DoD Study Urges OSS Adoption

Krishna Dagli writes to mention an Ars Technica article about the Open Technology Development road map, a report for the U.S. government advising the DoD on ways to integrate OSS into DoD policies. From the article: "The report argues that the standard practices associated with purchasing of physical goods are not adequate or fully applicable to software. According to the report, the DoD is 'limiting and restricting the ability of the market to compete for the provision of new and innovative solutions and capabilities' by 'treating DoD-developed software code as a physical good.' The report also points out that utilizing open source technology will force the commercial software industry to respond with greater agility and competitiveness."

Comments

I find it amazing..

[BigZaphod]

.. that the U.S. Government can be both very insightful and astonishingly full of crap at the same time. How do these insightful people get their jobs? Or, perhaps a better question: How do they manage to keep them? They must have will-power on par with the likes of Superman himself to exist in that kind of environment.

Re:I find it amazing..

[vishbar]

Lots of people in the U.S. government are quite insightful and intelligent. It's just that the insane ones get all the press.

Re:I find it amazing..

[Coryoth]

Lots of people in the U.S. government are quite insightful and intelligent. It's just that the insane ones get all the press.

I think there's also the issue of insight being filtered through far too many layers and far too many minds. Take Slashdot as an example. There are actually some insightful people here (no, really, it's true). On the other hand consider what filters out as the so called Slashdot Groupthink: not especially insightful. Spread a well thought out insight thin enough through a whole bunch of people who simply latch on to the end result without doing any of the thinking to get there and you often end up with something that isn't especially insightful anymore.

Well...

[fitten]

What if other projects adopt "no military" clauses like we've seen lately? This certainly has to be in the list of risks that the DoD will face.

Anyway, other than toolkits and general systems (a Linux based workstation to compile code on, use OpenOffice to write documents, and such) there's not going to be a lot of OSS that will be reusable for the developers since they will be writing software for missile guidance systems and interfacing to hardware not generally available to the public. Some GUI toolkits, maybe, and GCC, of course.

Plus, how will GPL's clauses about not having to release code for things you do on-site relate to the contractor/subcontractor relationships that are present in DoD projects and if parts are sold to other countries (like selling an F-16 to Israel, for example)?

I'm obviously not talking much about office productivity and listening to mp3s and stuff because I'm pretty sure that's not what the DoD is talking about here.

Re:Well...

[zlogic]

Plus, how will GPL's clauses about not having to release code for things you do on-site relate to the contractor/subcontractor relationships that are present in DoD projects and if parts are sold to other countries (like selling an F-16 to Israel, for example)?

What's wrong with Israel modifying F-16 flight software and submitting patches back to the US? If they sell the planes they're friendly enough to share source code. And besides, if they write their own software rather than modify or link GPLed stuff, they don't have to release anything. Just like VMWare, Cedega, Nero Linux and others.

Re:Well...

[LWATCDR]

Well the no military clauses are stupid and harmful.
The military does a lot more than drop bombs and shoot missiles.
Think of all the meteorology and oceanography that they do.
The military does accounting, logistics, and simulation work all the time.
They prepare graphics, presentations, send email, and run websites.
The build schools, roads, and phone systems.
They run hospitals and provide disaster relief.
During Katrina the Navy, Coast Guard, Army, and Air Force along with the national guard saved a lot of people.
During the aftermath of the Indonesian Tsunami the US Navy provided a lot of humanitarian relief.
There are many areas that could generate useful OSS code.

The countries that have some civilian oversight like the US, Germany, Japan, UK, and Australia will not benefit while countries like North Korea, Iran, China, and Syria will not care about any clause. As I said stupid and harmful.
I guess for them it is a case of Free as in only if you agree with me.

Re:Well...

[Chris Burke]

What if other projects adopt "no military" clauses like we've seen lately? This certainly has to be in the list of risks that the DoD will face.

I doubt it, as that's not a clause of the standard GPL, and a pretty stupid clause to boot. If people want to complain that their screwdriver was eventually used to attach two pieces of a bomb, they should be protesting the decisions that require bombs to be made and used, not refusing to allow their screwdriver to be used in military applications since it's simply untennable. If war is to be waged, war machines will be made, using your code or no. Eliminate the root cause, not innefectually stymie the effect just to have a slightly clearer conscience.

Frankly I think it's dumb. Look at what the NSA has done for open source; the DoD could theoretically provide similar benefits. The DoD will continue to exist. Having the OSS community benefit from DoD development would be a good way for us to directly benefit from their continued existence.

Anyway, other than toolkits and general systems (a Linux based workstation to compile code on, use OpenOffice to write documents, and such) there's not going to be a lot of OSS that will be reusable for the developers since they will be writing software for missile guidance systems and interfacing to hardware not generally available to the public. Some GUI toolkits, maybe, and GCC, of course.

The DoD does a lot more than write code for missles. They crunch masses of data on commercially available parts, and OSS will be very useful for them in that regard. Also, I doubt that the embedded systems for missles are really that exotic -- they may be using hardened versions of microcontrollers, but I doubt they'll be using some completely esoteric ISA that would be difficult to port an OSS real-time OS to.

Plus, how will GPL's clauses about not having to release code for things you do on-site relate to the contractor/subcontractor relationships that are present in DoD projects and if parts are sold to other countries (like selling an F-16 to Israel, for example)?

If they sell it to other countries or give it to contractors, then it's no longer on-site as you've distributed it. In which case, distributing the source would be appropriate. By the same logic that you chose OSS in the first place, your customers, e.g. Israel, would want to be able to view the source code for validation and maintenence purposes.

Re:Well...

[Ed Avis]

What if other projects adopt "no military" clauses like we've seen lately?

Then they are not free software. They are shareware 'but you can look at the source code' or something like that. You'd class them together with all the other trial versions, 'evaluation licences' and FREE DOWNLOADS!!! that clog up the net.

Re:Well...

[just_another_sean]

What if other projects adopt "no military" clauses like we've seen lately?

To me your statement just illustrates why the RMS concept of free software is more meaningful than OSS. The GPL and the Debian Free Software Guidleines specifically state that these type of exclusionary clauses are not Free Software. OSS just muddies the water here. Originally created to be more "business friendly" OSS licenses that aren't really Free, like other finely worded clauses, laws and other semantic trickery, just ends up being abused.

Perhaps the DOD should rethink their report and use/recommend Free as in Freedom software. Hell it even irked me a little when Fyodor told SCO they couldn't distribute nmap anymore. And I hate those bastards!

Re:Well...

[LWATCDR]

"After all there are between 10,000 and 40,000 dead Iraqi civilians who can no longer exercise their rights to use free software."
Funny but when people talk about things like kiddie porn or terrorists as reasons that they don't like freenet or unlimited use of strong encryption people scream freedom, freedom.
This limit wasn't just on the military of the US. It is on all military use. That would include France, Germany, Italy, Canada, Japan, and Australia.

"Does the fact that your software may be used by the military in a rescue operation offset the dead civilians in some way?
Depends somewhat on your view of morality."

Does the fact that Apache can be used for Slashdot offset that it can be used for sites like "Godhatesfags.com", pro nazi sites, and kiddie porn sites?
Does the fact that IRC can be used for people around the world to communicate offset it's use for things like #babysex?

Yes I say that to anyone with a brain this restriction is both stupid and harmful.
You can argue any dumb thing you want. I have seen people argue that Hitler didn't kill any Jews during WWII, that the US faked the moon landings, and that evolution is false.
So I stand by my statement. The no military use restriction is dumb, harmful, and counter productive. It is also totally counter to the very ideals of FOSS.

If you wanted a restriction that at least made a tiny bit of sense then how about this one.
This software can not be used it the manufacture, development, testing, or delivery of nuclear, biological, and or chemical weapons.

Oh and just so I can give you a bigger clue. The this software can not be used by the military leaves open all civilian use. The companies that make the weapons are not part of the military. They are totally free to use that software for any research project they want as long they are a civilian company. So a civilian research program that is making a nuclear device is totally free to use that restricted software.

As I said stupid harmful, and will be totally ignored by the states most likely to use it.
Sounds like something a bunch of idiot 16 year old kids would think up.

The Problem Here...

[ackthpt]

The DoD study made one critical error. They failed to take special interests* into account. Clearly this needs amending.**

* Proprietary Software Industry leaders and House, Senate and Predidential campaign donors.

** According to same special interests.

Re:Somehow appropriate this time

[denoir]

I, for one, welcome our new military-industrial overlords.

What do you mean by "new"?

Too bad the Army doesn't trust "freeware"

[Anonymous Coward]

seriously, I work for a DoD contractor, and the new regulations that are being put in place and that we have to follow states that the Army doesn't like freeware because "it is unsupported"(ie some General has lots of Microsoft stock, what am I being too cynical) So we have to put Red Hat Enterprise on all of our fully functioning Linux boxes(for my little group its about 35 servers or so) at about $600 a pop just because of this stupid regulation.....

If this job didn't pay well at an awesome location then I would quit tomorrow, but it turns out I am just a cheap whore...

The biggest problem

[El Cubano]

The biggest problem with free and open source software in the DOD (and government in general) is the prevailing culture of "if it's free (gratis) is must be worthless." Imagine that a request is made for a system to allow collaboration for something. Two proposals come in. One is for a system using SharePoint/MSSQL/Oracle/tons of similar high priced software. The other is for Trac/Postgres/tons of free software. As a result of spending so little on licenses, the second comes in at half the price of the first. The second will be rejected almost out of hand and looked upon with suspicion, as free stuf can't possibly do the job as well as expensive stuff.

Re:The biggest problem

[rwyoder]

What I have learned from working in IT for 15 years:

• In the PHYSICAL world, you get what you pay for, i.e. he MORE you pay, the better quality you get.
• In the SOFTWARE world, this is reversed, i.e. the LESS you pay, the better quality you get.

Unfortunately, too many clueless old managers just can't grasp this.

The worst applications I've ever had to deal with were commercial garbage on which clueless management blew hundreds of thousands of dollars all based on attending dog & pony shows put on by sales reps, (and to which IT staff were not invited).

Not the DoD's biggest problem...

[xxxJonBoyxxx]

the DoD is 'limiting and restricting the ability of the market to compete for the provision of new and innovative solutions and capabilities' by 'treating DoD-developed software code as a physical good.'

Not that the DoD is the only government entity with a graft problem, but every federal provisioning contract I've ever seen had more to do with timely payments to connected players (or their campaigns/funds) than technology, terms of the license, or actual amount of money wasted or saved.

Above the Law?

[B5_geek]

As we have see recently, and if history is a teacher we can count on the US Government to consider itself above the law. Do we really think that the Military will give a rats ass what us hippies think? GPL clause or not; they will use whatever the hell they want to.

Re:How enforceable are "no military" clauses, anyw

[Ed Avis]

Clearly, militaries in law-abiding countries would abide by the terms of the licence, at least as much as any private company would. The army or navy are not above the law and you can sue them just like anyone else for copyright violation. But as you say you couldn't expect Hezbollah or North Korea to have any such qualms. In principle, if you write software that might have military uses, trying to exclude that in the licence is supporting one side against the other.