President's Tech Advisors Comment On OSS

Tony Stanco writes: "The President's Information Technology Advisory Committee's "Recommendations of the Panel on Open Source Software For High End Computing" has issued its report and recommendations concerning OSS/Free Software. " Very postive -- says that the government should help develop more free software/open source software.

Comments

the complaining is already beginning

[emgeemg]

As evident by the article, the flamefest is already beginning. All the government has done is agree that OSS could be a good thing to put to use. Rather than applaud them for taking such a step, the article blasts them for how they came to their conclusions. Huh? What? The committee has ruled positively for OSS. What's the problem? Let's take a look at some of the critique the author had.

1. How does a report to the President on Free/Open software development not even mention Richard Stallman?

What the hell does that matter? Are the conclusions somehow invalid because the committee did not tout the accomplishments of RMS? This committee does not care about the holy wars that have been fought to get free software where it is today. They're looking at how viable the *software* and *methodology* of free/open software is a solution to goverment needs. So is free software about free software or just about RMS getting his props?

2. This raises another question: who knew in the community that this committee was working on the report?

Again, I fail to see the relevancy. If anything, the fact that this committee of "people who have the same old, corporate, command and control hierarchichal mindset" came to this conclusion without any influence from the free software community is a testament to the quality of free software. Oh, but they didn't invite RMS to be on the committee, nor did they make his favorite teas available to him (remember that article?) so their findings are invalid. Please spare me.

3. Did anyone notice recommendation No. 3. the ultimate goal of which is "agreeing upon a single, common licensing agreement"?

Why yes, I did notice. My god this is ridiculous. They haven't even *done* anything yet and the author is basically screaming "GPL VIOLATION!" already. Understand my friend that this a government we're talking about here. This is not XYZ company that is worried about losing some IP which would affect its bottomline. This is a goverment with very real NATIONAL SECURITY issues to deal with. I am certainly not saying that the law does not apply to them nor that they are exempt from license agreements. An observant reader who is not too busy crying fowl like the author of this article, will see recommendation No. 3. in a different way. The government knows that while they may be able to get away with quietly violation the GPL (and other free-ish licenses) for awhile, eventually they will be caught in the act and shit will hit the fan. So No. 3. is an importmant hurdle to get over and the committee would not have been doing its job if they had not mentioned it. Who knows what kind of license it will be. They might even decide on the GPL because let's face it, the government is not going to release the source to anything critical. I dont believe we're ever going to see nor would I want to see nuclear_launch_system-1.0 on freshmeat. Ever. Not in a million years. Say all the bad things you want about security through obscurity, but some things are best left secret and locked up in a vault behind 100 men (or woman!) trained to kill you with their bare hands.

Mr. Stanco is jumping the gun a bit. If you are a true believer in free software then applaud the government for taking this first step. Instead of being critical of mistakes they haven't even made yet, offer ideas on how they can make free software work for them.

Don't beleive the article -- READ THE REPORT

[TrentC]

The article seriously misquotes the PITAC report, and in one case it has a lot of people's underwear in a bundle for no good reason.

From the article:

The report makes three recommendations:

1. The Federal government should aggressively (!) encourage the development of Open Source software for high end computing;

Nowhere in the actual report does it use the word "agressively", and it potentially overstates the committee's enthusiasm; the actual quote from the report is;

1. The Federal government should encourage the development of open source software as an alternate path for software development for high end computing.

2. A "level playing field" must be created within the government procurement process to facilitate Open Source development;

There was no "must", but this was the least distorted point made:

2. The Federal government should allow open source development efforts to compete on a "level playing field" with proprietary solutions in government procurement of high end computing software. Requests for Proposals (RFPs) from Federal agencies for high end computing software, tools and libraries should include provisions allowing these efforts to be carried out using open source.

And, the biggest bone of contention...
3. An analysis of Open Source licensing agreements is needed, with an ultimate goal of agreeing upon a single common licensing agreement for Open Source software development.
Which is flatly untrue. The actual report does not use the word "single" anywhere, so everyone worrying that the Feds are going to relicense your GPLed (or BSDed stuff) can chill out and have a salad or something.

3. An analysis of existing open source licensing agreements should be undertaken, and the results should be distributed to all agencies funding high end computing. The analysis should describe characteristics of each license and give specific examples of situations inw hich it may be prefereable to use one type over another. [Emphasis mine] The use of common licensing agreements should be encouraged.

No "single licensing agreement" is recommended for the Feds. Someone will write out a plan akin to "You may want to use the BSD license for these kinds of projects, and the GPL for these kinds of projects."

In other words, the government will spend a good deal of money and effort to avoid possible licensing conflicts in procured software. That can only be a good thing, in my book.

Jay (=