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Coalition pushes for open source in government

By Alex Handy

July 22, 2009 — (Page 1 of 2)
When the going gets transparent, the transparent get organized. This morning, the Open Source for America organization was unveiled in San Jose at OSCON to promote the use of open-source software in government.

As its first significant act, the coalition has engaged Washington lobbying firm Mehlman Vogel Castagnetti to represent its interests. Tom Rabon, executive vice president of corporate affairs for Red Hat and campaign spokesperson for Open Source for America, denied that it is a lobbying effort, for now.

“It could evolve over time into really getting more involved in lobbying,” said Rabon. “For now, job one is to help educate U.S. government decision-makers about using open source.”

“Open-source software can help deliver improved government service—plain and simple—and the administration recognizes this more than any in our nation’s history,” said David Thomas, principal with Mehlman Vogel Castagnetti.

Rabon said the effort grew out of discussions between Red Hat and Sun. He outlined the coalition’s early plans:

“First of all, we're going to have a D.C. presence. One of our early projects will be to take a serious look at just how much open source is deployed in the federal government and where it is deployed. We're going to use that as a benchmark. We also want to provide an opportunity for people to be able to come to Washington and talk about open source and why it's important for our country and how it helps to create jobs back in [Congressional] districts."

Open Source for America also unveiled its website. The group's members include Debian, Google, Jasperspoft, Mozilla, SpringSource, and more than 50 other companies, individuals and institutions.

The effort to expand open-source usage in American government could dovetail with existing efforts to curb government IT spending. Peter Vescuso, executive vice president of marketing and business development at IP rights management software maker Black Duck, said that the current federal budget for software is quite high.

“IDC's current estimate for federal government software spending is US$7.8 billion," said Vescuso. "Spending on services is typically twice that. Our experience tells us that 10 to 15% of that spending is redundant with existing open-source software. [About] $1.2 billion of that spending could be offset with open source.”

Related Search Term(s): open source

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