Kitware Participates in Military Open Source Software Working Group

In August, Kitware participated in the second iteration of the Military Open Source Software Working Group (MILOSS). The company has had representatives at each of the iterations of this working group which aims to grow open source adoption and contribution within the Department of Defense and its burgeoning contractor community. This year’s conference featured speakers from each branch of the armed services as well as speakers from companies dedicated to open source such as Redhat and Puppet Labs.

Lockheed Martin had representatives to present their work on Eureka Streams, a new open-source project sponsored and developed within that company, which is perhaps an illustration of the greater movement toward open source software within the government contracting community. Seeing the large, traditional defense contractors embrace open-source and contribute back to the community is a testament to the growth in awareness of open technology in recent years.

The Defense Information Systems Agency (DISA) also spoke about their work with Collabnet (the custodians of Subversion) to develop Forge.mil, a Source Forge for “community source” projects within the military. This allows projects that are deemed too sensitive in nature for public consumption to be shared within the government and other trusted entities. Forge.mil and traditional open-source seem to have a bright future in the years ahead.

Kitware’s Patrick Reynolds and Chuck Atkins participated in many of the lively panel discussions and after-hours philosophical arguments about how the DoD can best benefit from open source. Mr. Reynolds was given the opportunity to give an Ignite Presentation on “Open-Source Continuous Integration using CMake and CDash” during one of the speaking sessions. Ignite talks are five minute talks with 20 slides that auto-advance every 15 seconds. The six Ignite speakers presented at breakneck speed over topics as diverse as large-scale system administration and combat-relevant position-location information.

As Kitware’s business involves collaboration with more and more traditional defense contractors, interactions with vibrant communities like MIL-OSS will help broaden the reach of open source within government.