Two Open Science Hardware Foundation (OSHF) board members, Shannon Dosemagan and Alison Parker—along with Eunice Mercado-Lara of Open Research Community Accelerator—have published an article on the power of government procurement policy to drive adoption of open source technologies.
In a piece titled “Unlocking Innovation: Why Federal Procurement Should Embrace Open Source” published on Tech Policy Press, they observed that “[government] procurement choices shape the landscape of science by exerting control over who can participate in the market of science and technology products and services.” In fact, “procurement is a battleground for democracy itself“.
Unfortunately, current procurement policies in the United States disadvantage new entrants, and the bureaucracy is especially burdensome for innovators creating open source technologies. In one forum, participants cited the “complex, opaque, and time-intensive processes” of government procurement leading to proprietary vendor lock-in by big, established firms. This leads to examples such as some critical IT infrastructures still using floppy disks.
In contrast, the authors argue that the freedom which comes with open source solutions (including hardware!) not only drives innovation, but also lowers costs while reducing dependency on a few long-term vendors.
The article proposes three actions to drive the adoption of open source technologies: (1) explicitly consider open source alternatives in contracting; (2) encourage modularity in the design of contract-developed systems; and (3) eliminating arbitrary thresholds which bar small and new vendors from entering the market of government procurement.
We invite you to read the full article on Tech Policy Press, the associated policy brief, and share them with others. Your engagement helps amplify important voices in the open source community. Find the full article here:
https://www.techpolicy.press/unlocking-innovation-why-federal-procurement-should-embrace-open-source
Image derived from “money hand” by Mike O. and “open source” by Wahicon from the Noun Project, CC BY 3.0.
