Technology
John Scott, Director of Open Source Software and Open Integration at RadientBlue Technologies, joined Deb Bryant of Oregon State University's Open Source Lab to discuss how open source software and development approaches are used in the US Department of Defense. John is well known for his work for the DoD on the groundbreaking "Open Technology Development Roadmap". Published in April of 2006, the document examines opportunities that DoD could exploit to improve technology outcomes and lower costs, largely addressing the change in culture and practices that DoD would need to undertake to take advantage of OSS in the US Military. Scott also participates deeply in the Military Open source community, managing the Mil-OSS Google Group and organizing events including the Mil-OSS conference & unconference. Information can be found at http://mil-oss.org/. In the interview, Scott talks about recent news about OSS throughout the DOD. He shares news of a recent policy memo issued but the DoD CIO, recognizing open source software and participation in open source communities and projects as being officially permitted by the US Department of Defense. He also shares news of a forthcoming DoD open technology "field manual", addressing needs throughout the DoD to understand how to utilize open source on a military project. Scott also mentions some military software projects that have been released to the world as open source projects. He talks about the growth of geospatial OSS and he specifically mentions Falconview, a route planning & spatial analysis system used by the Marines for route planning. Scott also credits the rest of the US Federal Government for adopting more open source software, especially state and local government where lots of discussion are happening. Thanks to John for joining us. His blog can be found at http://powdermonkey.blogs.com/.