new military OSS policy

[Miles Fidelman]

... fresh from the OSD e-press

--
Miles R. Fidelman, Director of Government Programs
Traverse Technologies
145 Tremont Street, 3rd Floor
Boston, MA  02111
[hidden email]
857-362-8314
www.traversetechnologies.com



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[Landon Blake]

Miles,

That sounds like a positive development for FOSS in the United States. I
would imagine the military is a large customer of software. If they are
giving open source software more serious consideration, that should be a
good thing for our community in the long run.

Landon
Office Phone Number: [phone]
Cell Phone Number: [phone]
 
 
-----Original Message-----
From: [hidden email]
[mailto:[hidden email]] On Behalf Of Miles Fidelman
Sent: Tuesday, October 27, 2009 10:16 AM
To: OSGeo Discussions
Subject: [OSGeo-Discuss] new military OSS policy

.. fresh from the OSD e-press

--
Miles R. Fidelman, Director of Government Programs
Traverse Technologies
145 Tremont Street, 3rd Floor
Boston, MA  02111
[hidden email]
857-362-8314
www.traversetechnologies.com



Warning:
Information provided via electronic media is not guaranteed against defects including translation and transmission errors. If the reader is not the intended recipient, you are hereby notified that any dissemination, distribution or copying of this communication is strictly prohibited. If you have received this information in error, please notify the sender immediately.
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[Bruce Bannerman-3]

Miles,

It is encouraging to see this policy development.

When combined with the new UK Government Policy on Open Source and Open Standards [1],  I can see that OS (spatial) is finally starting to get some serious momentum within government circles.

Perhaps other Governments will also start following suit...

Bruce Bannerman

[1] http://www.cabinetoffice.gov.uk/government_it/open_source.aspx

> -----Original Message-----
> From: [hidden email]
> [mailto:[hidden email]] On Behalf Of Miles Fidelman
> Sent: Wednesday, 28 October 2009 4:16 AM
> To: OSGeo Discussions
> Subject: [OSGeo-Discuss] new military OSS policy
>
> ... fresh from the OSD e-press
>
> --
> Miles R. Fidelman, Director of Government Programs Traverse
> Technologies
> 145 Tremont Street, 3rd Floor
> Boston, MA  02111
> [hidden email]
> 857-362-8314
> www.traversetechnologies.com
>
>

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[Cameron Shorter-2]

Can someone point at this document on an official website somewhere?
It would be good to link to it from:
http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/Case_Studies#Open_Source_Policies

Miles Fidelman wrote:
> ... fresh from the OSD e-press
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
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--
Cameron Shorter
Geospatial Solutions Manager
Tel: [phone]
Mob: [phone]

Think Globally, Fix Locally
Geospatial Solutions enhanced with Open Standards and Open Source
http://www.lisasoft.com

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[Craig Miller-6]

Some javascript/style in this post has been disabled (why?)

I'd like to comment that the government has always been a strong supporter of FOSS and the DOD has made significant contributions.  This paper clarifies what is in my opinion a long standing DOD OSS position.

 

For a long time the US Army, Corp of Engineers developed GRASS GIS and it was the best solution out there.  The SCS helped fund this software development work.  It kept pace w/ ESRI for many years before the DOD decided to go with "Commercial Off The Shelf" (COTS) software and stopped GRASS development.  Other government workers such as Sol Katz contributed all sorts of FOSS software.  LT Plus was an early Raster to Vector conversion program used by the USFS, SCS, and DOD.  NASA has contributed many more applications, data, and utilities.  I’m not positive, but I’m pretty sure that the contribution of GRASS makes the DOD the largest contributor to OSGeo out there.

 

For years we ran GRASS GIS on Sun workstations.  The fact that it was FOSS and had the potential of being ported made me try an early 0.9.1 version of the Linux kernel and Slackware linux distributed on 23 floppy disks.  A few months later and we had GRASS running on Linux.  By 1994(ish) we had 30 Linux workstations running kernel 0.9.7 and Dan Haskell’s port of LTPlus doing raster to vector data conversion for the Interior Columbia Ecosystem Management Project (ICBEMP).  Before there was PostGIS, GDAL, QGis, MapServer, or MapGuide OS the DOD and other government agencies were inventing OSGeo.  (Note:  See http://ltplus.org)

 

The DOD paper is notable in that it seems to somewhat reverse the late 90s decision to push COTS.  Since that time, there has been much less FOSS running on the military networks.  It’s good to hear them make the clarification that FOSS can be considered COTS, but IMHO the DOD and the US Government in general should be given credit for their long standing support of OSGeo/FOSS software.

 

Craig

 

 

From: [hidden email] [mailto:[hidden email]] On Behalf Of Bruce Bannerman
Sent: Tuesday, October 27, 2009 4:21 PM
To: [hidden email]
Subject: Re: [OSGeo-Discuss] new military OSS policy

 

Miles,

It is encouraging to see this policy development.

When combined with the new UK Government Policy on Open Source and Open Standards [1],  I can see that OS (spatial) is finally starting to get some serious momentum within government circles.

Perhaps other Governments will also start following suit...

Bruce Bannerman

[1] http://www.cabinetoffice.gov.uk/government_it/open_source.aspx

> -----Original Message-----
> From: [hidden email]
> [mailto:[hidden email]] On Behalf Of Miles Fidelman
> Sent: Wednesday, 28 October 2009 4:16 AM
> To: OSGeo Discussions
> Subject: [OSGeo-Discuss] new military OSS policy
>
> ... fresh from the OSD e-press
>
> --
> Miles R. Fidelman, Director of Government Programs Traverse
> Technologies
> 145 Tremont Street, 3rd Floor
> Boston, MA  02111
> [hidden email]
> 857-362-8314
> www.traversetechnologies.com
>
>

 

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[Miles Fidelman]

It doesn't seem to be on the OSD web site yet - give it a few days and
then you'll probably be able to find it somewhere near here:
http://www.defenselink.mil/cio-nii/

Cameron Shorter wrote:

> Can someone point at this document on an official website somewhere?
> It would be good to link to it from:
> http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/Case_Studies#Open_Source_Policies
>
> Miles Fidelman wrote:
>> ... fresh from the OSD e-press
>>
>> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> Discuss mailing list
>> [hidden email]
>> http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss
>
>

--
Miles R. Fidelman, Director of Government Programs
Traverse Technologies
145 Tremont Street, 3rd Floor
Boston, MA  02111
[hidden email]
857-362-8314
www.traversetechnologies.com

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[Mark Lucas]

Cameron,
This is the signed letter and it contains a link to where the official  
policy will be posted.
It took us 18 months to push it through the system.






It has been fun to watch some of the inquiries come in from  
traditional government contractors.

Mark


On Oct 27, 2009, at 10:38 PM, Cameron Shorter wrote:

> Can someone point at this document on an official website somewhere?
> It would be good to link to it from: http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/Case_Studies#Open_Source_Policies
>
> Miles Fidelman wrote:
>> ... fresh from the OSD e-press
>>
>> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> Discuss mailing list
>> [hidden email]
>> http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss
>
>
> --
> Cameron Shorter
> Geospatial Solutions Manager
> Tel: [phone]
> Mob: [phone]
>
> Think Globally, Fix Locally
> Geospatial Solutions enhanced with Open Standards and Open Source
> http://www.lisasoft.com
>
> _______________________________________________
> Discuss mailing list
> [hidden email]
> http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss

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