[Infowarrior] - Military enlists open source community

Mon Apr 27 23:43:08 UTC 2009

http://www.networkworld.com/news/2009/042709-military-open-source.html

Military enlists open source community
U.S. Defense Department is adopting a collaborative approach to speed  
software development, reduce cost
By Carolyn Duffy Marsan , Network World , 04/27/2009
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The U.S. Defense Department is enlisting an open source approach to  
software development -- an about-face for such a historically top-down  
organization.

In recent weeks, the military has launched a collaborative platform  
called Forge.mil for its developers to share software, systems  
components and network services. The agency also signed an agreement  
with the Open Source Software Institute to allow 50 internally  
developed workforce management applications to be licensed to other  
government agencies, universities and companies.

Taken together, the two developments show how the Defense Department  
is trying to take advantage of Web-based communities to speed up  
software development and reduce its costs.

Dave Mihelcic, CTO of the Defense Information Systems Agency, says the  
military believes in the core Web 2.0 philosophy of the power of  
collaboration.

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"The Web is a platform for harvesting collective intelligence,"  
Mihelcic said in a recent interview. He pointed to "remixable data  
sources, services in perpetual beta and lightweight programming  
models" as some of the aspects of open source software development  
that are applicable to the Defense Department.

One example of the Defense Department's new community-based approach  
to software development is Forge.mil, which was made generally  
available for unclassified use within the department in April. The  
Defense Information Systems Agency (DISA) has issued version two of  
SoftwareForge after a three-month trial that grew to 1,300 users.

SoftwareForge provides software version control, bug tracking,  
requirements management and release packaging for software developers,  
along with collaboration tools such as wikis, discussion forums and  
document repositories, DISA said.

DISA said it will deploy a cloud computing-based version of the  
SoftwareForge tools for classified environments. DISA also plans to  
add software testing and certification services to Forge.mil.

Mihelcic says Forge.mil is similar to the "Web 2.0 paradigm of putting  
services on the Web and making them accessible to a large number of  
users to increase the adoption of capabilities. We're using the same  
collaboration approach to speed the development of DOD systems."

Meanwhile, DISA has licensed its Corporate Management Information  
System (CMIS) to the Open Source Software Institute to develop an open  
source version of the 50-odd applications that DISA uses to manage its  
workforce. The CMIS applications support human resources, training,  
payroll and other personnel management functions that meet federal  
regulations.

CMIS has 16,000 users, including DISA employees and military  
contractors. Originally written in 1997, CMIS was revamped in January  
2006 using the latest Web-based tools including an Adobe Cold Fusion  
front-end and a Microsoft SQL Server 2005 back-end.

Richard Nelson, chief of personnel systems support at DISA, says CMIS  
is easy to use because it takes advantage of modern Web-based  
interfaces including drop-down lists for data input.

"We've been able to cut down on help desk support so substantially,"  
Nelson says. "With the old version, we were running anywhere from 75  
to 100 help desk calls and e-mails a day. Now our average is less than  
five e-mails and calls. It's not because people are using it less but  
because it has fewer problems."

Nelson says a key driver for CMIS is that it needs to be so intuitive  
that users don't need training.

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"If the customer requires instruction on the product, we have failed  
and we will do it over," Nelson says. "The reason that we're able to  
do that so successfully is that we take a somewhat different approach  
to the way most software is designed. Most software is designed so  
that business logic and processes need to follow software logic and  
process. Therefore it requires substantial training. We do it exactly  
opposite."

The Open Software Services Institute will make CMIS available in two  
different licenses: a regular open source license for government  
agencies and companies, and a free license for academia.

Nelson says CMIS has a cutting-edge approach to learning management,  
handling everything from training course sign-up to approvals and  
payment. Another unusual feature of CMIS is its telework management  
application.

Nelson says he hopes many organizations will license CMIS and start  
adding new capabilities so DISA can take advantage of a vibrant CMIS  
community of developers.

Within three years, "I would hope that a number of others inside  
government and beyond are using it," Nelson said. "I'm hoping we all  
have ready access to qualified developers. I’m hoping that DISA gets  
access to a substantial number of additional applications…without  
having to build them ourselves."