The Enemy of the Good--Health care and NASA

The attempt to do things perfectly is often an enemy to the good. This Government Executive piece outlines a familiar story: do you use a military standard software system that's centrally designed and inflexible, or do you use a locally developed system that works better, at least for some. This is in the area of military healthcare. An easy response is that it's such a vital area that things need to be exactly right, hence the need for a centrally planned and managed system.

A counter to that is a piece in the PC Magazine, including this discussion on NASA and even DOD:

The space agency itself has released at least 20 open-source applications under the NASA Open Source Agreement, including Livingstone2, a reusable artificial-intelligence software system that lets a spacecraft operate with minimal human oversight even if its hardware fails.

As the first federal agency to commit an open-source policy to paper, the Department of Defense has continued to encourage open-source deployments.

"Open-source software . . . connects and enables our command and control system to work effectively," said Brigadier General Nickolas Justice at an open-source technology conference in Arlington, Virginia. "When we rolled into Baghdad, we did it using open source."

More recent uses include the Navy's DDG 1000 Zumwalt class destroyer, built primarily on Red Hat Linux, and the Large Data Joint Capabilities Technology Demonstration, which allows quick handling of huge volumes of geospatial data. Such initiatives could streamline federal agencies and offer a new transparency to government.

So it's good to use open source in destroyers, but not in health care. (I recognize the difference between "open source", where the source code is public and available for people to change and improve, and "locally developed", where the source code is probably not public and almost certainly was not managed in a way that invites public comment and change. But, the psychology is similar--do you, the manager, want total control or do you want to steadily improve the software your users employ?