Open Source Initiative
The Open Source Initiative provides the commonly recognized definition criteria for "Open Source". They also provide a list of approved licenses that conform to the definition.

Developing An Open Source Option for NASA Software
This NAS technical report provides background material on why an Open Source option is appropriate for NASA. Google "NASA Open Source software."

NASA Space Act (NASA Charter)
The NASA charter states that the agency shall "provide for the widest practicable and appropriate dissemination of information concerning its activities and the results thereof." We aim to live up to that directive.

Faster, Better, Cheaper -- NSF-Sponsored Software Research
The National Science Foundation (NSF) released an announcement highlighting research by Professor Walt Scacchi at the University of California, Irvine. The NSF-sponsored work finds that the Open-Source distribution model holds many advantages over traditional development models. See also Walt Scacchi's home page.

Computing Research Institute Report
The Computing Research Association (CRA) published a report on licensing strategies for information technology. CRA membership includes over 200 academic institutions (including many of the leaders in information technology), industry, and government laboratories (including LLNL, LANL, LBNL). The report focuses on "debunking the belief, widely held by university commercialization and licensing officials, and shared by some faculty in Computer Science and Electrical and Computer Engineering departments, that Information Technology Intellectual Property can be a significant source of licensing income." See: "Model Language for Patent and License Agreements for Industrially Sponsored University Research in Information Technology" (PDF version, 143K). Section 4 provides interesting statistics on licensing income.

The Center of Open Source & Government
The Center of Open Source & Government provides a number of useful links to resources relevant to Open Source software within the government.

Use of Free and Open Source Software in the US Department of Defense (PDF version, 3.9 MB)
This report documents the results of a short email-mediated study by Terry Bollinger at the MITRE Corporation on the use of free and open-source software (FOSS) in the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD). The main conclusion of the analysis was that FOSS software plays a more critical role in the DoD than has generally been recognized.

PITAC "Developing Open Source Software for High End Computing" (PDF version, 1.4 MB)
In 2000, a President's Information Technology Advisory Committee (PITAC) was convened to address the subject of "Developing Open Source Software to Advance High End Computing." The committee included participants from industry, academia, and government laboratories. Bill Feiereisen, the former chief of the NAS Division, was one of the NASA representatives. The committee produced three recommendations:

• The federal government should encourage the development of Open Source Software as an alternate path for software development for High End Computing.
• The federal government should allow open source development efforts to compete on a "level playing field" with proprietary solutions in government procurement of high end computing software. Requests for Proposals (RFPs) from federal agencies for high-end computing software, tools, and libraries should include provisions allowing these efforts to be carried out using open source.
• An analysis of existing open source licensing agreements should be undertaken, and the results should be distributed to all agencies funding high end computing. The analysis should describe characteristics of each license and give specific examples of situations in which it may be preferable to use one type over another. The use of common licensing agreements should be encouraged.

While the committee's focus was on high-end computing, much of the rationale behind their findings could be applied to the broader information technology arena.

Mozilla & Netscape Public Licenses
This link provides notes on the Mozilla and and Netscape licenses, as well as a linkto information on the MPL/GPL/LGPL "triple license".

To read some of the links above you will need the free Adobe Acrobat Reader.