Government agencies and organizations are increasingly collaborating on open source projects. The document lists several resources for government open source projects including conferences, data repositories, and nonprofit organizations supporting collaborations. Charts show the growth in open source initiatives worldwide from 2000 to 2009, with the most projects approved in Europe and Asia. Examples of government open source projects involve data analysis and visualization platforms from organizations like Sandia, Los Alamos, and Kitware. Benefits of these collaborations include avoiding vendor lock-in, leveraging a diverse team, and improving the open source project. Challenges can include relaxing proprietary restrictions, dealing with government bureaucracy, and balancing commercial and academic deliverables and publications.

1. Government Open Source
Collaborations
Brian Wylie
Sandia National Laboratories
Sandia National Laboratories is a multi-program laboratory managed and operated by Sandia
Corporation, a wholly owned subsidiary of Lockheed Martin Corporation, for the U.S. Department of
Energy’s National Nuclear Security Administration under contract DE-AC04-94AL85000.

2. Government Open Source
Resources
• GOSCON Government Open Source Conference (goscon.org)
• Open Source Center: Foreign open source intelligence data (opensource.gov)
• Open Source Software Institute: Non-profit corp/govt/acad (oss-institute.org)
• Government Open Source Software Resource Centre (gossrc.org)
• Center for Strategic and International Studies (tracks open source legislation csis.org)

3. Government Open Source
Around the World
180
Open Source Initiatives by Region (2000-2009)
160
140
120
100
Failed
80 Proposed
60 Approved
40
20
0
Europe Asia Latin North Africa Middle
America America East
Data Courtesy of the Center for Strategic and International Studies

4. Government Open Source
Example Projects
Sandia
Los Alamos
Kitware
University of
Utah
Open source data analysis and visualization platform

5. Government Open Source
Example Projects
Sandia
Kitware
Indiana
University
Stanford

6. Government Open Source
Collaboration Benefits
No specific vendor “lock-in/out”
Allows a diversified development team
Government Known code base (strengths and weaknesses)
Typically easier to integration with other OS tools
Improvement of the OS project
Money
Commercial Leveraging project for other/future work
Improvement of the OS project
Student/Professor support
Academic Publishing/Sharing
Improvement of the OS project

7. Government Open Source
Collaboration Issues
Need to relax into existing OS license*
Government New projects should pick a liberal OS license
Funding source may hesitate on Open Source
Proprietary projects / Intellectual Property
Government bureaucracy
Commercial Mixed software skill set
Deliverables can get distorted
* No gov’t sell back clause
Academic Work may not be publication material
If you do publish, it may be a joint publication

8. Government Open Source
Questions Section

9. (view included video)