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Open Source and Open Standards
in Military Training1
In recent years, the popularity of open
source software—software in which the source code
is available under one of a variety of free licenses—has
grown dramatically, to the point where it underlies
our daily existence, whether we are aware of it or not.
For example, when we check e-mail, more often than not,
we retrieve our messages from open source e-mail servers,
running on open source operating systems. When we visit
Websites, more often than not, those Websites are built
on open source Web servers, with the Web pages passing
through routers running open source software on their
way to our desktops.
Open source software has become popular
for many reasons, both quantitative (e.g., it costs
less than proprietary alternatives) and qualitative
(e.g., it encourages innovation). One important qualitative
reason for the success of open source software is the
popular and growing belief—a correct belief, in
this author’s opinion—that it protects adopters
from many of the disadvantages of proprietary, single-source
solutions. Even for a firm that would probably never
modify the source code of a product it uses, the knowledge
that it could do so if necessary is a significant reduction
in risk.
From the standpoint of a software vendor,
this is an extremely important point: open source software
increases customer confidence. When customers know that
their technology acquisitions are based on proven open
source solutions, and when they know that they will
never be required to go back to the original vendor
for modifications—though they may well choose to
do so—it removes a barrier to purchase and makes
them more likely to buy. This is part of the answer
to a question that dogged the open source community
in its early days: how can businesses make money and
grow by selling something that’s free? The answer
is that they don’t. They make money by adding value
to what is already available for free, and they grow
by making it easier for customers to make purchase decisions.
The danger of lock-in
Historically, defense contractors building software
have, on occasion, done their best to lock in military
customers, making it difficult or impossible for their
customers to maintain or enhance their software without
going back to the original contractor. One presumes
the contractors who have pursued such strategies have
done so because they have felt that to make it easy
for the customer to modify their work, or to contract
with anyone else to do so, would be to reduce their
future business prospects. I have listened to government
customers complain about proprietary legacy software
systems for training and analysis. “We have to
go back to the original vendor for even the slightest
change,” they say. “It’s expensive and
it takes too long. There has to be a better way.”
In fact, there is a better way, and it is open source
software. And open source software isn’t just better
for military customers; it is better for military training
vendors as well. By removing a significant barrier to
purchase—the fear of proprietary lock-in—open
source software makes it easier for military customers
to commit to new software-based training projects.
If open source software makes purchasing
decisions easier, is the corollary true? Does lock-in
make purchasing decisions more difficult? I believe
that ultimately it does. In other words, as a strategy,
lock-in is ultimately self-defeating. It may work in
the short term, but over the long term, lock-in discourages
purchases and reduces business opportunities for training
vendors.
Military open source
adoption
Recognizing much of the above, military organizations
around the world are already adopting open source software,
or authorizing and encouraging such adoption:
- The US Department of Defense
has authorized the use of open source software since
2003.
- The US Navy has launched a three-year
program with the Open Source Software Institute to
increase its use of open source software, focusing
on applications within the Naval Oceanographic Office’s
Web services, scientific computing and enterprise
architecture systems.
- The Canadian Department of National
Defence and the Canadian Forces has called open source
software “a viable cost-saving opportunity”
and said that it offers “concrete opportunities
for... technology insertion and flexibility”.
- Indian President A. P. J. Abdul
Kalam has called for his country’s military to
use nonproprietary technology, asking defense engineers
to develop and implement on open platforms.
Open source and
confidentiality
A common and easily made mistake is to assume that open
source licenses require the release of any code or resulting
product built using open source software. This sometimes
is true, but often is not.
The GNU (Gnu’s Not Unix) Project’s
GPL (General Public License) requires that when modifying
source code licensed under the GPL, any and all modifications
to that source code must be made available freely under
the same GPL. This is obviously unacceptable for military
software projects in which the source code could conceivably
be considered sensitive from a security standpoint—though
it does not preclude the use of such code for any military
project. The popular open source operating system Linux
uses the GPL, and yet is in use today within the US
military as an operating system for a variety of uses.
This is not only acceptable but even desirable, given
the well-documented suitability of Linux for many tasks.
But to build a sensitive military computing system that
requires modifications to the Linux source code would
be impossible.
However, the very popular FreeBSD (Berkeley
Software Design) Foundation’s FreeBSD license merely
allows the redistribution of modified code, as long
as certain conditions are met. In other words, modifying
source code licensed using FreeBSD and delivering a
product based on that modified source code does not
obligate the modifier or the customer to release either
the source code or the resulting product. Croquet, a
new operating system being developed from the ground
up specifically to enable collaborative visual applications,
is licensed under FreeBSD-style terms, allowing interested
parties to make any desired modifications to it, to
deliver commercial products based upon those modifications,
and to decide on a case-by-case basis when to share
those modifications with the world at large. Other similarly
flexible open source licenses exist as well.
Open standards
As open source software has become pervasive, open standards—non-proprietary
standards for data representation and interchange—have
gone beyond pervasiveness to become ubiquitous and universal.
The Internet and the Web literally would not function
without the open standards upon which they are based,
such as HTML, TCP/IP, and many others.
The simulation learning community has
a strong track record of creating and adopting open
standards for content creation and delivery. These standards
include: XML (eXtensible Markup Language) for generic
data representation, SCORM (Sharable Content Object
Reference Model) for the sharing of learning objects,
S1000D for technical publications, U3D (Universal 3D)
for 3D data repurposing, and others.
Much work beyond these standards is needed,
however, to address the needs of the fast-growing simulation
learning community and military organizations. The time
has come for the simulation learning industry and its
customers to take the next step and reap the benefits
of open standards and open source software. To take
this step, military organizations need to require three
things of their vendors:
Next steps
1. All content generated on learning projects must be
delivered in formats based upon open standards. This
does not preclude innovation, adaptation, and flexibility—far
from it. For example, at 3Dsolve, we use XML for all
our lesson and scenario definition files. However, we
have used XML to create a variety of schema—basically
data templates—that are geared to the needs of
our specific projects. We document these schema for
our customers so that they can, if they so choose, enhance
and extend our lessons and scenarios themselves, either
using plain text editors or any of a variety of Commercial-off-the-Shelf
(COTS) XML editors.
2. When pre-existing software is required
for a project, whenever possible, open source software
should be used. This does not preclude the use of proprietary
COTS software. In many cases, proprietary COTS software
is the best possible solution to a given problem. Again,
using 3Dsolve as an example, we use a mixture of tools
drawn from COTS, from open source software, and from
our own internally developed software. For a customer
to require or for a vendor to suggest that sub-standard
software be used solely on the basis of its licensing
terms would be a disservice to those who will use the
resulting product. But where open source software alternatives
exist, and where such alternatives match or exceed the
functionality of proprietary COTS software, the choice
should be clear.
3. Any software developed for a project
should be released under an open source software license,
preferably that of FreeBSD or a similar license. This
ensures not only that the customer will have ongoing
access to the code, but that other customers and vendors
alike will also have such access.
To bring about these changes will require the active
and enthusiastic participation of military customers
of simulation learning software. These customers must
begin to require that vendors use open source software
where practical, and require their vendors to explain
thoroughly when this is not the case. Most importantly,
military customers must require that vendors release
all code developed using government funds under an open
source software license. This may be the most difficult
change to engender, because as a customer, it is easy
to say, “I paid for it, so I should own it exclusively.”
This can be a tempting thought, but it is counter-productive.
As more and more military customers release code for
their projects under open source licenses, the availability
of such code will create a network effect, amplifying
the efforts of all vendors by allowing them to build
on what already exists. As has been so amply demonstrated
in the civilian open source community, this will lead
to better products at lower prices.
As a growing number of organizations require
the use and development of open source software by vendors,
the military simulation learning community will create
an ever-growing body of tools and technologies, available
for all to build upon, fueling ever-faster growth in
capabilities and applications. As Netscape founder Marc
Andreessen noted, “Open source means standing on
the shoulders of giants.” By standing on each others’
shoulders, we, the vendors of simulation learning solutions
for military applications, will be able to lift ourselves
higher and to do so faster than ever before.
Biography
Frank Boosman is Chief Operating Officer and a co-founder
of 3Dsolve. He served as the original product manager
for Adobe Acrobat; designed Tom Clancy SSN,
the first 3D submarine simulation game; co-founded pioneering
game developer Red Storm Entertainment; and co-created
Tom Clancy’s Rainbow Six, the first realistic
first-person tactical combat game.
Notes
1 An abridged version of this
article was published in Military Training Technology
magazine
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