> Govts run at enterprise scale, and need specialised software
If it's specialised software that's written on a one-off basis, then of course it can be open source.
> Or conversely all Govts at every level need herds of programmers to tweak OSS code to make it fit.
You seem ot be arguing that OSS code needs "herds of programmers" to tweak it, but that proprietary code doesn't. I don't follow why you think this is so.
> My city is 10000 people so we need a rate calculator that matches our bylaws, over there is a city of 1000000 people who need a very different rate calculator.
Either both cities need something different, in which case it needs to be written differently every time, and that's exactly the same whether its proprietary or OSS, so OSS is no more costly or time consumringf to do.
Or, they both need the same code, so the OSS program doesn't have to be partly re-written for each city.
I would have thought that if the program is well-written, then changing things like tax rates would just be a value that is entered somewhere, e.g. on a GUI or web interface.
> Yay, a central it dept, with builtin monopoly, at govt pay, can't be fired. What could possibly go wrong with this model.
Then that's the same as the proprietary software model... except that the code is open source so if one cite doesn't like those terms they can update it separately.
> No wait, we'll make them compete, pay them only for success, negotiate rates, and we end up with? A commercial proprietary software business that's motivated to deliver... With experts at doing this one task at scale.
No. Doesn't work because they proprietary model is to write the code once then sell it lots of times. Once they've written it, they can sell it lots of times at something only slightly less than the cost of writing it each time, because that's the same cost as for each individual city to write it. So if a country has 100 cities, they end up paying 100 times as much with the proprietary solution than OSS,
If it's specialised software that's written on a one-off basis, then of course it can be open source.
> Or conversely all Govts at every level need herds of programmers to tweak OSS code to make it fit.
You seem ot be arguing that OSS code needs "herds of programmers" to tweak it, but that proprietary code doesn't. I don't follow why you think this is so.
> My city is 10000 people so we need a rate calculator that matches our bylaws, over there is a city of 1000000 people who need a very different rate calculator.
Either both cities need something different, in which case it needs to be written differently every time, and that's exactly the same whether its proprietary or OSS, so OSS is no more costly or time consumringf to do.
Or, they both need the same code, so the OSS program doesn't have to be partly re-written for each city.
I would have thought that if the program is well-written, then changing things like tax rates would just be a value that is entered somewhere, e.g. on a GUI or web interface.
> Yay, a central it dept, with builtin monopoly, at govt pay, can't be fired. What could possibly go wrong with this model.
Then that's the same as the proprietary software model... except that the code is open source so if one cite doesn't like those terms they can update it separately.
> No wait, we'll make them compete, pay them only for success, negotiate rates, and we end up with? A commercial proprietary software business that's motivated to deliver... With experts at doing this one task at scale.
No. Doesn't work because they proprietary model is to write the code once then sell it lots of times. Once they've written it, they can sell it lots of times at something only slightly less than the cost of writing it each time, because that's the same cost as for each individual city to write it. So if a country has 100 cities, they end up paying 100 times as much with the proprietary solution than OSS,