Congress Endorses Open Source For Military

A draft defense authorizing act in Congress includes wording plugging open source software. It seems both cost and software security were considerations. This is an important victory for open source. "It's rare to see a concept as technical as open-source software in a federal funding bill. But the House's proposed National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2009 (H.R. 5658) includes language that calls for military services to consider open-source software when procuring manned or unmanned aerial vehicles."

Nice to see

[Nerdfest]

that government is realizing that security through obscurity is not a good plan.

Re:Old News

[Ohrion]

There was never anything actually preventing Government developers from considering Open Source previously. This will simply remind some Dev Managers that the option exists, even though their actual developers have probably been using it for years. The side effects of this bill will most likely bring out Microsoft's and other proprietary software house's lobbyists out of the woodwork. They've only painted another target.

Re:Nice to see

[stoolpigeon]

My guess is what you have here is a good indication that some company had enough money to fund a lobbyist to push for this to help them in the future since they use FOSS in their product. Not new insight or greater education on the part of law makers.

Enjoy it while it lasts.

[CSMatt]

You can be sure that Microsoft and other proprietary companies will be fighting tooth and nail to remove this provision.

Re:Nice to see

[Daimanta]

No, they are probably realising that $700 needs to come from somewhere so they might as well use open source software instead of buying licenses.

GPL'd software

[DodgeRules]

If the Government uses open source code that is under the GPL license, and modifies it to include some security or other feature that is considered to be under the umbrella of "National Security", are they required to provide the source code to terrorists so they can attempt to crack it?

They'll probably come up with a way to mess it up

[xgr3gx]

In order to try saving money, they'll probably do something really stupid that will end up costing them money.
Like setup a Linux environment, and realize they have some old, critical, archaic, crappy piece of software that only runs on Windows NT.
So they'll get some virutualization software inorder to run Windows on their new Linux servers in order to get that old app running.
So they'll virtualize a bunch of old NT boxes, only to find out app doesn't work well when running on virtualized Windows.
So then they have to install new Server 2008 boxes to run the old app, only to find out the old version of that app won't run on Windows versions newer than NT 3.5.
So now they pay millions for a new version of said critical app.
Then they realized the new version of the app has a Linux version.
Then some figures out that the old app could have run under WINE.

technical?

[jipn4]

It's rare to see a concept as technical as open-source software in a federal funding bill.

Open Source is a legal and business concept. You'd hope that a few hundred lawyers would be able to figure that one out.

Re:GPL'd software

[geekoid]

No, in fact if the change a version of Linux and claim they can't release it for national security, then they wouldn't release that.

Not really a problem.

It's an election year gimmick

[sgtsquid]

I don't know about the other services, but the Army has been using FOSS for years, especially Linux. They already have UAVs running embedded Linux, and they have worked for years, successfully, I might add, to make their web sites compatible with different platforms. I have been using Linux as my primary OS since 2000 and never had any problem using an Army site. This is just so some Congress Critters can court the geek vote by claiming to push FOSS in an environment where it is already widely used. There was never any obstacle to FOSS in the DOD and they have adopted it very enthusiastically without any "authorization" from Congress.

.gov and .mil were FIRST users of Open Source

[ChrisA90278]

Most all the software I develop goes to the US government, mostly the DoD. I've been using Open Source for well over 20 years now. I don't think it was called "open source" back then but still much of it was.

You have to remember that government contractors and universities had access to the Internet starting back in the late 1970's and were on USNET long before there was a web.

I'm certain that the government and military were the second users of open source universities being the first users. Only after the web got popular did open source spread out into the rest of the world.

Re:Nice to see

[n3tcat]

not likely. $700 is practically nothing. ever see how much money the military spends on printer cartridges? it's more likely that OSS is easier to switch vendors later on without getting locked into an expensive position.

Re:GPL'd software

[Phroggy]

Only if they redistribute their modified version.

And no, distributing it internally within the military does not count as distribution.

Re:Mostly inteligence - not code

[ChrisA90278]

Just one counter example: selinux came from the NSA. A pretty big "give back".
http://www.nsa.gov/selinux/ [nsa.gov]

There is a LOT of government written code available. In fact many of the biggest and most complex free software systems were developed and given away by the US government. It's just that they typically do not write word processors and games so your typical home user does not see it.

I can think of many examples most from the areas of science and enginerring. Here is one
http://www.nec2.org/nec_hist.txt [nec2.org]

Re:Clarifications on Military Open Source

[db32]

More to the point is that military developments almost without fail make it into the public if they have a significant public use. Flight, radar, medicine, etc. Hell, the military has probably had the best return on investment of any government run endeavor. So many people bitch about the military, but it was military members that were first putting their lives at risk testing things like supersonic aircraft and space travel. Guess who had the joy of being the human guinea pigs for things like the Anthrax vaccines.

If you really wanna bitch DARPA will take their internet and go home...