Open Source Government: SoftwareTech news
David Wheeler kindly suggested me to read the last number of the DoD Software Tech news – a periodic published by the Data & Analysis Center for Software – entitled “Open Source – The future is Open” (registration required), and it really worths reading.
David Wheeler by swhisher
Before talking about why FAR, the Federal Acquisition Regulation, demands agencies to look at open source software when procuring software, I wish to report Gen. Charles Croom priority list for how DISA – the Defense Information Systems Agency – will acquire technologies and capabilities in the future. Defined by the acronym “ABC”, as explained below:
The “A†on that list stands for adopt. The general maintains that his agency will do what it can to take advantage of past investments by adopting both what is in the marketplace and what is in the U.S. Defense Department inventory. This approach is at the heart of providing network connectivity to the warfighter.
The “B†is for buy. If the agency cannot adopt something already on the shelf, then it will go to the marketplace and buy what is needed. While this lacks the economic savings of using what is at hand, it nonetheless takes advantage of the efficiency in commercial developments.
If neither A nor B can help DISA carry out its mission, then the agency will employ its “Câ€â€”create. Only if all other avenues fail to produce the needed goods or services will the agency generate its own customized solution.
In terms of the “A,†DOD is a large-scale adopter of Open Source as results from what observed Brigadier General Nick Justice, the Deputy Program Officer for the Army’s Program Executive Office, Command, Control and Communications Tactical:
Open source software is part of the integrated network fabric which connects and enables our command and control system to work effectively, as people’s lives depend on it. When we rolled into Baghdad, we did it using open source.
With respect to the “B,†Chuck Reichers, the Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary of the Air Force for Acquisition and Management, said:
We want to pay for unique intellectual property when it’s best of breed, but not succumb to code and vendor-specific lock-in situations. Acquisition of proprietary solutions needs to be a conscience choice, not an assumption.
Last but not least the “C,†with the living example of the Navy’s SHARE (Software, Hardware Asset Reuse Enterprise) repository. James Shannon, program manager for future combat systems open architecture, observed:
But the fact that today we are putting systems that were solely owned or thought to be solely owned by other companies and the fact we have shared them with other companies, I will tell you OA (open architecture) has arrived. We are definitely working to change our Navy business model and we are seeing industry change their business models as a result.
I am among them thinking that Open Source software shouldn’t be mandatory, but at the same extent I firmly believe that Open Source has to have an official seat at every Public Administration table.
Getting back to the FAR issue, considering that the FAR requires government agencies to conduct market research to determine if commercial items or non-developmental items are available, Wheeler wrote that:
An agency that fails to consider OSS options is in direct violation of the FAR, because it would be failing to consider commercial items.
Another reason that most extant OSS is commercial is because U.S. law says so. U.S. Code Title 17, section 101 defines “financial gain†as including “receipt, or expectation of receipt, of anything of value, including the receipt of other copyrighted works.†Most OSS projects are specifically established to encourage others to contribute improvements (which are copyrighted works), a form of financial gain and thus commercial.
I keep citing David’s work because it is really important that people get acquainted with the idea that “Commercial is not the opposite of Free-Libre / Open Source Software“, hence the name of my blog: Commercial Open Source.
The Software Tech News is published quarterly by the Data & Analysis Center for Software (DACS). The DACS is a DoD sponsored Information Analysis Center (IAC), administratively managed by the Defense Technical Information Center (DTIC). The DACS is technically managed by Air Force Research Laboratory, Rome, NY and operated by ITT, Advanced Engineering and Sciences Division.
Roberto Galoppini and 
Jim S 7:48 pm on July 11, 2007 Permalink
Hi Roberto,
I agree that the issue of software tech news you point to has some good material in it; and David is doing a great job getting people to understand in government that FOSS is a form of COTS that they can leverage under the FARS.
I’m a bit disappointed though that in DoD circles the question continues to be “can I consume COTS FOSS projects?” and most of our discussion is still around that concept. It is taking a long time, but it is basically inevitable that this battle will be won.
To me, the much more interesting thing is how we will do “C” with open source-like methods; either spanning the DoD boundary into commercial community, or inside a very large walled garden when necessary.
SHARE is a great example but still hampered by the facts that 1) it relies on (to me) nearly worthless government purpose license rights as an IP model and 2) is gated way too narrowly (because it relies on GPLR, I believe the repository is only accessable if you are currently under contract).
At the fringes, in projects like OpenEaagles (http://openeaagles.org/) and Delta3D (http://www.delta3d.org/), evidence is mounting that real value comes from spanning commercial and DoD communities with truly open systems to satisfy “C” projects more cheaply and with better quality.
For those that can’t span into commercial communites (for security reasons or whatever) I imagine a world where Government General License (GGL – a not-yet-real license, closely modeled on GPLv2) is the standard contract clause rather than GPRS and that anyone with a CAC card can access most repositories and contribute to community.
Roberto Galoppini 11:24 pm on July 11, 2007 Permalink
Thank you very much Jim,
you really add some salt to the discussion. Did you read that a joint U.S. and Canadian organization that certifies encryption tools for use by federal government agencies has suspended its validation of OpenSSL cryptographic technology? A lot of work is still needed, and now that FOSS is progressively perceived as viable, proprietary vendors are lobbying hard against it. We are in the Middle Earth, nowadays.
I don’t know much about SHARE, and despite the acronym sounds a lot about sharing, if I got it right it is pretty ‘closed’. I saw similar initiatives here asking contributors odd things, and I think that with patience it is possible to get things done properly, eventually.
On the other hand, Public officers need a change of mentality, and that is far from obvious (hence the need for goodwill).
Last but not leasr, while I am not welcoming initiatives like the European Union’s license, I believe you are right saying that a standardization in this respect might be helpful.