A More Open Government
More than a few times now, I've heard it said that our new president, Barack Obama, will be an open-source president. Owing to the many meanings of "open," this catchy tagline has been used in a lot of different contexts, most of which relate to transparency in government. There are, however, indications that the Obama administration is taking a close look at open source in the form most familiar to us, as a model for software development and licensing. According to a recent BBC report, former Sun Microsystems CEO Scott McNealy has been tapped by Obama's administration to prepare a report on the use of open-source software in government. Should the government boost its use of open-source software? It seems obvious that if the government can satisfy its IT needs more efficiently through open source, it should do so. As taxpayers, we want to see the dollars we send to Washington stretched as far as possible, and the fact is that for many workloads, open-source platforms and applications can serve just as well or better than proprietary alternatives. However, as recent debates over industry bailouts and stimulus packages remind us, government spending decisions must be guided by more than bargain-hunting concerns. We must also consider what the impact of fewer government dollars will be on the software industry, much of which is wedded to proprietary licensing and business models. With customers cutting back on spending and software companies enduring layoffs alongside companies in most other sectors of our economy, it's easy to argue that the drop in money spent on software licenses that would come with a larger open-source approach would prove taxing for the tech sector. However, the lack of licensing fees doesn't free open-source software from the deployment costs that come along with any sort of software. Customization, integration and management all represent opportunities to make money. What's more, where open-source software is lacking, the government can pay to have the software extended to suit its needs, a scenario for which open source is particularly well-suited. Certainly, there's nothing preventing the government from commissioning proprietary software vendors to extend their wares to suit the nation's needs, but sticking to the open road gives the government the opportunity to get a lot more bang for its (our) buck. That's because dollars devoted to enhancing open-source platforms and applications to better suit the government's operational needs double as infrastructure investments--software building blocks that can enable companies to deliver value higher up the stack and invent new employment and profit-generating engines. The gamut of Web-generation businesses from search and social media to SAAS (software as a service) and the cloud could not exist without their open-source software foundations. Future tech industries--and the customers who will come to depend on them--will manage to reach higher, innovate faster and operate more efficiently through the sort of down-stack commoditization that open source enables. To be sure, any significant government shift toward open source would prove disruptive to proprietary software makers as well, but fortunately the open-source arena is accessible to all comers, and a move to openness is well within these companies' power. The software industry incumbents that opt to embrace open source--even if only to the extent that federal dollars make it worth their while--are arguably in the best place to profit from the new sorts of businesses that can get off the ground once more platform and standards pieces can be taken for granted. As I discussed in my last few posts on Microsoft and open source, there can be lucrative roads to openness even for companies that seem least likely to embrace the model. McNealy's own Sun Microsystems has made dramatic strides toward embracing open source over the past several years, a fact that McNealy will no doubt cite in his recommendations. |
Comments (14)
We already have choice between competing business models and software. Mandates will reduce that choice, yet many are calling for that. I say, let the already free choice abound, and let the best software win on its merits.
Posted by omniprovident | January 23, 2009 10:06 AM
"and let the best software win on its merit"
As nice as that sounds, that's not what happens. Software is used an paid for because of familiarity, not it's actual merits.
Posted by Anonymous | January 27, 2009 12:05 PM
If each employee has access to the source code and able to modify it, then the IT manager at each facility has lost control of software. Chaos!!
Posted by Winnie-the-Pough | January 27, 2009 1:16 PM
The US government has already supported OSS in a positive and successful way, so there is every reason to think they can do more.
Besides the various efforts at NASA/JPL ( http://opensource.arc.nasa.gov/ http://openchannelsoftware.com/search/qsearch.php?words=NASA ) and NIH ( http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/ http://lhncbc.nlm.nih.gov/ http://www.nlm.nih.gov/research/umls/ ) , perhaps the most interesting approach has been from the DHS who funded Coverity to do free scanning for OSS projects ( http://scan.coverity.com/ ).
Posted by Jim White | January 27, 2009 1:19 PM
This is great- Now let's throw all those overpriced, insecure voting systems away and move toward OS voting systems.
Posted by Brent Turner | January 27, 2009 1:39 PM
One obvious arena for government-sponsored open-source software would be e-voting systems. What we currently have is so opaque, corrupt and unreliable that it would be in everyone's interest to develop an open-source version, open to scrutiny by all. And only government, the federal government in particular, has the interest and resources to push development of such a system.
Posted by Alan | January 27, 2009 1:55 PM
Why not give your e-vote to tell people what you think about open source use by USA's government?
Posted by BetStar | January 27, 2009 4:09 PM
Don't forget that Open Source software may come with an explicit or implicit price tag. If, as a small business or a government agency, you do not understand this, you are in for a rude surprise. It should not come as a mystery why companies that were producers of large and expensive proprietary software are now co-opting Open Source software companies or adopting a previously unimaginable Open Source philosophy.
Potential Open Source clients need to be aware that, just like democracy, it comes with a price – diligence. If your choice of an OS application is not mature, you may find you’re with unexpected development costs and at least Operations & Maintenance (O&M) costs. Remember, just because its Open Source doesn't mean its Free...
Posted by DOS | January 27, 2009 7:14 PM
Thanks DOS, that's good advice for any sort of software, be it open source or proprietary.
Posted by Jason Brooks
| January 27, 2009 7:17 PM
I work for a small county government in central Ohio. If you mention opensource to them the will reply, "You better get some antibiotics so you don't get MRSA." If software and solutions don't have a big name and price tag behind them they pretty much don't want anything to do with it. County government is about 15 years behind the business world when it comes to technology. We are still filing criminal reports on hand written forms!
Unless they are forced to go opensource as a condition to some billion dollar bailout, they will continue to use M$. Opensource and open sores sound too much alike. “It must not be good.” If more M$ is needed and money is short, we can raise taxes. Who needs a free office suite? Uncle Sam will give us a grant to by more software.
Posted by Anonymous | January 28, 2009 10:03 AM
I found this post through twitter and am from the UK.
Cloud computing, saas, open source, is it all the same thing?
Bringing together the applications that you need to run your business (back end) into one online webbased business platform?
Applications such as e-mail, accounting, colloboaritive tools(diaries) and contact management system?
We are providing our software with a grant during these times when the government isn't helping...
Check it out at www.ipsx.co.uk
I truly believe SaaS is the future..
Posted by Otis | January 28, 2009 10:46 AM
I have concerns with areas like Defense and Intel using any Open Source for Applications. I can certainly see options for OS and Servers (like Apache) but not sure I would want their Applications Source Code freely available... Other Departments might have some flexibility but similar, but lessor concerns are there for any Applications which hold personal information.
Posted by MIke | January 28, 2009 1:28 PM
Just noticed that my comment above used the acronym OS without defining it... I meant to say using open source for underlying Operating Systems (OS).
Posted by Mike | January 28, 2009 1:33 PM
Mike's comment about reservations about using OSS for Defense reminded me of this article regarding the U.S. Department of Defense and open source software.
Posted by David J | February 24, 2009 5:28 PM