government-off-the-shelf (GOTS)

See the following -

A Fresh Look at the U.S. Draft Policy on 'Federal Sourcing'

In a recent article in Government Computer News, I looked at the challenge of reshaping federal IT with open source without go-it-alone government-off-the-shelf approaches to open source software. In that article, I noted that the growing use of open source software by governments has shifted from "whether to use" to "how to deploy." The latest evidence for this is a draft Federal Sourcing Policy announced by the U.S. Office of Management and Budget (OMB), which drives U.S. government (USG) procurement and IT policy...

U.S. Government Seeks Reduced Use of Custom Software, Releases New Policy to 'Free the Code'

As I've written before, there has been a shift, going back almost a decade, away from the debate over whether to use open source to a focus on the how to. The release by the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) of the U.S. Federal Source Code Policy on August 8th is the latest manifestation of this shift. It achieves the goal laid out in the Obama administration's Second Open Government National Action Plan (PDF) for improved access to custom software code developed for the federal government. The plan emphasized use of (and contributing back to) open source software to fuel innovation, lower costs, and benefit the public. It also furthers a long-standing "default to open" objective going back to the early days of the administration...