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18F's Contracting Cookbook: Open Source Software

https://pages.18f.gov/contracting-cookbook/recipes/open-source/

The Contractor shall develop all source code that should become property of the Government, for software deliverables which shall be made available by the contractor to the public as open source software, under the terms and conditions of a license determined or approved by the Government.

“Both the US Digital Services playbook and the 18F open-source policy strongly
suggest the use and creation of open-source software in the creation of digital 
services. Specifically, the 18F policy provides that the ‘default position’ should 
be to ‘Use Free and Open Source Software (FOSS), which is software that does not 
charge users a purchase or licensing fee for modifying or redistributing the 
source code, in our projects and contribute back to the open source community.’ 
Based on this default position, vendors who are developing software for the 
government should also use and create open-source software. In a recent solicitation
from the Department of Defense, the government included a requirement that all 
deliverables by made available to the public as open-source software, and more 
importantly, affords the government the authority to select the applicable license.

There are permutations of the language, but 18F’s favorite recipe involves 
requiring not only open-source software, but further requires that all software 
delivered be dedicated to the public domain under a Creative Commons Zero (CC0) license.”

...

Directions

  • Do some market research to determine whether or not there are open-source solutions available before you buy or build. Using pre-existing open-source libraries is a best practice, it’s delightful to improve or support an existing open-source library.
  • Make sure that your vendors understand, whether during an RFI or industry day, that open-source software is important for your project.
  • Include in your solicitation a requirement for open-source software. If you have a preferred license, specify it in the solicitation. If not, give yourself the flexibility to choose a license at a later point.
  • Make sure that your contractor holds to the open-source requirement, and require the contractor to provide all licenses for software dependencies as part of the deliverables.