Funferal

Conflict in responses about availability of source code

In a written answer to several questions from Dáil members in February, 2003, Minister Martin Cullen stated that “The software is currently being modified for use at the European and local elections in June 2004 and when this work has been completed and tested, I will give careful consideration to the making of the source code available.”
However, when a member of the public, independently, requested a copy of the source code under the Freedom of Information Act, the response they got stated that “The source code is held by the Nedap/Powervote [sic] and is not available in the Department of the Environment and Local Government.”
There is one possible way to reconcile these statements. Seemingly the code was used ‘under licence’ in the past. The implication is that the Irish government will own the modified source code, but I am unclear how that would work, given that the base version of the code is closely held.