Open Source In the National Interest

munchola writes "A new report from the Department of Defense's Advanced Systems and Concepts Office recommends that the DoD move to adopt open source software and methodologies as well as open standards in order to make the most efficient use of internal resources. According to CBR, the report states that a move to 'Open Technology Development' is not only in the U.S. national interest, but in the interests of U.S. national security. OTD incorporates open source methodologies and open standards, but also takes into account the fact that the DoD has systems that it would rather keep secret."

Comments

This all makes now but...

[Recovering Hater]

I foresee the DoD changing its tune after Microsoft drops a few million dollars in the right direction to make this go away. Remember the Open Doc file format drama that unfolded not too long ago? ...where did I put my tinfoil hat again...

The anti-OSS people do have one point.

[LWATCDR]

The statement that people could introduce malicus code into Linux that then makes it's way into secure systems. Of course with companies outsourcing programming jobs to other countries the same thing could happen with a closed source system.
The solution for OSS is simple. Any OSS software that goes into a Command and Control system needs to have it's source code audited by an independent authority.
Of course the same thing should be done with any software that goes into a military, aerospace, or any other mission critical system. In this case OSS does have a clear advantage in that the end user can select any group to perform the code audit instead of depending on the vendor.
Of course if the military does a code audit on Linux they would have contribute back the patches so it is a win win situation.

Re:The anti-OSS people do have one point.

[Peter Mork]

The solution for OSS is simple. Any OSS software that goes into a Command and Control system needs to have it's source code audited by an independent authority.

Unfortunately, it's not as simple as auditing the source code. You also need to have complete control over the compiler, as implemented in machine code. For example, see Ken Thompson's comments on how to imbed self-replicating code into a compiler so that every program has a back door.

The point everyone seems to have missed...

[jd]

...is that Closed Source vendors have opposed Open Source "in the national interest" and "for reasons of security" for some time now. Regardless of whether the DoD ever actually follows through on this, there is now an official statement by the US Government no less that these claims are false. Hey, we've all known that for some time, but ringing endorsements by the DoD don't come by on a weekly basis.

This is the time that Open Source activists and promoters need to run with the ball. Draw the attention of CEOs and business executives to the fact that the DoD advocates Open Source. Show them that we're not talking toy software. Show them that this isn't about not wanting to spend money. (Since when was the DoD afraid to spend money?) This is about an innately powerful method of developing high-grade - even military-grade - products that do what people actually need done.

We couldn't ask for better, but only if those outside of the IT industry actually hear of it. If only those who already accept the strengths of Open Source know that someone else has also decided it is a good solution, then that decision means nothing. Particularly as the DoD is very unlikely to do anything about it. It'll just be a decision. But if the business community got shown this... That would be a whole different ball-game.