OSCON 2009: Governments and open source [LWN.net]

OSCON 2009: Governments and open source

Posted Aug 9, 2009 22:34 UTC (Sun) by heretic2 (guest, #60156)
Parent article: OSCON 2009: Governments and open source

Having worked at government facilities, I full well understand the issue of accepting gifts.
Government employees that imagine this prohibition applies to free, Open Source software either
misunderstand the rule, or the Open Source license. The agency will be paying the full required
price ($0.00) as is charged to all licensees. The government, in most cases, has already made
payment in kind to the software project, and by simply by using the software and reporting on its
bugs (or even making suggestions for its improvement) the agency will have paid the full expected
price (cash & kind). To pay more than the standard cash price is the criminal act. The agency does
not pay for the air nor need it pay more cash for free software. If still in doubt, buy it bundled with
support from a vendor like Red Hat or Novell, or get it on an internal transfer from another agency
or department that has already done the due diligence.

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OSCON 2009: Governments and open source

Posted Aug 29, 2009 15:49 UTC (Sat) by liamh (subscriber, #4872) [Link]

The concern is absurd. The rule applies to acceptance of gifts only if that gift is not available to everyone. If Staples offers a free binder in a back-to-school sale, government employees are free to accept it, because everyone can. Furthermore, I think the rule applies only to personal gifts; items offered for government use are not covered. And of course, as the previous comment points out, the full price (nothing) has been paid.

All agencies should have either an ethics office or a legal office that would clarify this with a phone call. So it's pretty clear that this is a red herring; the people who brought it up won't adopt free software for some other reason, not for the stated reason.