House Oversight Leaders Find Rare Bipartisan Agreement On Open Source IT Reform

One key to rationalizing the way information technology is managed in government is to mandate transparency about what agencies are buying and from whom, Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Calif., said during Nextgov Prime Monday. Rep. Gerry Connolly, D-Va., who appeared onstage with Issa, agreed.

“Off the shelf software for agency X, identical to that same software for agency Y, ought not to be proprietary information,” Connolly said. “Right now, often, it is. The same company selling the same software to two agencies can insist that one agency can’t know what the other one is paying for it. And it is not uncommon, as Darrell indicated, that, as a result, we have 24 different price structures for the same item.”

Issa has proposed legislation to reform federal information technology acquisitions that, among other things, would urge agencies to use open source software when possible. A coalition of industry groups criticized that provision and others in an open letter to Issa Friday, saying they could not endorse the legislation in its current form. Issa responded Monday that he intended the Federal Information Technology Acquisition Reform Act to be neutral about how technology is developed...