Open source, twenty-four years later…

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US Department of Defense recently released a memo, “Clarifying Guidance Regarding Open Source Software (OSS)”.

As FederalComputerWeek notes: this memo “puts open-source software on the same level as commercial software and urges DoD agencies to evaluate it on an equal basis with proprietary offering.“Jay Liman, from the 451Group, explains it even more clearly: “The DoD memo wisely lays out the idea that open source software should be considered not alongside traditional, commercial offerings, but basically as traditional, commercial software offerings, so that the evaluation process is truly fair. Open source doesn’t fit in all circumstances, but it certainly does afford potential cost savings, flexibility and freedom in some situations, as noted in the memo.”

Following the White House announcement of its choice of Drupal, these words “not alongside…but basically as” sound very, very good. I affirm that this announces a turning point for the open source community. Twenty-four years have gone by since the creation of the Free Software Foundation by Richard Stallman. For 24 years, the power of OSS made gradual inroads on enterprise information systems, with clear acceleration in the past five years. Today’s memo brings credibility to what we’ve been writing about on this blog all along: OSS is on the same level as traditional software. And it echoes what we already wrote on this blog : cost reduction is not the only benefit you can realize. Typical criticisms were around reliability, security, or performance. The DoD has shattered these false allegations.

I feel like a cyclist after climbing the first pass of the first mountain stage of the Tour de France - happy to have reached this goal, and yet focused on the next pass. I know that the entire OSS pack will face other huge challenges, but today I’m really happy to savor this victory.

Bertrand




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