The US Government’s Tenuous Relationship With Open Source

By Jack M. Germain 11/12/14 5:45 PM PT

The amount of open source software used by the U.S. government might well be one of the biggest secrets in Washington. Not even purveyors of FOSS, as in free and open source software, know the extent of federal agency adoption of nonproprietary software.

Some in the Beltway Loop contend that open source is very prevalent. Others suggest that open source is avoided because its code is exposed for anyone to see.

One thing seems very sure, however. Most government agencies cling to well-known commercial software for desktop services. However, server-side and specialized software is a mixture of contracted code and community packages promulgated on Github and other open source software repositories.

Just how passionately government agencies support and use open source software may be a question nobody has bothered to pursue. For example, OpenSource.com claims that the U.S. government has directed that open source projects are to be considered equally with proprietary products -- but no government guidance is offered for carrying out that directive.

"The involvement varies. A lot of the initiatives for using open source takes a cultural change," Steve Wallo, chief solutions architect for Brocade Federal, told LinuxInsider.

Some agencies look at open source for a particular mission. Others look at open source for large scale deployment. So OSS adoption on the federal level is at different stages, said Wallo.

Some of the largest U.S. agencies are known users of open source. For instance, the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs often is cited as one of the largest federal users of open source software. If accurate, that would be a significant investment in OSS. The VA is the second largest agency of the U.S. federal government.

Take MongoDB, for instance. This open source next-generation database has a broad list of government customers, according to Will LaForest, Senior Director of MongoDB Federal. That customer base includes the intelligence community, the Defense Department and civilian agencies in healthcare, finance and energy.

"There is actually quite a bit of variation within the government. Some favor OSS as a policy, others "permit" OSS, and some are not open to it at all," LaForest told LinuxInsider.

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The US Government's Tenuous Relationship With Open Source