Open Source Software Is Commercial

Nearly all publicly-available open source software (OSS) is commercial software.  Unfortunately, many government officials and contractors fail to understand this.  This misunderstanding can result in higher costs, longer delivery times, and reduced quality for government systems. There are also legal risks: government officials and contractors who do not understand this, yet influence the selection or use of software, will probably fail to comply with U.S. law and regulations on commercial software.  Finally, such government officials and contractors do not understand the modern commercial software marketplace, and thus are destined to make poor decisions about it.

This article explains why it is important to understand that OSS is commercial; explains why nearly all OSS is commercial software per U.S. law, regulation, and DoD policy; and shows why open source software is commercial even beyond the “letter of the law” because it has all the usual earmarks of commercial practice.  But first, we must define the term OSS.