Not good to go yet, but soon hopefully... Military IT folks wondering if their use of Apache, Perl, Linux
and other open source software is copacetic with the brass will
soon get some answers from the Defense Department's Office of the
Chief Information Officer. The office is preparing a memorandum that further clarifies how
open source may be procured and used within the services. The memo should answer many lingering questions still
surrounding the open source, said Daniel Risacher, the data
strategy leader for the Office of Secretary of Defense who is
drafting the memo. The draft may point out some potential benefits
as well. "Those factors that are in favor of open source have not been
appreciated to date," said Risacher, speaking at the Red Hat
Government Users and Developers conference, being held today. The
DOD CIO office is aiming to release the memo by early November. From Risacher's description of the draft, the memo may reinforce
the acceptability of using open source software within the Defense
Department, as well as for other federal agencies. It may even
broaden procedures for procuring commercial software. "Those mandates [in which] we have to consider commercial
off-the-shelf software, we have to apply that to open source
software as well," Risacher said. "And that is not well appreciated
within government." Risacher said that he first started working on the memo last
summer at the behest of the Defense Deputy CIO, David Wennergren.
Although widely used in federal government, open source software,
due to its unusual form of distribution, has raised questions among
regulation-minded program managers.
Pentagon: Open source good to go
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