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DoD Leads In Federal Open Source Usage
GMGruman writes "A new open technology report card shows that only a third of federal agencies get a passing grade on open source usage and contribution, with the Defense Department leading the way. Savio Rodrigues explains what both government and business can learn from the DoD's open source prowess."
Most of the questions had to do not with using open source software but centered on transparent data access by the public, FOIA attitude, etc.
Read the linked executive summary and then go to the criteria page.
Every permitted open source project is thoroughly inspected and vetted before it is cleared for use.
Inserting malicious code is a concern, but it does not answer the question why you can not farm out DoD work to foreign shops.
The requirements and design of most DoD projects are classified as sensitive. The rules for sensitive material state that it may not be distributed to any foreign national.
Beyond that, there is a legal requirement for federal projects (and most state projects) that work be performed domestically. This is mostly for economic reasons.
As a contractor you REALLY aught to know this already.
It's like this. I can go online (as a contractor or a DoD employee, I've been both) and purchase or download COTS (Commercial Off The Shelf) software that was created anywhere. It's COTS and it's considered market vetted. If we can examine the source code (OSS) even better. Linux is fine and was fine even before Linus became a US citizen. It's considered COTS, the Linux Red Hat sells to the DoD is the same Linux they sell to Google or Ford or Bolivia. Same with say, SAMBA, even though Jeremy Allison is Australian.
On the other hand if I hire you to write custom code for the DoD then the requirements, documents, etc are all considered sensitive and you have to hire US citizens. If the government wanted a piece of software that was able to interface with Windows AD, for instance, (and they couldn't just use Samba for some reason) they couldn't hire Jeremy Allison to head up the effort even though he has a lot of experience from his work with Samba.
I don't need a million points of light, just two points of multi-mode fiber and a 10 Gig-E router.