> Should the IRS, NSA, CIA, and FBI code all be open source?
No, works made by or under hire for the federal government should be public domain, from a copyright standpoint, not exclusively owned but licensed under an open source license.
But on the other hand, I think your real question has nothing to do with ownership or licensing, but whether or not they should be publicly disclosed. In many cases the answer is “no”, but lots of government work that is in the public domain from a copyright perspective is also not subject to unrestricted publicly disclosure (and may also be classified.)
But arguably the licensing can work the same way as disclosure; presumptively, all government software should be open source, just as presumptively all government records are publicly disclosable; there may be limited defined exceptions for the former as there are for the latter, and decisions to treat software as within an exception should be reviewable by courts just as witholding material from FOIA disclosure is.
And private software that only needs a 3-5% modification for government usage? Should that be required to open-source the entire software? Should the government have to pay tens of millions and years of waiting to re-create said software?
> And private software that only needs a 3-5% modification for government usage? Should that be required to open-source the entire software?
I think there is a good argument for anything where the government is acquiring software rather than paying for service that the acquired software (even if it zero percent modified) should be under a permissive open source license (or even acquired into the public domain), and the source code should be a disclosable public record except to the extent it would be covered by privacy, security, or other existing exceptions to public records laws.
> So, you'd rather spend millions and years of time extra than to use closed source software?
No, I'd rather save millions and years of time than use closed source software (if it's zero modification COTS, the extra cost comes in organizing operations around software limitations rather than business driving tools, if it's 3-5% modification at acquisition MOTS, then the additional cost is the continued modifications necessary as government needs evolve differently than private needs with the original vendor able to charge want amounts to monopoly rents because there are no substitute providers because the vendor owns the code, or you fail back to business organized around software rather than vice versa again.)
I've actually spent quite a while working in public sector IT in a unit which manages COTS, MOTS, and we-own-the-code solutions.
(Now there are some exceptions, just as FOIA has exceptions as to which government records are disclosable, but by far I'd prefer the baseline would be code acquired by government must belong to or be freely usable by the public, either PD or permissively-licensed.)
No, works made by or under hire for the federal government should be public domain, from a copyright standpoint, not exclusively owned but licensed under an open source license.
But on the other hand, I think your real question has nothing to do with ownership or licensing, but whether or not they should be publicly disclosed. In many cases the answer is “no”, but lots of government work that is in the public domain from a copyright perspective is also not subject to unrestricted publicly disclosure (and may also be classified.)
But arguably the licensing can work the same way as disclosure; presumptively, all government software should be open source, just as presumptively all government records are publicly disclosable; there may be limited defined exceptions for the former as there are for the latter, and decisions to treat software as within an exception should be reviewable by courts just as witholding material from FOIA disclosure is.