DoD Open Source Software FAQ (2021)

#1

Post by kennethko » Mon, Jul 11, 2022, 11:09 PM UTC

DoD Open Source Software FAQ (2021)
dodcio.defense.gov

Re: DoD Open Source Software FAQ (2021)

#2

Post by emmelaich » Tue, Jul 12, 2022, 1:00 AM UTC

I just love the idea of the military using gimp.

   General: So, Major, how did you prepare those fine graphics of the war plans?
   Major: Gimp sir.
   General: 'Gimp' you say?

Re: DoD Open Source Software FAQ (2021)

#3

Post by thayne » Tue, Jul 12, 2022, 1:10 AM UTC

> Public Law 115-232 defines OSS defines OSS as “software for which the human-readable source code is available for use, study, re-use, modification, enhancement, and re-distribution by the users of such software

> The following organizations examine licenses; licenses should pass at least the first two industry review processes, and preferably all of them, else they have a greatly heightened risk of not being an open source software license

The first two are OSI and FSF.

Some other questions also allude to not including more restrictive "source available" licenses, presumably including commons clause, as open source.

Re: DoD Open Source Software FAQ (2021)

#4

Post by etaioinshrdlu » Tue, Jul 12, 2022, 1:13 AM UTC

I like how officially military documents are now delegating to the GNU project’s documents for definitions.

Re: DoD Open Source Software FAQ (2021)

#5

Post by [deleted] » Tue, Jul 12, 2022, 2:46 AM UTC

emmelaich wrote: post #2

I just love the idea of the military using gimp. General: So, Major, how did you prepare those fine graphics of the war plans? Major: Gimp sir. General: 'Gimp' you say?

[deleted]

Re: DoD Open Source Software FAQ (2021)

#6

Post by Terry_Roll » Tue, Jul 12, 2022, 3:23 AM UTC

emmelaich wrote: post #2

I just love the idea of the military using gimp. General: So, Major, how did you prepare those fine graphics of the war plans? Major: Gimp sir. General: 'Gimp' you say?

and Backrub.

Re: DoD Open Source Software FAQ (2021)

#7

Post by juunpp » Tue, Jul 12, 2022, 3:29 AM UTC

Indeed this seems like a fairly accurate account so far.

Also, while the section 'What are synonyms for open source software?' later clarifies what is meant by Free Software, the FSF would likely avoid calling OSS and Free Software synonyms, even if by implication:

https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/open-source-misses-the-point....

Re: DoD Open Source Software FAQ (2021)

#8

Post by ARandomerDude » Tue, Jul 12, 2022, 3:49 AM UTC

> Q: Isn’t OSS developed primarily by inexperienced students?

> No, OSS is developed by a wide variety of software developers, and the average developer is quite experienced. A Boston Consulting Group study found that the average age of OSS developers was 30 years old, the majority had training in information technology and/or computer science, and on average had 11.8 years of computer programming experience.

If true, that’s an amazing statistic.

Re: DoD Open Source Software FAQ (2021)

#9

Post by mpyne » Tue, Jul 12, 2022, 4:34 AM UTC

The DoD has recently updated some of their policy around use of open-source software as well: https://dodcio.defense.gov/portals/0/documents/library/softw...

Re: DoD Open Source Software FAQ (2021)

#10

Post by rascul » Tue, Jul 12, 2022, 4:40 AM UTC

I'm led to believe that the DoD is Red Hat's largest customer. This is based on my own experience seeing and using various systems in the US Army (most notably FBCB2 [0]), plus a quick web search which turned up a few articles that agree with me without giving any actual data or source.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Force_XXI_Battle_Command_Briga...