[twodave]

As an American, this sort of brings back into question for me thoughts of, "What should constitute a public utility in a Capitalism society?" Upon doing some cursory research (so cursory that I'm afraid to provide links), it occurs to me that I was maybe under a false impression that there _are_ any nationwide public utilities in the first place. We basically have:

* The Federal Reserve

* The Interstate Highway System

* The Postal Service

* Homeland Security

* Medicaid/Medicare (does this even fit the list?)

* Other entitlements I'm also not sure fit this list

Did I leave anything major out? But getting to the point, I think the question is relevant because in order for something like this set of principles to take hold in the US I think we'd essentially have to kill certain classes of software in the private sector. Can you imagine the sorts of craziness that would ensure if the US government tried to adopt LibreOffice? Maybe it could happen at the state or municipal level, but we can't even agree that the government should own any of the power lines.

[hx8]

Federal Aviation Administration keeps the skies a public utility.

Federal Communication Commission keeps part of the wireless communication spectrum open to the public.

National Park Service and Bureau of Land Management keeps some public land available for everyone to use.

The Library of Congress.

National Public Radio and Public Broadcasting Service probably satisfy "Public Utility" as much as Medicaid.

Federal Emergency Management Agency would be another stretch, but not something I would consider an entitlement program.

[twodave]

Yeah, these examples are all challenging in that they tend to represent more governance/funding than infrastructure. Out of both of our lists I think the USPS, highways, parks and land are the most infrastructure-related things. Of course these are all sort of weak analogues since software services are their own animal, but the fact that it’s a choice between governance, funding or a pittance of infrastructure projects I suppose makes the point.

[StefanBatory]

But I think that's the issue -

for libertarian,

National Public Radio and Public Broadcasting Service probably satisfy "Public Utility" as much as Medicaid.

this would not be public utility, etc.

[derektank]

You forgot NIST, which incidentally would probably be the appropriate agency to handle management of open source software

[wyldfire]

> Did I leave anything major out?

You've limited your list to federal services. But state and local governments provide plenty more "public utility in a Capitalism society", don't they? Schools, fire protection, police for example.

[twodave]

Yeah I did. I realize that each state and municipality has the ability to do this. But they aren’t countries. Is it fair to compare e.g. one cherry-picked state to France? I thought maybe it wasn’t, but you certainly have a point.