The thrust of the article changes from "governments should use open source software" to "governments should open-source their custom software" about 2/3rds of the way through. Contrary to the headline, it never goes as far as to say that any government-funded software should be open-source.[1]
The latter precludes the (reasonable) arguments talking about grants and public-private partnerships, of which the intent is to stimulate economic innovation, not produce public code.
I think the proposal is reasonable, but it puts a heavy administrative onus on the government to open-source said code, including potential warranting that the code in question is indeed free of any other copyright or license requirement.
[1] Emphasis mine: "any government code produced with public money..."
The latter precludes the (reasonable) arguments talking about grants and public-private partnerships, of which the intent is to stimulate economic innovation, not produce public code.
I think the proposal is reasonable, but it puts a heavy administrative onus on the government to open-source said code, including potential warranting that the code in question is indeed free of any other copyright or license requirement.
[1] Emphasis mine: "any government code produced with public money..."