I read an interesting article from opensoure.com about recent challenges to adopting Free Software in the US.
I wrote a short summary, and maybe you all get some new info out of it. Any comments are welcome! -- Asa Ritz Free Software Foundation Europe Schönhauser Allee 6/7, 10119 Berlin Your donation enables our work (fsfe.org/donate)
U.S. report highlights positive elements of government open source adoption by Mark Bohannon 9 October 2015 http://opensource.com/government/15/10/us-dhs-issue%C2%ADs-report --------------------------- # Report on Open Source Software in Government: Challenges and Opportunities by David A. Wheeler and Tom Dunn. Mark Bohannan summarises some of the key findings of a report from the Department of Homeland Security on the use of Free Software in US government from August 2013. The authors conducted a series of interviews with Free Software experts, suppliers, and potential users (both government contractors and government employees) about some of the challenges and opportunities facing wider adoption of Free Software in government. -------------------------- ## Challenges in working culture and attitude **Problem**: A lot of inertia to changing the traditional models and tech solutions. Government moves slowly and are generally adverse to change. **Suggested Solution**: Government agencies can create and distribute case studies about Free Software success stories to model for new possibilities. Workers are more likely to trust internal case studies than vendors' advertisements and 'interviews'. **Problem**: The report emphasizes that many challenges are not because policy that supports Free Software is not in place, but rather there is a weak understanding of the Free Software model in general. Many interviewees cited low education in areas such as: software expertise, GPL licensing, preexisting Free Software policies in government, and fears about low-quality software, security, support, procurement, warranties, and malware threats. **Suggested Solution**: Failures are widespread so there is no single solution to low education about Free Software. Additional in-house training is possible, but expensive and not large enough to make change on a larger scale. However, Bohannan remarks that "While not explicit in the report, as newer generations of IT professionals who grew up on Free Software come into the government, it is likely that this assumption will shift [over time]." **Problem** Even when there is an understanding about Free Software, government models of procurement and usage do not encourage sharing, or repurposing software that can be used in many departments. Sharing software is contradictory to traditional business models. **Suggested Solution**: Release software developed using government funds as Free Software by default. This would help change the way government views software. Instead of treating it like a product or a service, employees start thinking about it as a work resource. **Problem**: General fear that once government releases software code they become the support for it as well. Even if there is no legal precedent for this, it creates a situation the agency would rather avoid. Don't want to look bad by not being able to answer people's questions. **Suggested Solution**: Building a digital community or online forum can help provide the necessary support outside of the government agency. ## Challenges in Policy **Problem**: Certification and accreditation (C&A): C&A is the process of verifying standards in security, protections, accessibility etc. of software so that it can be used in government. 1) C&A is excessively strict and costly for most small-sized Free Software companies to make contracts with government. 2) Government organisations are prevented from testing software developments before purchasing. 3) Small issues on software going through C&A process is enough to tank it, regardless of how much more effective it is than current software **Suggested Solution**: 1) Refocus certification & accreditation of information systems within government towards risk management, rather than running through a checklist of yes/no. Provide risk assessment guidelines and rate software that way. Not all software needs to include the highest possible security protections, allow individual organisations choose their own level of risk. 2) Allow organisations to trial developments before purchasing. 3) Create a new "government approved" seal for 'lone wolf' software developers to test out new ideas outside of mainstream commercial settings. **Problem**: Governments frequently encourage "project forking", in which they take one piece of Free Software that doesn't fit all their needs, splits it, and starts developing own uses. This is also a result of traditional business practices in place in government. However, maintaining the project fork becomes more expensive in the long term because government adopts 100% of the cost to maintain and update the project, rather than sharing the burden with other contributors. **Suggested Solution**: 1) Discourage forking (most Free Software companies already do) 2) Create open government forge. This would "include functions for version control, tracking bug reports, tracking enhancement requests, discussions (e.g., a mailing list), and so on" to enable collaborative development between government and contractors. ## Conclusions * There is plenty of room for improvement and growth, but problems with the working culture (i.e. misinformation and lack of education) are especially difficult to overcome. * The idea of releasing publicly funding software as Free Software by default is actually quite common and popular idea. * Shrinking budgets, new generations of IT experts, and rising calls for transparency may open up additional avenues for Free Software adoption. * Slowly, people are starting to ask the question "how" to put Free Software in government, rather than "may I"?
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