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borusa ( borusa@feddit.uk )  to United Kingdom@feddit.ukEnglish · 8 months ago

We tested a transport app that cost the public £4m against Google Maps

www.bbc.co.uk

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We tested a transport app that cost the public £4m against Google Maps

www.bbc.co.uk

borusa ( borusa@feddit.uk )  to United Kingdom@feddit.ukEnglish · 8 months ago
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A pair of BBC journalists raced from Derby to Nottingham to see which app was the most effective.
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  • mannycalavera ( mannycalavera@feddit.uk ) 
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    8 months ago

    I presume this £4m app paid for by the public purse is open source so that we can all see and benefit from it? Anyone got a link?

    • Gargantuan ( Gargantuan@piefed.social ) 
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      8 months ago

      why would that mean it has to be open source? Should we be open sourcing all our defece projects too?

      • mannycalavera ( mannycalavera@feddit.uk ) 
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        8 months ago

        It’s a transport app. Not the code to the nuclear defences.

        • Gargantuan ( Gargantuan@piefed.social ) 
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          8 months ago

          that’s not my point. it’s the assumption that anything tax payer funded should be open source by default.

          as a tax payer, I’m not sure I want other countries freeloading on our investments.

          • VeganCheesecake ( VeganCheesecake@lemmy.blahaj.zone ) 
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            8 months ago

            “I have helped pay for something good. More people could benefit from it, at no additional cost to me. But I’d rather they not.”

            • Brave Little Hitachi Wand ( yakko@feddit.uk ) 
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              8 months ago

              Some people can’t help but look at the common human endeavour and think, “this tower is getting too tall, God should punish our teamwork.”

          • scratchee ( scratchee@feddit.uk ) 
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            8 months ago

            I do, when those investments can be copied for free

            “You wouldn’t steal a car”, but if you could download one from the internet the world would be a better place.

          • tetris11 ( tetris11@feddit.uk ) 
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            8 months ago

            Then it dies as an investment, relegated to the halls of decay like other closed source apps as soon as it loses relevance

          • Vex_Detrause ( Vex_Detrause@lemmy.ca ) 
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            8 months ago

            Maybe you should only use it based on how much you paid/contributed. You don’t want to free load off other tax payer’s money

          • Magnum, P.I. ( Magnum@infosec.pub ) 
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            8 months ago

            Thank you sir for making this planet a living hell

      • VeganCheesecake ( VeganCheesecake@lemmy.blahaj.zone ) 
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        8 months ago

        That might not be practical. But everything else done with public money should be open source. A lot of these software projects are more or less necessary for every city globally. Collaborating on a few apps and programmes is a lot more sensible then everyone having an app custom build by a contractor.

        • Gargantuan ( Gargantuan@piefed.social ) 
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          8 months ago

          so any other country should get free access to the all software the UK tax payer invested in?

          nah. I don’t think so.

          • VeganCheesecake ( VeganCheesecake@lemmy.blahaj.zone ) 
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            8 months ago

            And the UK taxpayer might save money by using open source projects funded by other municipality in different countries. This is already the standard for some EU projects.

            Could some countries ‘freeload’? Sure. But what’s the actual cost for that? The people in those places getting better software, while the original users are no worse off?

            Could also help with less wealthy countries having access to software they couldn’t otherwise afford to develop.

          • 20dogs ( 20dogs@feddit.uk ) 
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            8 months ago

            We also get free development and contributions from others.

          • Don_alForno ( Don_alForno@feddit.org ) 
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            8 months ago

            Oh no! Somebody else might benefit from something you would’ve made anyway, at no additional cost to you! The horror!

      • corsicanguppy ( corsicanguppy@lemmy.ca ) 
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        8 months ago

        Yes.

        (You …do know you can open the source without losing all your secrets, right? Right?)

      • Hegar ( Hegar@fedia.io ) 
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        8 months ago

        Open source defeces projects do sounds pretty shit.

      • apotheotic (she/her) ( apotheotic@beehaw.org ) 
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        8 months ago

        Security by obscurity doesn’t exist, so perhaps yes.

  • RobotToaster ( RobotToaster@mander.xyz ) 
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    8 months ago

    Proprietary app, run by Trafi, a company that advertises itself as selling “mobility as a service”.

    No thanks.

  • Æ ( Ash@piefed.social ) 
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    8 months ago

    Good work. Less reliance on american shite, labour council doing something that benefits british people, using public funds to fund public benefitting programs. In Kent however under Reform they invented 40 million of savings and spent over one third of the cost to create this app (1.5million) on a single private car park for themselves.

  • florge ( florge@feddit.uk ) 
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    8 months ago

    Link to the app since it wasn’t directly linked in the article.

  • LiveLM ( LiveLM@lemmy.zip ) 
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    8 months ago

    downloading the app was very simple. I didn’t need to set up an account, or any of that nonsense

    Ya love to see it

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