Comment by gnfargbl
6 days ago
Governments don't do get source code for the same reason as every other customer doesn't get source code: software vendors are incentivized to refuse the request.
Why are the vendors so incentivized? Well, coming back to Fujitsu and the Post Office, the answer is that refusing to share the source was worth about a billion dollars: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cgm8lmz1xk1o
This is why it's unethical for governments to use closed source software. Anything related to government functioning should be auditable.
Then they shouldn't get the contract.
I hope lessons are learned, but I doubt it.