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DoD Procurement: Balancing Open Source And Proprietary Software

The Initiative for Software Choice, a software industry trade group whose members include Microsoft, Intel and Cisco, has advised the U.S. Department of Defense not to adhere to a policy that promotes open source software at the expense of proprietary software. . . . . The Initiative for Software Choice, a software industry trade group whose members include Microsoft, Intel and Cisco, has advised the U.S. Department of Defense not to adhere to a policy that promotes open source software at the expense of proprietary software. The group has issued a report arguing that the DoD's evaluation of software purchases should not be influenced by "a preconception that open source software is somehow inherently more secure." "ISC is against government policy that restricts procurement to any kind of software," ISC executive director Bob Kramer told NewsFactor. He noted that the group has no prejudice against any software, but that government procurement policies "should focus on obtaining the best software to solve the problem." The ISC Mission The Washington, D.C.-based ISC was founded in May. The group states it is "dedicated to the principle that governments should procure their software products on their merits rather than categorical preferences." Therefore, its goal is to "educate policymakers about the need to remain neutral about the governmental purchase of software." Toward that goal, the ISC recently issued a report that countered another report written by defense contractor MITRE. The MITRE report noted that open source software "plays a more critical role in the [DoD] than has generally been recognized," and that the DoD has 115 open source applications with 251 identified uses. It then concluded that open source products are a viable alternative to proprietary products made by Microsoft and others, and recommended that they be used more widely. The ISC Response The ISC strongly contested MITRE's conclusions, stating that MITRE's preference for open source stymies software innovation. Thebest way to promote innovation, according to the ISC, is to "ensure that customers -- both public and private -- have a broad range of choices in their software purchasing decisions." In particular, the ISC disagreed with the MITRE report's findings that open source products allow "early and rapid closure of security holes ... [which is] generally impractical in closed source products." In arguing against this finding, the ISC stated that "no single development mode inherently produces safer, more secure software." GPL Issues The ISC report also found fault with MITRE's conclusions about the General Public License (GPL). The GPL , which is used by some programmers in the open source community, requires developers to make their source code publicly available if they modify a program already licensed under the GPL. The ISC noted that, if there were a government policy requiring all software purchases to be licensed under the GPL, it would entail significant loss for commercial software developers. These developers "expend significant resources walling off their proprietary intellectual property," the report said. ISC pointed to MITRE's findings that more than 50 percent of the DoD's open source products are GPL-based, and that if proprietary developers were required to use the GPL, it would "foreclose proprietary companies ... from further developing and commercializing the results." . The Initiative for Software Choice, a software industry trade group whose members include Microsoft,. software, initiative, choice, industry, trade, group, whose, members, include, microsoft. . LinuxSecurity.com Team

Dec 02, 2002 • LinuxSecurity.com Team Privacy