David A. Wheeler's Blog

Thu, 05 Apr 2012

DoD Open Source Software (OSS) Pages Moved

The US Department of Defense (DoD) has changed the URLs for some of its information on Open Source Software (OSS). Unfortunately, there are currently no redirects, and that makes them hard to find (sigh). Here are new links, if you want them.

A good place to start is the Department of Defense (DoD) Free Open Source Software (FOSS) Community of Interest page, hosted by the DoD Chief Information Officer (CIO).

From that page, you can reach:

• Clarifying Guidance Regarding Open Source Software (OSS) Memorandum by David M. Wennergren, 16 October 2009 - this is the overall DoD policy on OSS
• Open Technology Development (OTD): Lessons Learned & Best Practices for Military Software - OSD Report, May 2011 - this is guidance on how to develop and use OSS
• DoD Open Source Software (OSS) Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) - this has lots of answers to questions about OSS, focusing on DoD issues
• Use of Free and Open-Source Software (FOSS) in the U.S. Department of Defense - 2003 Study by MITRE Corporation performed for DoD - a report by MITRE’s Terry Bollinger showing that the DoD was already using OSS widely in 2002-2003. Funny fact: In the Acknowledgements page, I am listed second.

If you are interested in the topic of DoD and OSS, you might also be interested in the Military Open Source Software (Mil-OSS) group, which is not a government organization, but is an active community.

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