Vendors Expect More Open Source Adoption from Federal Government
Open source vendors like Sun Microsystems predict significant adoption of open source systems in the federal agencies under the Obama administration, which has a strong open source focus, Sun Federal Chief Operating Officer Bill Vase told us. Vase and Sun co-founder Scott McNealy met with the new administration and were asked to draft a policy paper on benefits of using open source in the government, Vase said. The Obama Administration is expected to work to ensure the full and free exchange of information through an open Internet and using technology to create a more transparent and connected democracy, said vendor Red Hat’s Paul Smith, vice president of government sales operations.
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Vase said he sees a broader growth of open source operating systems in the next few years for security values, faster procurement and “tremendous cost savings.” There would be “significant growth of open source middleware and database,” he said, predicting a trend toward open source storage and open networks by the federal government in the next few years. With the Obama Administration pushing open document format (ODF) and open government, the federal agencies are expected to move toward a standardization on ODF, said Vase, a veteran of the Office of the Secretary of Defense’s Office of the CIO.
Another trend is toward open source virtualization, the abstraction of computer resources, Vase said. Red Hat agreed: Chief Information Officer Lee Congdon said one obvious benefit of virtualization is consolidation of servers into a smaller set of more powerful hardware platforms running a collection of virtual environments. Not only can costs be reduced by reducing the amount of hardware and reducing the amount of unused capacity, but application performance can be improved because the virtual guests execute on more powerful hardware, he said. The Open Solutions Alliance said the economic downturn “will lead to an increase in adoption of open solutions due to their flexibility, scalability and value.”
Security is the primary reason for the government to tap open source, Vase said in the policy paper. Because every source code is open, the security code has to be extremely robust, he said. Open products have fewer vulnerabilities than proprietary products with equivalent functionality, he said, citing reports from the National Vulnerability Database which was sponsored by the Department of Homeland Security. The scrutiny process of open source products also makes it more secure and cybersecurity is a big deal for the government, he said. Faster procurement is the second biggest benefit. When applying for a proprietary product, vendors have to go through a multi-year procurement process due to the cost of the product and the open competition rules, he said. With open source products, customers can almost immediately start deployment, he said.
The government ought to mandate open source products to improve reliability, quality, transparency and flexibility, Vase said. Freedom from vendor lock-in reduces the risk for some long-term government contracts, he said. Additionally, open source products generally go through three times as many quality reviews as proprietary products, he said. Transparency and flexibility would also drive the growth of government engagement in open source, he said. With the source code open to the public, government can be part of the developer community and put their requirements into the products, he said.
Vase also predicts more adoption in the health and human service area, noting the more than $20 billion proposed in that area in President Barack Obama’s economic stimulus package. The key to any eHealth reform program (no matter the price tag) is to facilitate information sharing across multiple agencies and to eliminate the information silos, he said. One way to do that is through open source, which has enabled the secure and interoperable exchange of health care information across more than 20 organizations, he said. Open source has consistently been a major focus of nearly every new proposed IT program in the health care sector, he said. Expected federal health care administration activities include collecting patient status assessments, populating patient personal health records with information from federal and commercial systems, supporting health services in combating fraud and waste, improving coordination of benefits with other payer organizations, improving onsite care for patients during disasters and other public health emergencies, supporting data collection, establishing local networks among underserved populations and providing anonymous bulk test data for pandemic and bio terrorism analysts, Vase said.
But research firm Gartner warned that the benefits of open source might not deliver unless properly managed. “Do not expect to automatically save money with open source software or any technology without effective financial management,” said analyst Mark Driver. Some analysts and bloggers also questioned whether open source growth has come at the expense of the major players. Open source companies could be threats to the three biggest proprietary technology providers, Oracle, Microsoft and IBM, said TechRepublic blogger Jack Wallen. Some said open source only commands a small portion of a market: Open source products have mostly not replaced proprietary products, said a report by consulting firm The 451 Group.