SOSS Fusion 2024

Outsiders looking in at government software delivery might imagine a cabal of crusty do-nothings plotting the next series of setbacks and delays to deliver to their unwitting users, or a scheming contractor masterfully extracting maximum payment for each feature delivered. Nothing could be further from the truth; in reality the civil service and the commercial ecosystem servicing the government are full of hard-working people navigating a labyrinthine series of financial, contractual, technical, and cybersecurity policies and standards. Open Source software and open technology can be a critical tool for successfully steering a project through that maze in order to deliver a capability to users. In this session, we give real-world examples of the challenges to value delivery in the government, discuss some of the common misperceptions around government use of Open Source, and discuss how the use of Open Source has lead to improved outcomes for users in the Department of Defense. Lastly, we discuss where we think the relationship between the private and public sector is going with respect to Open Source.