[wtbob]

> it's surprisingly hard to convince them that government-sponsored software is a good idea

That's because it's not. Governments are not reliably good, and their money comes with far more strings than private money.

The FSF have it right: people should write free software because proprietary software is immoral.

[simoncion]

> [Government] money comes with far more strings than private money.

Have you ever worked on a government-funded project? The Tor folks have and do. :)

> ...[P]eople should write free software because proprietary software is immoral.

USGov does fund Libre and Open Source software. One big example is the Tor Project.