dod approved open source software list

Many software developers find software patents difficult to understand, making it difficult for them to determine if a given patent even applies to a given program. Establish project website. Example: GPL and (unrelated) proprietary applications can be running at the same time on a desktop PC. Instead, users who are careful to use open standards can easily switch to a different implementation, including an OSS implementation. So, while open systems/open standards are different from open source software, they are complementary and can work well together. A large number of both commercial and open source tools of this type are available and all of these tools have their own strengths and weaknesses. (See GPL FAQ, "Can I use the GPL for something other than software?".). OSS and Security/Software Assurance/System Assurance/Supply Chain Risk Management. If it is a new project, be sure to remove "barriers to entry" for others to contribute to the project: OSS should be released using conventional formats that make it easy to install (for end-users) and easy to update (for potential co-developers). In some cases, it may be wise to release software under multiple licenses (e.g., "LGPL version 2.1 and version 3", "GPL version 2 and 3"), so that users can then pick which license they will use. Computer and electronic hardware that is designed in the same fashion as open source software (OSS) is sometimes termed open source hardware. Certain FAR clause alternatives (such as FAR 52.227-17) require the contractor to assign the copyright to the government. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit's 2008 ruling on Jacobsen v. Katzer made it clear that OSS licenses are enforceable, even if money is not exchanged. DoD and Open Source Software Disclaimer The following is intended to outline our general product direction. Such mixing can normally only occur when certain kinds of separation are maintained - and thus this becomes a design issue. The DoD has not expressed a position on whether or not software should be patented, but it is interested in ensuring that software that effectively supports its missions can be developed in a cost-effective, timely, and legal manner. Fast forward to today, the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) is one of the largest consumers of open source in the world. The FAR and DFARS specifically permit different agreements to be struck (within certain boundaries). It costs essentially nothing to send a file or burn a CD-ROM of software; once it exists, all software costs are due to maintenance and support of software. OSS can often be purchased (directly, or as a support contract), and such purchases often include some sort of indemnification. And, because even the most powerful tool needs to remain compliant with government software standards, the DoD approved software list now includes Salesforce Government Cloud. Q: How can I avoid failure to comply with an OSS license? OSS COTS is especially appropriate when there is an existing OSS COTS product that meets the need, or one can be developed and supported by a wide range of users/co-developers. An alternative is to not include the OSS component in the deliverable, but simply depend on it, as long as that is acceptable to the government. This regulation only applies to the US Army, but may be a useful reference for others. ", Free Software Foundation License List, Public Domain, GPL FAQ, Question "Can the US Government release improvements to a GPL-covered program? It can be argued that classified software can be arbitrarily combined with GPL code, beyond the approaches described above. You can support OSS either through a commercial organization, or you can self-support OSS; in either case, you can use community support as an aid. Note that enforcing such separation has many other advantages as well. Yes, extensively. Proprietary COTS is especially appropriate when there is an existing proprietary COTS product that meets the need. Under the "default" DFARS and FAR rules and processes, the contractor often keeps and exercise the rights of a copyright holder, which enables them to release that software as open source software (as long as other laws and regulations are met). The use of software with a proprietary license provides absolutely no guarantee that the software is free of malicious code. What's more, proprietary software release practices make it more difficult to be confident that the software does not include malicious code. When considering any software (OSS or proprietary), look for evidence that the risk of unlawful release is low. OSS is typically developed through a collaborative process. U.S. law governing federal procurement (U.S. Code Title 41, Chapter 7, Section 403) defines "commercial item" as including "Any item, other than real property, that is of a type customarily used by the general public or by non-governmental entities for purposes other than governmental purposes (i.e., it has some non-government use), and (i) Has been sold, leased, or licensed to the general public; or (ii) Has been offered for sale, lease, or license to the general public ...". (This is actually a special case; the government normally does have the right to public release of copyrighted works it paid to develop.). By some definitions this is technically not an open source license (because no license is needed), but “public domain” software can be legally used, modified, and combined with other software without restriction. This site is designed to help the DoD community use social media and other Internet-based Capabilities (IbC) responsibly and effectively; both in official and unofficial (i.e., personal/private) capacities. The DoD already uses a wide variety of software licensed under the GPL. The OSI list is based on the open source definition, which in turn is heavily based on Stallman’s list of software user rights, but with the addition of several additional criteria intended to ensure fairness of the licenses. Thus, as long as the software has at least one non-governmental use, software released (or offered for release) to the public is a commercial item for procurement purposes, even if it was originally developed using public funds. Q: What are the risks of failing to consider the use of OSS components or approaches? There is no DoD policy forbidding or limiting the use of software licensed under the GNU General Public License (GPL). Update for air force approved software list. As noted above, OSS projects have a "trusted repository" that only certain developers (the "trusted developers") can directly modify. OSS options should be evaluated in principle the same way you would evaluate any option, considering need, cost, and so on. Windows Services for UNIX 3.0 is a good example of commercial use of GPL application mixing. The 2003 MITRE study, "Use of Free and Open Source Software (FOSS) in the U.S. Department of Defense" did suggest developing a "Generally Recognized As Safe" (GRAS) list, but such a list has not been developed. Thus, this FAQ was developed using open source software. Open systems and open standards counter dependency on a single supplier, though only if there is a competing marketplace of replaceable components. DoD contractors who always ignore components because they are OSS, or because they have a particular OSS license they don't prefer, risk losing projects to more competitive bidders. It notes in particular that three cases for software are acceptable: The DISA STIG also notes "4. DFARS 252.227-7014 specifically defines "commercial computer software" in a way that includes nearly all OSS, and defines "noncommercial computer software” as software that does not qualify as "commercial computer software". A utility that has publicly available source code is acceptable. At this time there is no widely-accepted term for software whose source code is available for review but does not meet the definition of open source software (due to restrictions on use, modification, or redistribution). Open standards make it easier for users to (later) adopt an open source software program, because users of open standards aren’t locked into a particular implementation. Every tactical vehicle in the U.S. Army runs at least one piece of open source software. Again, if this is the case, then the contractor cannot release the software as OSS without permission, because the contractor doesn't own the copyright. The Department of Defense (DoD) and Open Source Software . In addition, ignoring OSS would not be lawful; U.S. law specifically requires consideration of commercial software (including extant OSS, regardless of exactly which license it uses), and specifically instructs departments to pass this requirements down to contractors and their suppliers. This legal analysis must determine if it is possible to meet the conditions of all relevant licenses simultaneously. Fundamentally, a standard is a specification, so an "open standard" is a specification that is "open". Support for OSS is often sold separately for OSS; in such cases, you must comply with the support terms for those uses to receive support, but these are typically the same kinds of terms that apply to proprietary software (and they tend to be simpler in practice). Obviously, software that does not meet the definition of open source software is not open source software. Q: What policies address the use of open-source software in the Department of Defense? Again, these are examples, and not official endorsements of any particular product or supplier. Indeed, many people have released proprietary code that is malicious. This shows that proprietary software can include functionality that could be described as malicious, yet remain unfixed - and that at least in some cases OSS is reviewed and fixed. ", follow standard source installation release practices, Open Source Software license by the Open Source Initiative (OSI), Free Software license by the Free Software Foundation (FSF), Many view OSS license proliferation as a problem, Serdar Yegulalp's 2008 "Open Source Licensing Implosion" (InformationWeek), Open Source Initiative (OSI) maintains a list of "Licenses that are popular and widely used or with strong communities", licenses accepted by the Google code hosting service, "Producing Open Source Software: How to Run a Successful Free Software Project" by Karl Fogel, Recognizing and Avoiding Common Open Source Community Pitfalls, Releasing Free/Libre/Open Source Software (FLOSS) for Source Installation, GNU Coding Standards, especially on the release process, Open source software licenses are reviewed and approved as conforming to the, In practice, an open source software license must also meet the, Fedora reviews licenses and publishes a list of, The Department of Navy CIO issued a memorandum with guidance on open source software on 5 Jun 2007. Depending on the contract and its interpretation, contractors may be required to get governmental permission to include commercial components in their deliverable; where this applies, this would be true for OSS components as well as proprietary components. 1498, the exclusive remedy for patent or copyright infringement by or on behalf of the Government is a suit for monetary damages against the Government in the Court of Federal Claims. Q: Isn't OSS developed primarily by inexperienced students? After all, most proprietary software licenses explicitly forbid modifying (or even reverse-engineering) the program, so the GPL actually provides additional rights not present in most proprietary software. The purpose of Department of Defense Information Network Approved Products List (DODIN APL) is to maintain a single consolidated list of products that have completed Interoperability (IO) and Cybersecurity certification. In addition, a GPL'ed program can run on top of a classified/proprietary platform when the platform is a separate "System Library" (as defined in GPL version 3). No. The information on this page does not constitute legal advice and any legal questions relating to specific situations should be referred to legal counsel. There are far too many examples to list; a few examples are: If the government modifies existing OSS, but fails to release those improvements back to the main OSS project, it risks: Similarly, the government develops runs the following risks when it develops new software but does not release it as OSS, it risks: Clearly, classified software cannot be released back to the public as open source software. Look at the Numbers! Its flexibility is as high as GOTS, since it can be arbitrarily modified. how to ensure the interoperability of systems; how to build systems that are manageable. Creating any interface is an effort, and having a pre-defined standard helps reduce that effort greatly. Q: When a DoD contractor is developing a new system/software as a deliverable in a typical DoD contract, is it possible to include existing open source software? Q: Is open source software the same as "open systems/open standards"? This need for legal analysis is one reason why creating new OSS licenses is strongly discouraged: It can be extremely difficult, costly, and time-consuming to analyze the interplay of many different licenses. This control is intended to limit the use of certain kinds of “binary or machine executable” software when “the Government does not have access to the original source code”. Yes. Q: Under what conditions can GPL-licensed software be mixed with proprietary/classified software? U.S. government contractors (including those in the DoD) are often indemnified from patent infringement by the U.S. government as part of their contract. That said, this does not mean that all OSS is superior to all proprietary software in all cases by all measures. Q: Can the government release software under an open source license if it was developed by contractors under government contract? Most commercial software (including OSS) is not designed for such purposes. This enables cost-sharing between users, as with proprietary development models. In the commercial world, the copyright holders are typically the individuals and organizations that originally developed the software. No; this is a low-probability risk for widely-used OSS programs. Thus, as long as the software has at least one non-governmental use, software released (or offered for release) to the public is a commercial item for procurement purposes. Yes, it's possible. 2013) document and mandated by the DoD Instruction (DoDI) 8100.04. In some cases a DoD contractor may be required to transfer copyright to the government for works produced under contract (see DFARS 252.227-7020). The term "open source software" is sometimes hyphenated as "open-source software". Open source software that has at least one non-governmental use, and has been or is available to the public, is commercial software. Parties are innocent until proven guilty, so if there. The DoD CIO does not endorse any specific event or conference. The central repository for the source code to create hardened and evaluated containers for the DoD; Stores various source code such as open-source products and Infrastructure as Code (IAC) used to harden … Many products include commercial off-the-shelf, government off-the-shelf, or open-source software components, so developers must be aware of risks introduced through the acquisition and supply chain. This includes the most popular FLOSS license, the, Weakly Protective (aka strong copyleft): These licenses are a compromise between permissive and strongly protective licenses. Examples of OSS that are in widespread use include: There are many "Linux distributions" which provides suites of such software such as Red Hat Enterprise Linux, Fedora, Novell SuSE, Debian and Ubuntu. Unlike most software projects, code written by U.S. Federal government employees typically does not have copyright protections under U.S. and some international laws. Note that many of the largest commercially-supported OSS projects have their own sites. In software, "Open Source" refers to software where the human-readable source code is available to the users of the software. German courts have enforced the GPL. Such products are assessed for information assurance impacts, and approved for use by the DAA. A copyright holder who releases creative works under one of the Creative Common licenses that permit commercial use and modifications would be using an OSS-like approach for such works. This market research should occur "before developing new specifications for a procurement by that agency; and before soliciting bids or proposals for a contract in excess of the simplified acquisition threshold.". This memorandum only applies to Navy and Marine Corps commands, but may be a useful reference for others. As noted above, in nearly all cases, open source software is considered "commercial software" by U.S. law, the FAR, and the DFARS. Here is an explanation of these categories, along with common licenses used in each category (see The Free-Libre / Open Source Software (FLOSS) License Slide): In general, legal analysis is required to determine if multiple programs, covered by different OSS licenses, can be legally combined into a single larger work. Questions about why the government - who represents "the people" - is not releasing software that they paid for back to "the people". Public definitions include those of the European Interoperability Framework (EIF), the Digistan definition of open standard (based on the EIF), and Bruce Perens’ “Open Standards: Principles and Practice”. DoD Unified Capabilities Approved Products List: U.S. Validated Products List: Validated Products List: Press Announcements & Periodicals. Document from where and when any external software was acquired, as well as the license conditions, so that future users and maintainers can easily comply with the license terms. Open an issue or a pull request with your suggestions. It is intended for information purposes only, and may not be incorporated into any contract. However, if the covered software/library is itself modified, then additional conditions are imposed. Several static tool vendors support analysis of OSS (such as Coverity and Fortify) as a way to improve their tools and gain market use. When examining a specific OSS project, look for evidence that review (both by humans and tools) does take place. Once an invention is released to the public, the inventor has only one year to file for a patent, so any new ideas in some software must have a patent filed within one year by that inventor, or (in theory) they cannot be patented. Russian and Chinese firms targeted in attempt to improve cybersecurity . The key issue with both versions of the GPL is that, unlike most other OSS licenses, the GPL licenses require that a recipient of a binary (executable) must be able to demand and receive the source code of that program, and the recipient must also be able to propogate the work under that license. 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