The GitHub has created the governments' Github for Hackers and techies around the world

Last week, GitHub announced that they have  created the government.github.com.

In summary, the story is that Github account for governments site will bring together all open source projects owned by governments from all over the planet on the GitHub-hosted open source.


Now here are the three mind boggling questions:

 

  1. Is this the sleekest or another way of the governments moving towards "free labor system" by reducing the paycheck work force or slowing down to hire professional coders?
  2. Do you think all governments will freely put their codes on Github or online for every friend, foes or enemy to see?
  3. And do you think “civic-minded techies around the world" and Hackers will be happy to contribute to these government open sources projects?


Just helping my neighbor move out and looking forward to hear your thoughts :)

  • I think this post should not be in professional services section.

    Having said this, I think it's a great move. Much better than eg. Microsoft's attempt to make open source code in government organizations in my country illegal :>

    When government pays, everyone in the country is billed. I think it's a great way to especially help out governments in poorer countries. There's plenty of government software that can be open-sourced and is not critical from security point of view. It's not so great for big software companies, but I would say unevitable.

  • open sharing is the path that leads to survival.
    from what i have seen, much of the 'stuff they don't want you to know' has already been moved to private corporations so that when 'the innevitable move to open-ness' comes to fruition, there will already be much that has been hidden.

    govern = control

    ment = mind

     

  • Moved this discussion from Professional Services to General Discussion

  • @ Matt Beckett and  Mike Zacher (vazco) and last but not least ura soul , thank you for your comments. I had the same view but at the same time, my left brain "analytical brain" was not certain that most software developers will be willing to help governments develop their open source software codes.

  • i was thinking that one of the purposes of sharing the code is that since 'the people' 'paid' for the code, technically they 'own' it and thus should be able to use it.
    well, that would be true if 'money' was valid and not totally corrupted.