powdermonkey

FAA open-source system saves $15 million

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FAA open-source system saves $15 million

Today, the Federal Aviation Administration announced it has saved $15 million by migrating to an open-source platform for traffic flow management (TFM). The upgrade is part of a broader service-oriented architecture that will exchange TFM's old proprietary systems with Java, Web service, open source and Oracle applications.

The FAA switched from Unix to Red Hat Enterprise Linux, an open-source operating system that consolidated hardware and software installed in 1999.

Software & Gov Contracting

I wonder what happens when the government asks for a 486 based personal computing operating system and are given Mac instead of Windows?

Justifying the Intel inside government contracts

Government agencies must now publicly justify their use of brand-name requirements in contract specifications.

Last year, the U.S. Office of Management and Budget began requiring government agencies to prepare "brand-name justification documents" for contracts exceeding $25,000. A brand-name justification spells out the reasons for requiring a specific brand to be used over another, if that brand is mentioned in the description of specifications for government contract work. The rules now require agencies to publicly post the documents when listing contract opportunities. Eventually, the government will automatically prompt agencies to include the data when posting contract solicitations.

 

"Agencies should encourage their acquisition professionals to limit the use of brand-name specifications and maximize competition," Robert Burton, associate administrator for the OMB's Office of Federal Procurement Policy, said in an April 17 memo.