DISA moves to sole source open source support contract

The Defense Information Systems Agency says it intends to sole source an open source support contract for software that in fact appears to be commonly supported. In an Aug. 14 notice posted onto FedBizOps, DISA says only Broomfield, Colo.-based Open Logic is able to provide support for open source software utilized by the Wounded Warrior traumatic brain injury and behavioral health project managed by the Defense Health Information Management System.

Among the software that DISA says only Open Logic can support is OpenLDAP, an open source implementation of the Lightweight Directory Access Protocol, and the Spring Framework, an application development framework for enterprise Java. "This software previously has been integrated into the production environment, successfully tested, and is integral to the overall functioning of the TBI-BH project," says a DISA justification and approval document (.doc)...

UPDATE AUG. 17--Open Logic sent the following statement: "One very critical piece of our open source support model is our service level agreements (SLA's) and the fact that we aggregate support on literally hundreds of open source software components.  To the best of our knowledge there is no other commercial open source support provider in the world that guarantee's in a contractual obligation to customers both a response and a resolution with in a specific time period on as many OSS products as we do...