The Strange Relationship the US Government has with Open-Source Software →

David Wheeler works for the Institute for Defense Analyses and has a few choice words to say about the government’s procurement of software and how procurement relates to open-source. Specifically, I liked this:

There are many benefits when government-funded software is released back to the people who paid for it. It’s far easier for other government agencies to find software once it’s released to the public, and it’s much easier to find competing support sources once it’s available to the public. I also think it’s harder to reflexively reject OSS when you’re also contributing to it.

… and:

OSS is a vital element for ensuring national economic security. Automation is central to practically every modern endeavor. Creating and improving automation requires malleable building blocks. In particular, innovation necessarily requires building blocks that can be reshaped in new ways. By definition OSS is an innovation enabler, because it creates far more malleable building blocks. OSS is already widely used and developed throughout industry, so it is already vital to industry.

If you like yourself, read it on Instapaper. The opensource.com website is not designed for reading ;)