Fed Gets Tech Policy Right

Via opensource.com, the US Chief Information Officer Vivek Kundr, Administrator for Federal Procurement Policy Daniel Gordon, and US Imaginary Intellectual Property Enforcement Coordinator Victoria Espinel sent a brief memorandum on technology neutrality to CIO’s and senior procurement executives throughout the federal government. And it’s a gem. Here’s my favorite part:

The policies in these documents are built around the use of merit-based requirements development and evaluation processes that promote procurement choices based on performance and value, and free of preconceived preferences based on how the technology is developed, licensed or distributed. In the context of developing requirements and planing acquisitions for software, for example, this means, as a general matter, that agencies should analyze alternatives that include proprietary, open source, and mixed source technologies.

Perfect. I don’t think open source should get a leg up in software procurement. I just want it to have a leg.