Not content to leave all of the open source software in government lobbying and debate to the UK or Europe, the Yanks have finally gotten around to organizing their own open source software body for promoting FOSS in the U.S. government: enter Open Source for America.

This is good to see, and while the breadth of more than 40 open source vendors and other organizations, including the Open Solutions Alliance, makes for a good start, we would agree the OSA is somewhat overdue. Still, it represents a key opportunity for vendors of open source software, as well as opportunities for cost and time reductions and efficiency gains for government in the U.S. Similar to the situation in the UK, we believe the U.S. government would be wise to simply consider open source software options whenever possible, on equal footing with other products, rather than mandate some sort of all-or-nothing approach with any particular type of software.

The opportunity for vendors lies in providing the certification, service levels and bureaucratic support that is often lacking with open source software that would nonetheless be advantageous to government users. Open source software projects and communities are best at producing and refining software, not jumping through the hoops and going through the mundane tasks of seeing a project or code through to government-approved status. I’ve written in the past about the challenge for open source software vendors to participate in government adoption when bidding and request-for-proposal procedures and frameworks require outbound or targeted sales efforts that are not part of many open source projects and companies.

All of that red tape and busy work is stll a challenge, but many open source vendors are already responding. The advent of Open Source for America should help drive greater awareness and, ultimately, government adoption of open source software. The more integrated, simplified, certified and ‘official’ OSA members can make that adoption of open source software, the more successful the effort will be.