Open Source Winning at GSA, Other Agencies
Adoption of open-source technologies is on the rise in the General Service Administration, said Chief Information Officer Casey Coleman in an interview. Open source also is winning in other federal agencies and huge opportunities are expected under the Obama Administration, open source vendor Red Hat told us.
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Open-source programs account for less than 20 percent of GSA spending on IT, a share expected to rise in coming years, Coleman said. Linux-based systems are the most common open- source program at GSA, which increasingly uses open-source software for monitoring, she said. The agency hasn’t adopted any open-source applications, she noted.
The Department of Defense, intelligence agencies, NASA, the National Institutes of Health and other federal agencies typically are early adopters of emerging technology, Coleman said. But unlike DoD, which encourages use of open-source software along with commercial software, GSA has no policy on open-source adoption, Coleman said. The Department of Commerce uses open-source vendor Red Hat’s software in its National Weather Service for hurricane tracking, Paul Smith, Red Hat’s vice president of government sales operations, told us.
Transparency and interoperability are compelling reasons for GSA to use a wide variety of open-source programs, Coleman said. A key advantage of open source is the release of source code, which give the agency more control over software it buys, she said. Open-sourcing lets GSA look into the codes and understand the modifications made and their implications, she said. Security is another strong benefit. The open-source nature enables faster response to security flaws and vulnerabilities, she said.
Open-source software’s assets may not including economy, Coleman noted. There’s no licensing fee, but open source doesn’t mean free, she said. “There is no guarantee that it will be cheaper than proprietary software,” she said. Among other things, outside support carries a cost. GSA typically buys professional support for any open-source software it uses, she said. But avoiding high software licensing fees lets the agency more effectively manage its budget long term, she added.
Huge opportunities are expected for open source products among federal and state agencies, said Red Hat’s Smith. The trend toward open source shows not only in adoption, but also in policy, he said, predicting an Obama Administration that is “extremely friendly” toward open source. Open-source technology makes government more transparent and interoperable, characteristics Obama has endorsed, he said.
Open-source vendors may find good opportunities in this tough economy thanks to their products’ lower cost of entry compared to that for proprietary software, Smith said. State governments have been cutting back, and federal cuts are coming, he said. Red Hat, whose main customers are government agencies, expects tighter government budgets to mean less IT spending -- but also more interest in open- source, he said, citing increasing military adoption of open source. The House’s proposed National Defense Authorization Act (HR-5658) for Fiscal Year 2009 included language encouraging military services to consider open-source software when procuring aerial vehicles. The bill, passed in the House and awaiting a Senate vote, doesn’t elaborate on use of open source. However a House Armed Services Committee report accompanying the measure said the committee, which worries about rising costs and shrinking security related to software development for information technology systems, encourages DoD to rely more broadly on open-source software.