APIs.
United Kingdom: several open source government projects and systems published on GitHub.
France and Canada: policies encouraging the use of free and open source software in public agencies.

Possible benefits:

Full transparency: anyone can audit the code, ensuring there is no corruption, hidden flaws, or unauthorized data collection.
Enhanced security: public reviews help identify vulnerabilities quickly.
Cost reduction: less dependency on private vendors and lower spending on proprietary licenses.
Flexibility and innovation: public agencies can adapt systems to their needs without relying on external solutions.

Possible challenges:

Maintenance and updating of complex systems.
Protecting sensitive data without compromising citizen privacy.
Political or bureaucratic resistance to opening the code.

Do you think this could be viable in the governments of your countries? How could we start making this a reality globally?

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments

[–] umbrella@lemmy.ml 2 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago)

absolutely. that's why i think in the long run, we will see more of libreoffice and less of ms office. there's always the possibility of microsoft shenanigans, though.

public dealings should naturally have good reason to be closed or rely on private services outside democratic oversight. any citizen should be able to figure out how the public machine works and that includes the computers, whenever applicable. i can conceive of the exceptions of course.