The Initiative for Software Choice claims to be "a global initiative promoting neutral government procurement, standards and public R&D policies for software". In practice, though, the group clearly wants to influence government selection, and has taken a vehement stance against open source software in particular.
Here is an excerpt from a recent report.
Across the globe, more than two-dozen countries have proposed nearly 70 "preference" proposals . . . many of which seek to automatically create a preference for open source software (OSS) over equally viable hybrid or proprietary offerings. These policies strip customer choice from the selection process, greatly harming the software industry as a whole.
The report also makes a not-so-subtle allusion to the "viral nature of some OSS licenses, such as the GNU General Public License"; and, as ZDNet reports, the organization has argued that the Pentagon should not openly promote the use of open source software.
Innovation or ROI?
The report laments the possible loss of access to innovation: if open source were the category of software preferred by governments, the report says, "government agencies would be . . . disadvantaged, being denied access to the software innovations created by commercial software companies."
In the same paragraph, however, the report mentions that the selection of OSS as the preferred category of software "would also potentially foreclose the largely proprietary-based IT industry from billions of dollars in federal marketplace business."
And, indeed, there is a lot of money involved. The proposed IT budget for fiscal 2003 is $52 billion--8 percent of which, according to Richard Clarke, the president’s cybersecurity adviser, will go to information security.
The CIA, too, has been investing in tech firms. In 1999, the Agency started a venture capital firm called In-Q-Tel--in Silicon Valley. The firm's purpose is "to identify and invest in cutting-edge information technology solutions that serve U.S. national security interests." According to In-Q-Tel Chief Executive's Gilman Louie, "[h]alf of the 10 tech companies that went public this year had major government contracts", Mercury News reports.
If open source were to dominate the government's IT strategy, a significant percentage of these funds would not make their way into the hands of established -- or new -- corporations.
The organization's web site (which, incidentally, uses ASP) lists the initiative's members here. The list includes Cisco, Intel and Microsoft.