> What if a third party non-open source product does something that FOSS can’t do or is dramatically behind on?
That's almost the best side effect: in a place where open source is mandatory, they will have to fund the missing features and it will be available to everyone, once and for all. If everyone does that, we rapidly get great software, sharing the costs, very efficiently, and it's all open source.
The alternative being everyone paying their own little license on their side ad vitam eternam.
In theory, maybe. I think in practise, in the case of somewhere like Germany, they realistically just won't implement the hypothetical feature and let productivity of employees drop even further. There is no motivation or reward in the public sector here for anyone to do anything better or more efficiently. I'm maybe overly cynical about the public sector's ability to get anything done here, I would like to be proven wrong, though.
It seems like maybe you’re assuming that state employees would be the ones building the required features, but I would guess these are simply going to be makework contracts going to (hopefully) local engineering firms.
No. I’m not assuming that. I assume the governments will have to fund the work, but they will contract it out. But even then governments have struggled to deliver on this.
And even when governments have the funding they tend to be horrible at specifying and getting delivery of technology - at least that’s been the case for the US.
> And even when governments have the funding they tend to be horrible at specifying and getting delivery of technology - at least that’s been the case for the US.
This is the dysfunctional contracting model combined with “cost savings” removing technical civil service positions, meaning that the government often lacks people who are qualified to review or manage contractors. Groups like the US digital service, 18F, etc. which have staff have much better track records.
Funny. I thought “ok, yet another generation of Accenture/TCS/Fujitsu large scale government projects that cost billions and fail to deliver a single thing”
> in a place where open source is mandatory, they will have to fund the missing features and it will be available to everyone, once and for all
Or the majority of their users will suffer with substandard products, while highly paid or influential users will get exceptions to the policy so they can use the software they want.
How is it relevant to open source? Today, users already suffer with whatever substandard product was chosen and enforced. Except it's also probably proprietary.
This idea works for well funded open source projects - typically funded by Big Tech. But for a given country to do this it seems more likely the functionality is just missed until Big Tech decides they need it.
For example let’s take apiece if software everyone on HN hates, Sharepoint. I’ve yet to find any open source alternative that comes close. And while you may hate it, it provides tons of value to local governments I’ve worked with.
That's almost the best side effect: in a place where open source is mandatory, they will have to fund the missing features and it will be available to everyone, once and for all. If everyone does that, we rapidly get great software, sharing the costs, very efficiently, and it's all open source.
The alternative being everyone paying their own little license on their side ad vitam eternam.