In mid-October, the U.S. Department of Defense CIO released a memo on the use of open source software in the DOD. The Clarifying Guidance Regarding Open Source Software (OSS) was hailed as tremendous leap forward for open source software in the US Government. And indeed it is. At its heart, the memo is fairly simple. The basic points are:
- This is not formal policy, just a clarification of policy that already exists.
- OSS is COTS (Commercial, Off-the-Shelf Software) and the same rules that apply to regular software apply to OSS. In other words: you cannot disqualify an open source software product just because it is open source.
- Further, the memo reminds us that COTS software has special status in DOD procurements, because you’re supposed consider commercial alternatives before writing your own.
The memo has been under development for 18 months, and can trace its lineage to the DOD-commissioned report by MITRE. You can think of the 2007 Navy memo as a kind of prototype for this document, which applies to all of DOD.
The memo’s Attachment 2, though, grows more bold, offering several specific benefits that open source software can offer the DOD:
I'm the Chief Technology Strategist for the Red Hat US Public Sector group, an open source and free culture advocate, a picky drinker, an amateur aesthete, and a dog enthusiast.
