[Infowarrior] - No forking, says DoD open source report

[Richard Forno]

No forking, says DoD open source report

May 22, 2011 — 11:55pm ET | By David Perera 

http://www.fiercegovernmentit.com/story/no-forking-says-dod-open-source-report/2011-05-22

A new Defense Department-sponsored document urges the department to adopt more open source technology development.

The May 16 report, sponsored by officials from the assistant secretary of defense (networks & information integration) and the under secretary of defense for acquisition, technology and logistics, touts open source development as a way to increase innovation, agility and application security even in an environment of constrained resources.

Open source technology development "squeezes financial waste out of the equation by reducing lock-in and increasing competition," the report says, whose principal author is John Scott, a contractor who leads the DoD's open technology development initiative.

"Imagine if only the manufacturer of a rifle were allowed to clean, fix, modify or upgrade that rifle. The military often finds itself in this position with taxpayer funded, contractor developed software: One contractor with a monopoly on the knowledge of a military software system and control of the software source code," the report states.

Even when Defense officials or contractors do decide to adopt open technology development, they often separate the project from the wider open source community by forking their project, the report says. Forking in open source occurs when a group of developers take existing open source code and continue to develop it independently. A fork is tantamount to "a call for a 'vote of no confidence' in a parliament," the report says. While it's important to have the capacity to fork, automatically forking simply because a project is for defense use is a mistake, the report adds.

The best chance for a military program to become, and stay, open is when the Defense Department makes it intentions known early, the report says. It should among other things, include a statement of objectives that includes open technology development in requests for proposals, it adds.

Open source technology is not incompatible with the official preference for commercial item technology, it notes, since nearly all  open source software meets the definition of both "commercial item" as well as "commercial-off-the-shelf."

For more:

- download the report, "Open Technology Development (OTD): Lessons Learned And Best Practices for Military Software" from the OSS Institute (.pdf)