The US Department of Defense wants you to contribute unclassified code to software projects developed in support of national security. Toward that end, it has launched Code.mil, which points to a Github repository intended to offer public access to code financed by public money. But at the moment, the DoD's repo lacks any actual code.
Open source and free software represent industry best practices, the DoD said in a statement, even as it acknowledged the agency has yet to widely adopt it. Code.mil represents an attempt to change that dynamic. On the project website, the DoD goes so far as to suggest that anything other than open source software puts lives at risk.
"US military members and their families make significant sacrifices to protect our country," the agency explains in its FAQs. "Their lives should not be negatively impacted by outdated tools and software development practices that lag far behind private sector standards." And in case that isn't clear enough, the agency states, "Modern software is open sourced software."
-- submitted from IRC
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Late last month the US Department of Defence (DoD) published a memorandum on software development (warning for PDF). It focuses specifically on Open Source Software (OSS), though it misses the fact that OSS can also be commercial in nature.
- A. The Department must follow an "Adopt, Buy, Create" approach to software, preferentially adopting existing government or OSS solutions before buying proprietary offerings, and only creating new non-commercial software when no off-the-shelf solutions are adequate.
- (1) OSS meets the definition of "commercial computer software" and therefore, shall be given equal consideration with proprietary commercial offerings, in accordance with Section 2377 of Title 10, U.S.C. (reference (e)) (see also FAR 2.l0l(b), 12.000, 12.101 (reference (f)); and DFARS 212.212, DFARS 208.74, DFARS 227.7202, and 252.227-7014(a)(l) (reference (g))).
- (2) In accordance with FAR 13.104, (reference (h)) refusal to consider all OSS based solely on software being open source may be contrary to statutory and regulatory preferences for commercial products, and would unnecessarily restrict competition. OSS should be considered to the maximum extent practical.
(Score: -1, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday February 26 2017, @08:03PM (1 child)
i looks like mil.net can reset assured that people are hard at work making the closed-sourced world more secure.
(Score: 1) by Ethanol-fueled on Sunday February 26 2017, @08:12PM
Recruiting Effort for fifth-columnist fags.
(Score: 0, Offtopic) by Gaaark on Sunday February 26 2017, @08:31PM (1 child)
Who will be fired for this?
Can you say stuff like this without being fired?
And will Trump open-source the wall? You know, let simple Americans buy a brick online? One brick at a time, brick after brick and it will get done (and if you then deport all the people who bought a brick as Mexican illegals, you can then say "The Mexicans paid for this wall! Nice yuuuuuge wall!"
;)
--- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. ---Gaaark 2.0 ---
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Sunday February 26 2017, @09:14PM
The Canadians have their wall oversubscribed [brickingitforcanada.com].
Watch the explanation here [youtube.com]
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 2, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday February 26 2017, @08:34PM (3 children)
U.S. Federal government employees generally don’t have copyright under U.S. and some international law for work they create as part of their jobs. In those places, we base our open source license in contract—rather than copyright—law.
Basically you can claim no copyright under the terms of this code. As they are not allowed to have it in the first place with this code.
Most open source licenses use copyright as the 'teeth' to help enforce the copying of the code.
This license they propose seems to be an attribute sort of license much like BSD. There is no share alike clause like the GPL.
It is an interesting problem. How do you share code that implicitly has no copyright.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 27 2017, @01:34AM (2 children)
How do you share code that implicitly has no copyright.
Now that I go back and re-read what I wrote it seems odd and not exactly what I meant.
What I mean is how do you force an outcome without copyright? Our OS license schema uses copyright to force an outcome. It also happens to be one issue I have with many of these sorts of licenses. On the short term scale they work as our copyright system is so sever. But on the long term they fall apart. It sounds like the military uses contract law to enforce it. Which may be a better way to go?
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Scruffy Beard 2 on Monday February 27 2017, @08:13AM
Why Open Source misses the point of Free Software [gnu.org]
Microsoft has experimented it open source, non-free software under their Shared source initiative [microsoft.com].
The fine article explicitly mentions Free software:
..probably like how a Certain Redmond or Cupertino OSs used to leverage contract law to enforce "End User License Agreements".
I have not checked Apple recently, but around Windows 7/8, Microsoft apparently switched to Patent law by replacing "by clicking .. You agree" to "by using the computer you agree".
(Score: 2) by HiThere on Monday February 27 2017, @06:31PM
Well, if there's no copyright on it, you can slap whatever license you want on your changes. My favorite is the GPL, but in this context that would be likely to lead to fragmentation. Possibly the MIT would be a better choice.
Javascript is what you use to allow unknown third parties to run software you have no idea about on your computer.
(Score: 0, Offtopic) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday February 26 2017, @08:34PM (24 children)
Anyone know how to turn this new sorry *NEW* shit off?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday February 26 2017, @08:36PM (2 children)
But its *NEW* annnnnnnnnnd improved!!!!!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 27 2017, @12:23AM (1 child)
It's just so… beta.
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 27 2017, @12:31AM
Yes, you are a beta male.
(Score: 2) by Snotnose on Sunday February 26 2017, @08:44PM (4 children)
What he said, I hate it.
When the dust settled America realized it was saved by a porn star.
(Score: 2) by Snotnose on Sunday February 26 2017, @08:46PM (1 child)
Great, now comments have checkboxes. Sad!
Heh, and if you hit preview the submit button quits working. Sad!
When the dust settled America realized it was saved by a porn star.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday February 26 2017, @11:30PM
Are you donald trump? Sad!
If you are, fuck you! Sad!
(Score: 2) by inertnet on Sunday February 26 2017, @08:48PM (1 child)
You can disable them on your preferences / comments page.
(Score: 2) by Snotnose on Sunday February 26 2017, @09:14PM
Thanks. Dunno why but NEW squarely nails my Do Not Want button.
When the dust settled America realized it was saved by a porn star.
(Score: 2) by Nerdfest on Sunday February 26 2017, @08:46PM (2 children)
I quite like it, but wish it was right-justified on the screen. I'm sure we'll adapt regardless.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by c0lo on Sunday February 26 2017, @09:16PM
This can't be justified by any rational explanation/mind.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 2) by takyon on Monday February 27 2017, @12:31AM
Looks like I have managed to right-justify it by changing it from this:
to this:
I might add it to my extension, but I'm looking at other fixes first.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 1) by charon on Sunday February 26 2017, @08:48PM (5 children)
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Sunday February 26 2017, @09:21PM (4 children)
Can I please have a way in which the comments I read are NOT dimmed when I enter the page after some time?
It bleeps my eyes big time.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 2, Informative) by charon on Sunday February 26 2017, @11:36PM (1 child)
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Monday February 27 2017, @04:37AM
Ah... thanks in heaps, much better now.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 2) by NCommander on Monday February 27 2017, @07:56AM (1 child)
The new commenting code is still in flux. What we have right now isn't the final set, and we're running daily articles about it. Next one goes live in several hours.
Still always moving
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 27 2017, @09:32AM
The new commenting code is still in flux.
This is why we use flux capacitors as a core part of our unit testing. You never know where you'll end up without one.
(Score: 2) by VLM on Sunday February 26 2017, @09:08PM
I have to admit the first time I saw it I was like, OK, E-1, E2, maybe at three years of subscription you get a PFC and at four years the SPC sham shield...
(Score: 4, Informative) by HiThere on Monday February 27 2017, @12:21AM (5 children)
The *NEW* garbage doesn't bother me anywhere nearly as much as the chevrons for expand or reduce posts. And not only are they ugly, but the changed action is far inferior to the previous action. It's much more useful to be able to expand or contract all subsequent posts in the thread than whatever this thing does. And this chevron garbage even requires multiple clicks to see the immediately subsequent post. Please revert to the prior design.
Javascript is what you use to allow unknown third parties to run software you have no idea about on your computer.
(Score: 4, Informative) by NCommander on Monday February 27 2017, @07:58AM
Commenting stuff is in flux. We're still working on it. Articles going out this week for feedback and notes will be a daily thing here for awhile. Next one goes out in a few hours.
Still always moving
(Score: 2) by martyb on Monday February 27 2017, @11:44PM (3 children)
It may bear repeating that there was a need for changing the display of comments based on the fact that loading a story with 100+ comments after a system reboot could hit one of the serves with a sustained load for several tens of seconds. This was quite problematic and the new comment threading modes you are seeing are our attempts toprovide comparable capability at a much lesser load on the server... which also means you should also get you page must faster than under the old system.
Have you tried using a different display mode? It seems you are currently using the "Threaded-TOS" mode, which was designed as best as could be done with just CSS, to emulate the old "improved threaded" mode. Just above the first comment for this story are a number of controls. Click on the one that says "Threaded-TOS" and change it to "Threaded-TNG". You might want to change the value for "Breakthrough" to see what works best for you. If you like what you came up with just click the "Save" checkbox and click the "Change" button to make it permanent. Alternatively, you can go to your preferences [soylentnews.org] page, click on the "Comments" tab, and make your adjustments there. Be sure to scroll to the bottom and then click on the "Save" button to make the changes go into effect.
Wit is intellect, dancing.
(Score: 2) by HiThere on Wednesday March 01 2017, @02:19AM (2 children)
Threaded-TNG has the same chevron garbage. It seems to act a bit different, so I'll try it for awhile, but it's clearly inferior to the older method.
Javascript is what you use to allow unknown third parties to run software you have no idea about on your computer.
(Score: 2) by martyb on Wednesday March 01 2017, @03:44AM (1 child)
Yes, both "Threaded-TNG" and "Threaded-TOS" have chevrons. By setting a lower value for "Breakthrough" (I use -1) I am able to avoid having to click on the chevrons to see the comments. Yes, that is a temporary workaround and not an ideal solution. We are still working out the kinks. I have heard rumors that it may be possible to bring back just plain "Threaded" in some form.
Please be aware that one of the devs has been looking into replacing the chevrons with single/double plus/minus symbols, too. That should make it easier to make out what the symbol *is* as well as make it more readily apparent what it is supposed to *do*.
Wit is intellect, dancing.
(Score: 2) by HiThere on Thursday March 02 2017, @12:23AM
I'm not really objecting to the changed appearance, only to the changed action. Perhaps I will set it to not collapse anything, though there are obvious downsides to that.
Javascript is what you use to allow unknown third parties to run software you have no idea about on your computer.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday February 26 2017, @11:24PM
Trouble with their military industrial complex corporate war machine is that they suck at the smart stuff and are being hacked right and left. Watch this be a honey pot looking to pin the leaks on whomever bites.
(Score: -1, Offtopic) by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 27 2017, @12:13PM
Trump is doing everything he can to cut social benefits, health care, raise my taxes, attack my freedoms, destroy education, fucking wrecking America *AND* now he wants me to code for free?!
"Terrible deal...awful...not gonna happen people. Believe me...blah blah"
Racist motherfucker...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 27 2017, @03:43PM
i rarely say that, but i am glad someone gets it. next step? make it illegal to pay for closed source software with tax dollars (after a reasonable grace period) and start getting projects ramped up now. Get sister initiatives set up in other countries. FOSS gov software may even be helpful to their respective economies as private companies can use in production or as base for their own projects. good luck.