The amount of open source software used by the
U.S. government might well be one of the biggest secrets in Washington.
Not even purveyors of FOSS, as in free and open source software, know
the extent of federal agency adoption of nonproprietary software.
Some in the Beltway Loop contend that open source is very prevalent.
Others suggest that open source is avoided because its code is exposed
for anyone to see.
One thing seems very sure, however. Most government agencies cling to
well-known commercial software for desktop services. However,
server-side and specialized software is a mixture of contracted code and
community packages promulgated on Github and other open source software
repositories.
Just how passionately government agencies support and use open source
software may be a question nobody has bothered to pursue. For example,
OpenSource.com claims that the U.S. government has directed that open
source projects are to be considered equally with proprietary products
-- but no government guidance is offered for carrying out that
directive.
"The involvement varies. A lot of the initiatives for using open
source takes a cultural change," Steve Wallo, chief solutions architect
for
Brocade Federal, told LinuxInsider.
Some agencies look at open source for a particular mission. Others look
at open source for large scale deployment. So OSS adoption on the
federal level is at different stages, said Wallo.
Some of the largest U.S. agencies are known users of open source. For
instance, the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs often is cited as one
of the largest federal users of open source software. If accurate, that
would be a significant investment in OSS. The VA is the second largest
agency of the U.S. federal government.
Take
MongoDB,
for instance. This open source next-generation database has a broad
list of government customers, according to Will LaForest, Senior
Director of MongoDB Federal. That customer base includes the
intelligence community, the Defense Department and civilian agencies in
healthcare, finance and energy.
"There is actually quite a bit of variation within the government.
Some favor OSS as a policy, others "permit" OSS, and some are not open
to it at all," LaForest told LinuxInsider.
On the whole, the government is slower than the commercial world to
adopt open source, and there are some substantial obstacles to overcome,
he said.
Why No Mandate?
Government agencies are big business customers. That puts open source solutions at odds with
profit-and-loss calculations of competing vendors.
"For instance, some heavily ensconced commercial sales organizations
fight tooth and nail to keep OSS out, as it poses a significant threat
to their sales," said LaForest.
One of the more compelling arguments for adopting open source
software is its ability to mitigate risk, he said. To some government
workers, this might seem counterintuitive, but OSS provides complete
transparency into how software functions and is constructed.
Another benefit of OSS is the protection it affords against vendors
going out of business. So is the ability to adapt open source software
for features that the government needs but that never would be done,
based upon broader usage, LaForest noted.
Contractor Conflicts
The federal government is one of the largest consumers of software.
Often, a government agency will contract a software project to a
software developer.
"It often depends on the contractor. Some will use open source
components but deliver what is essentially a proprietary product to the
hiring agency," Lev Lesokhin, executive vice president at
Cast, told LinuxInsider.
"Some of the health services platform developers are shying away from
[open source] due to concerns over quality and security," he said.
Our Way vs. the Open Source Way
The decision making on whether to use customized commercial or open
source software rests largely with the contractor and the hiring agency.
The system lacks any central office directives.
That results from the heavy load of customization that federal
agencies have to do in order to meet their missions. As a result, there
is no wholesale move in one direction or the other, according to
Lesokhin.
"Some federal contractors have so much experience in a particular
software field that they already have their own custom-made packages.
Other contractors will use open source as a convenient starting point
but will customize it from there," he said.
In many cases, the contractors are coming to their bids with prebuilt
software that they can then customize for the specific agency. This
gives the government agency what is essentially a proprietary product,
according to Lesokhin.
Partly Loving Linux
How prominent OSS usage in government is may depend on your vantage point.
Intelligent Software Solutions does a lot of work with the U.S. government and agencies such as the Department of Defense and intelligence communities.
"We use open source a lot with these agencies. They really embrace open source," Wes Caldwell, CTO of
Intelligent Software Solutions, told LinuxInsider.
That hugfest with open source extends to the Linux OS on the server
side, according to Caldwell, who noted that Linux is definitely one of
the mainstream operating systems in that customer base.
One of the biggest players in the open source space among the agencies that ISS services is Red Hat, said Caldwell. RHEL is accredited for government use.
However, there is a dividing line. Linux is used primarily on the
server side, but much of the desktop work is still handled using
Microsoft Windows.
"I don't know if that is because of convenience. I am speculating --
the convenience of Word, Excel and Powerpoint. These are programs that
are used every day by government employees. That is the language that
they use," Caldwell said.
No Set Plan
No system-wide set of standards exists for software selection. Each agency does its own due diligence, according to
Govcode.org creator/maintainer Diego Lapiduz, who works in the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.
For nearly four years, Lapiduz has been spreading the word among his
federal coworkers about his repository of government-focused open source
products. Many people in the government are aware of it now and use it,
he said.
"When I first started working for the government, I noticed that
people were doing tasks on different software and were not aware of
tools available in open source. I started Govcode to communicate with
them about open source," Lapiduz told LinuxInsider.
Like Govcode.org, Github provides government agencies with a
convenient way to consider open source software. This is a way for
people to share, and it allows commonality between agencies to allow
people to use open source in a way that other people are using it,
according to Brocade Federal's Wallo.
"This push for collaboration among agencies is a change you are going to see," he said.
Up for Grabs
The vetting process for open source vendors depends on the government
agency, noted Wallo. For example, the Department of Defense has certain
certifications that allow you to play.
"You have to have them. These certifications guarantee
interoperability. The certifications have little to do with meeting open
standards," he said. "The government tends to favor the proprietary
license over open source as a way to guarantee that many people can work
together."
However, the government has a plan out there for moving toward open
source. There is a date for people to respond about how they are going
to use it, Wallo maintained.
"It won't be until a second phase is forced upon agencies to adopt
open source and stop paying the [proprietary software] licensing fees,
that it will draw a difference in behavior," he said.
Evangelizing Open Source
The government has been involved with open source software since before
the Internet -- but it is only recently that government use of open
source really has come into vogue, according to Ben Balter, government
evangelist at GitHub.
"A big reason for this is that open source used to be inaccessible to
outsiders and didn't have the quality and support large organizations
like government have come to expect," Balter told LinuxInsider, "but
that's all changing as new tools are making it easier for organizations
large and small to publish and consume high-quality, open source
software."
The type of open source software government agencies use is shifting
from low-level system administration tools to customer-facing things
like websites and mobile apps. This is a trend that matches a broader
shift toward consumerization in the private sector, he said.
Can't Shed Its Dark Side
Many government agencies, colored by open source's history, are still
hesitant to embrace open source, both as a software consumer and as a
software publisher, Balter contended. There is no question that any
government agency has some open source someplace in its software stack.
"That does not mean that it was not an uphill battle to get it there," he said. "There is still a lot of FUD
(fear, uncertainty and doubt) around both the idea of open source (that
is, anyone can change my code), and its use (e.g., open source violates
the Antideficiency Act), that technologists in government are
fighting."
Still, government use of open source is increasing exponentially.
Recent number-crunching revealed more than 10,000 active government
users on GitHub, Balter found. That usage spreads across more than 500
organizations and dozens of countries, all together working on more than
7,500 individual projects.
"You can see some of the more notable projects, but the general trend
is that we're seeing government agencies not just consuming open source
software, but publishing the software they develop in-house, and
collaborating with the public. The White House's 'We the People'
petitions platform is a great example of this," he said.
source:technewsworld
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