Public money? Public code!

Je suis pour!
I do agree!
Dat vind ik best!

Same for me, it's obvious but I wonder if someone will be creative enough to come up with an objection :D

Which logo should we use? I'd say this one https://wiki.pirateparty.be/File:Belgium.png as our name appears.

Sounds best to me!

I contacted them (to prepare for PPBe signing the open letter) but I got this answer already :

"Unfortunately, we are unable to process your request to be listed as an organisation on our website due to the fact that we are only accepting civil society actors and representatives of Free Software community groups as possible organisational signatories.

As an actor who is engaging in advocacy work for Free Software, we do not necessarily want to associate ourselves with any political movement.

I hope for your understanding in this regard.

I, nevertheless, would like to express once again our appreciation for your support, and would like to kindly ask you to spread the word and incite your individual members to sign our open letter."

:confused:

Civic society (foundations, ngo, etc) ≠ Political color (whatever the color).
I suppose that they prefer to stay «neutral».

An objection? I can do it!
OK, let's imagine you pay for a code with Belgian citizens money. If you make it public, the entire world will use code paid by one country. I am not saying it is bad, I think a lot of people won't be happy to share their money with other people.

The result (source code > algorithm > services) will become far more then the «money owned and invested by the belgians for the belgians», it will offer the opportunity to others, without any restriction, to experiment our models of organisation and collectivity through «our codes».

About «intellectual ownership» I suggest this interesting spectacle; Un faible degré d'originalité in french.

And the most important issue I see with what you call the Belgian (or Eurepan) citizen money, is that it is not owned by the citizens. It is only usable by them, according to a certain interest rate defined by the central banks. Who says interest rates, says loans. And loans, one day or another, have to be paid off.

Even if a citizen has the right to transform contractually his money to some goods (even a house), he can lose this good or this good can be removed from him, even legally.

Offering the opportunity to free some code, even paid by a certain country and its citizens, it can not be removed to anybody except in a totalitarian states where freedom is abolished.

We are entering in a digital era, we have to change our prisms of thinking, our relation to ownership and our mindsets.

OK, consider me as the devil's advocate. And you have to convince people to accept to spend money in open source: your arguments are good but so high-level that nobody will understand. So now, why should I share the keys of my car, my house, etc?

Je comprends pas ton contre-argument. L'argent que le gouvernement dépenserait en logiciels libres (et pas open source, c'est différent) serait le même que celui dépensé en logiciels propriétaires. La seule différence est que n'importe qui pourrait avoir accès au code source (à des fins d'étude, mais aussi de contrôle), et pourrait le modifier à ses propres fins. Si une autre nation souhaite utiliser le logiciel, elle devra obligatoirement l'adapter pour ses propres besoins (donc contribuer au développement d'une quelconque manière). Cela pourrait favoriser la coopération entre les pays. Des gens cupides pourraient venir pleurer qu'on aurait pu vendre ces logiciels, mais cela aurait été au profit de sociétés privées capitalistes. Est-ce le monde dont vous rêvez ? Pas moi.

(C'est suffisamment bas niveau pour toi ? :p)

Et bien, tu dépenses de l'argent public (national) pour améliorer un logiciel qui sera accessible au niveau mondial sans avoir à payer. Je suis pour le logiciel libre, j'essaie juste de me comporter comme le citoyen lambda qui ne pige rien de vos discussions. Vous devez abaisser le niveau du débat. C'est trop technique et conceptuel.