Onterra TutorShould software paid for with public money be published openly?
TOEFL iBT writing question in the official format, with a full model answer and notes on why it scores. Write your own version below it and get an instant rater-style score.
The question
Your professor is teaching a class on public technology policy. Write a post responding to the professor's question. In your response, express and support your opinion and add to the discussion in your own words. A strong response has at least 100 words.
Professor Fenwick: When a government pays for software to run a public service, should the code be published for anyone to inspect, reuse or improve?
Anita: Publish it. The public financed it once, and a smaller council that could never commission its own system could then run the same thing for nothing.
Marcus: I would be careful. Published code hands attackers a map of the system, and departments would still need staff who can maintain whatever they copied.
Model answer
I agree with Anita, although Marcus is describing a real risk rather than an imaginary one. The public financed the code once, and publishing it means every ministry and every small council that could never commission its own system can use it without paying for the same work twice. On security, the profession settled this argument long ago: a system that is safe only while nobody can inspect it is the most fragile kind, because the flaw is found eventually and usually by the wrong person. Marcus is on firmer ground about maintenance, and a council that copies a system without anyone able to run it has bought a problem. What I would add is that publication is also accountability. When the rules deciding a benefit payment sit in code that no citizen may read, nobody outside the department can check the decision made about them.
Why this answer scores
- Separates Marcus's weak objection from his strong one and answers each differently.
- Brings evidence from how the security profession actually reasons, not just an assertion.
- The accountability point lifts the response above the cost argument both students were having.
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