Posted on 07/11/2006 9:49:39 AM PDT by antiRepublicrat
"There is one thing stronger than all the armies in the world, and that is an idea whose time has come." Victor Hugo.
So states a report from the Department of Defense's Advanced Systems and Concepts Office, which recommends that the DoD move to a roadmap to adopt open source and open standards, maintaining that such a move is not only in the US national interest, but in the interests of US national security.
The 79-page report proposes that the DoD adopt what it calls "open technology development," which incorporates open source methodologies and open standards, but also takes into account the fact that the DoD has systems that it would rather keep secret.
"It is important, in the context of this report and resulting policy discussions, to distinguish between OSS and OTD, since the latter may include code whose distribution may be limited to DoD, and indeed may only be accessible on classified networks," states the report, before maintaining that OTD does also not "impinge on the legal states" of commercially-developed software.
What it does do is recommend the use of open source software, open standards, and open source development methodologies within the DoD. According to the report, this is in the national interest, as it holds the potential to reduce software purchasing and development costs.
"Currently within DoD, there is no internal distribution policy or mechanism for DoD developed and paid for software code. By not enabling internal distribution, DoD creates an arbitrary scarcity of its own software code, which increases the development and maintenance costs of information technology across the Department," it states.
"Other negative consequences include lock-in to obsolete proprietary technologies, the inability to extend existing capabilities in months vs. years, and snarls of interoperability that stem from the opacity and stove-piping of information systems."
But it is also in the interests of national security. "The national security implications of open technology development (OTD) are clear: increased technological agility for warfighters, more robust and competitive options for program managers, and higher levels of accountability in the defense industrial base," it states.
"DoD needs to use open technology design and development methodologies to increase the speed at which military systems are delivered to the warfighter, and accelerate the development of new, adaptive capabilities that leverage DoD’s massive investments in software infrastructure."
The reports suggests that in order to make the most efficient use of internal resources the DoD move to adopt open technology development, with an initial focus on AS&C projects to develop the policies, procedures, requirements and best practices for OTD.
The report indicates how forward thinking the DoD is in terms of software usage models, and how far the debate has come since 2004, when anti-open source FUD suggested it might be suggest to national security.
SCO Group CEO Darl McBride (who else) wrote to US senators and representatives in January that year claiming that open source software threatened the US economy, technological innovation, and even national security.
“I assert that open source software – available widely through the Internet – has the potential to provide our nation’s enemies or potential enemies with computing capabilities that are restricted by US law," he wrote.
Dan O’Dowd, CEO of embedded systems vendor Green Hills Software, took up the baton in April 2004, claiming that embedded Linux is unsuitable for use in US defense systems because it is open to contributions from the open source community at large.
"Now that foreign intelligence agencies and terrorists know that Linux is going to control our most advanced defense systems, they can use fake identities to contribute subversive software that will soon be incorporated into our most advanced defense systems," he said.
"Every day new code is added to Linux in Russia, China and elsewhere throughout the world. Every day that code is incorporated into our command, control, communications and weapons systems. This must stop."
For the trolls, remember this is an official high-level DoD publication, not something from the Stallman crowd.
Oh, sure. It's not like anyone inspects the code or tests the code. DoD just yanks code off the internet (Warz-for-War.com) and shoves it into a weapon system. That's the ticket! [/sarcasm]
What's the frequency, Dan?
Dan?
Come in, Dan?!
First of all, Linux is the OS kernel, strictly administered by Linus Torvalds, who is fully aware of every line of code added to it, which is only added after years of wrangling among numerous developers on open forums.
OSS software that runs on Linux or Windows or any other operating system has nothing to do with the Linux kernel.
ahh finally the government gets it... move away from the flawed and buggy OS of windows and move to a more stable and secure OS.
Yeah, really. This guy's argument is "security through obscurity".
Just because someone doesn't see the source code definitely does not mean that it can't be reverse engineered.
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