"The underlying source code is not copyrighted and therefore available free of charge to read, modify, and build upon."
This is a serious misconception as open source code is copyrighted -- it's just licensed to end users with terms that may allow modification and creation of derivative works. If you don't abide by terms of the particular open source license, then it's still copyright infringement.
I was worried about the apparent onslaught of communism until I got to this:
San Francisco’s new policy requires city departments to consider open source software equally with commercial products when purchasing new software.
Seems like a reasonable policy. Although a better policy would be to consider all solutions on their fitness (open or closed) and demand open formats and protocols. Busting data lock-in would significantly improve competition and available choices.
>Busting data lock-in would significantly improve competition and available choices.
For various reasons, proprietary software is a lot more likely to employ proprietary data formats than open source software.
Of course, there are exceptions - e.g. the native GIMP format, which I understand to be a real hairball; but apparently the developers are working on a new open standard to replace it in future versions.
"Of course, there are exceptions - e.g. the native GIMP format, which I understand to be a real hairball; but apparently the developers are working on a new open standard to replace it in future versions."
Doesn't having the source code of a reference implementation freely available make it non-proprietary?
I believe GIMP folks will be perfectly fine if you use their format for the pictures your paint program saves.
Depends how hairy the code is really. Any format can be reverse engineered, but that doesn't make it open. Is it really open if the code is so hard to read it's not much easier than reverse engineering from a compiled program?
I don't actually know anything about The GIMP's format, just talking in general.
From the policy (linked from the article): Open source software means that the underlying source code is not copyrighted and therefore available free of charge to read, modify, and build upon. Isn't this factually incorrect? I thought that, say, GPL was technically a type of copyright.
GPL is not a "type of copyright"; it's a license that derives its power from copyright. The same is true of pretty much any license that tries to limit what you can do -- which includes most open source licenses (BSD, MIT, Apache).
There are also open source "licenses" that essentially place the code in the public domain. These are the only ones that fit the article's description.
Unfortunately the public domain concept is not recognized in all countries. If you wish for your software to be truly available in these nations you will still need to apply some sort of copyright license, no matter how liberal.
Even open-source software has a potential problem in some countries. For example, while OSS is often received free of charge, the government can argue that the user still got an item of value. So they have to pay taxes on this "gift".
Also, I believe if you find a free piece of open source software that is useful to you, one that comes free as in free beer, then you should be donating to the developer/s; even if its just enough to buy them a beer. Show the developer a little gratitude.
Ultimately, I feel like this is more of a "hey, it's free!" decision than a "we are going to use, and give back to the community" decision. Open Source is not a donation to City Government. They should give back to the community if they are going to have an explicit policy like this.
I think it's more of an explicit "just because it's free doesn't mean it sucks" policy. Most organizations need to learn that lesson and it's much quicker to have the head of the org communicate it than to wait for the IT people to convince everyone above them in the chain.
That whole thing was bogus, they mixed expenses from the County of San Francisco with the City of San Francisco (because the boundaries are the same). Factor for that, and it's actually well run for a city with a major port, an airport, a great public transit system, and an open source policy.
Oakland handles all the container ships, SFO is in unincorporated San Mateo County, and the public transit is objectively bad - terrible compared to New York, Boston, or Chicago (and possible other cities I haven't been to).
is there any reason other than our collective stockholm syndrome not to expect a modern shipping hub and technological powerhouse city to be run at a hefty profit?
You do not remember that whole thing? Microsoft swooped in with their marketers and lobbyists and got the Mass government to change its mind. The ostensible reason was that open source software was less compatible with certain devices for blind people. So Microsoft won that particular round, and it will be interesting to see what will happen in SF.
However, MS cannot keep throwing millions of dollars at lobbyists and politicians every time a government decides to look at open source. If they keep doing it, some governments will go open source just for a slice of those MS lobbying money. So eventually something will give out.
This is a serious misconception as open source code is copyrighted -- it's just licensed to end users with terms that may allow modification and creation of derivative works. If you don't abide by terms of the particular open source license, then it's still copyright infringement.