Earlier this year, a major open-source event came and went without much community notice and with little media attention. A Cabinet-level federal agency released a software product under the GPL, making it the first tool of its kind to be licensed by the US government free of charge to public and private sector organizations.

Although the Open Source and Industry Alliance praised the effort in a letter to Secretary Elaine Chao, some of us wonder if this kind of event will happen ever again. This story received little to no attention by the media, yet it created quite a stir within the government software vendor community. The backlash might have government officials thinking twice the next time the subject comes up.

Opportunities seem rare in the case of the government releasing GPL software. First, the government wants industry to bring solutions to government problems rather than have government agencies develop their own software. That makes it difficult for procurement officials to find their "best value proposition". Secondly, open-source vendors do not have the funds, organization and alliances to educate procurement officials the way proprietary firms do. So, government agencies buy licensed software products almost universally.

So, when a government agency does put GPL software on a Web site and let people download it for free, that's an important milestone. It's not one we should take lightly.

Peter Gallagher, of DevIS worked diligently for several months to have the first federally funded GPL project released. When he finally saw light at the end of the tunnel, he realized he achieved his goal but not without a high degree of difficulty. It took nine months of negotiations, extensive legal fees and many sleepless nights--a high cost for a small business. He still wonders if he created a model agencies can follow in the future. Peter explains:

Companies should be able to release such code without difficulty. When DevIS requested its copyright, the customer hesitated and decided not to release the copyright. That began rounds of negotiations, which ended with DevIS giving the copyright to the DoL, which in turn placed the product under the GPL, albeit awkwardly. You can download the software after you agree to the license and register with the agency--not exactly a FLOSS approach.

Many of us seem confused about the federal government's ability to fund, copyright and release code under the GPL. I discussed this topic with a number of people who pointed me to the United States Code, Title 17, Chapter 1, Section 105. It states:

Peter explains:

Open-source advocates may find the situation perplexing, at best. If the government uses our tax dollars to develop software to solve government problems, why can't we know about it? Why can't a vendor have the copyright and release it as open source? Where's the level playing field we so often see quoted? How can I compete against industry giants as a small company?

Again, Peter explains:

In last week's article, we discussed the Library of Texas.org project. In that case the vendor, Index Data of Denmark, made the software available under the GNU General Public License (GPL). From my point of view, that seems like the appropriate way a government-funded project should proceed. Public money funded the project, so the vendor should have some obligation to make it available to the public through a normal commercial channel, without us having to pay for it again and again, a la Microsoft.

If you question the logic, consider this scenario: the government (on the citizens' behalf) asks a commercial vendor to build a car, the vendor builds the car and the government says, "we invented the car". Although the government funded the project, you have to ask who did the inventing. Who had the brain power to make it happen? Also, who paid for it? In some distorted belief systems, some agency officials somehow feel that the money belongs to them and not to the people of the United States.

I asked Peter about the status of the project once it became a GPL project. Here is what he said:

In my experience, getting the Department of Labor to GPL a software product has made a difference. For one thing, the rest of the government knows the product exists. Although government-developed software should be available to any other agency, rarely does one agency know what another has. Secondly, a milestone by any other name is still a milestone. Regardless of the awkwardness of the process, a precedent exists and we now can show proof of concept.

Finally, I have dug around and looked for any possible opening to see if open-source software can have a place in government procurement. One exists in an obscure Request for Proposal (RFP) hardly anyone would know about. Among the familiar wording,I found something about which to smile. From a RFP:

Describe in detail a standards based system solution: Include the software and hardware products and components of your proposed solution. State the hardware platforms and operating systems on which your system will operate. Define COTS (Commercial Off-the-Shelf) products, including Open Source software you propose and the standards (ANSI, IEEE, ISO, etc.) of your proposed solution.

Noticed that the authors of the RFP asked the vendors to "Define COTS...including Open Source software". Of the thousands of RFPs posted on government sites in the United States, someone got the message.

In an election year, I doubt this will become much of an issue, especially in light of the media's focus. But, wouldn't it be something if the people somehow demanded that such a clause exist in every RFP issued in the future?