OSS:Brief
Title
In Consideration of Federal Policies for Open Source Software
Members
- Alexis O'Connor
- Anna Reynoso
- Kianwin Ong
- Matt Ferlo
- Ted Sander
Motivation
In the recent 2-3 years, various national, regional and local governments across the world have proposed policies and legislation favouring open source software (OSS) over proprietary software. Some of these 90 initiatives have actually been approved. Munich, Germany is among the highest profile Microsoft defector, voting to move 14,000 city-owned PCs to OSS. China, South Korea and Japan are collaborating to develop OSS to replace proprietary OSes, with Japan contributing $8.6million. Various others are jumping on the band-wagon, seeing this as an opportunity to cut software costs or reduce their dependency on US-made software.
Goal
The impetus of various OSS policies have lead us to investigate the rationale behind them, and question if the foreign governments' perceived benefits of OSS applies to the US. We divide the existing policies into two broad categories: government procurement of OSS, and government funding of research and development as relating to OSS. Through an objective assessment of the benefits and risks of government involvement, we hope to recommend if it is desirable for the Federal government to stipulate any form of OSS policy.
Organization
- Introduction [Matt]
- What is Open Source Software? (OSS)
- OSS policies among various governments
- Reasons for considering OSS policies
- Limited marketing by non-profit entities
- Non-commercial societal benefits
- Entrenched legacy systems
- Public Procurement
- Business reasons for/against OSS [Alexis]
- Total cost of ownership (TCO)
- Security
- Vendor independence
- Societal reasons for/against OSS [Anna]
- Permanence of public data
- Externalizing software benefits for society
- Reasons for/against policies [Anna]
- Track record in regulation of high tech industries
- Presence of market failure in OSS
- Case studies [Alexis]
- Local governments - Largo City, Texas Austin etc.
- EU - Germany, France, UK etc.
- Developing countries - Brazil, India, China etc.
- Business reasons for/against OSS [Alexis]
- Research and Development
- Foreign OSS policies' impact on US software industry [Kianwin]
- Reduction of software imports
- Development of indigeneous software industry
- Alternative solution to piracy and IP infringements
- Licensing terms for government research [Ted, Kianwin]
- Commercialization of government-funded research
- Spread of public goods at marginal cost
- Restriction on GPL or 'viral' licenses
- Case studies [Ted]
- Local institutions - NASA, Sandia National Labs, NSA's SELinux
- Europe: France, Germany
- Asia: China, Japan, Korea
- Foreign OSS policies' impact on US software industry [Kianwin]
- Conclusion (and integration) [Matt]
Main References
- Table of Governments Considering OSS Policies & Legislation by Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS)
