Recently I posted a basic statement by Major James Neushul, USMC Communication Officer and Information Management Officer. Below is his full statement – available nowhere else online – I’ve highlighted some key points. It’s a bit of a long read, I know, but it’s worth it.

Military software – by and large – sucks.

• Most military professionals don’t know or care about software, and do not distinguish software from systems.
• Military Industrial Complex (MIC) corporations cannot and do not compete in the real economy.
• MIC corporations are protected behind “Systems Engineering” requirements that are layered with policies enforced by military professionals who don’t understand them.
• “Systems Engineering,” “System of Systems,” “Configuration Management,” “Systems Integration,” and “Security Accreditation” are MIC supported concepts that are used to preserve system-centric MIC profit motives and cannot be associated with verifiable success models.
• MIC corporations persist socialist style mediocrity behind a facade of legalistic capitalism.
• DOD system architectures are completely divorced from DOD operational architectures to the detriment of Warfighting effectiveness.
• Net-Centric Warfare Doctrine is an excellent effort that has never been realized, despite widespread claims of success.
• Net-Centric Warfare objectives will not be achieved until exclusive use of open standards and public domain Open Source software are mandated and enforced in the DOD.
• The DOD owns all of the software it has paid for, but demonstrates ownership of none of the software it has paid for.
• The vast majority of U.S. Military software development is duplicative.
• Code re-use is unheard of due to the complete lack of policy, neglect of existing network resources, and abrogation of responsibility by DOD leadership.
• All products of DOD software development belong to the people of the United States and must be made available to them.
• Through the ignorance of their military overseers MIC corporations take de-facto ownership of the DOD software that they develop, and in doing so they steal from the people of the United States. By allowing this, military professionals and DOD officials violate the public trust.
• Failure to require that ALL products of software development activities in the DOD be made completely available to ALL DOD entities, organizations and developers using existing software repository tools is reprehensible.

Major premise: Failure to make ALL products of software development activities available to the general public using existing software repositories except in cases where CLEAR and PROVABLE security concerns exist is wasteful, unnecessary and abusive of public trust.

Minor Premise: With current object oriented procedures that effectively allow the separation of presentation and data, software that CLEARLY and PROVABLY demonstrates or reveals controlled or secret information is so poorly designed as to represent a WORST practice – and should be prohibited in the strongest terms and eliminated.

Conclusion: All DOD software development products should be in the public domain as open source.

• Web Services and Service Oriented Architectures rely intrinsically on common, collaborative, open source technologies that derive relevance from widespread use and from the “Many Eyes” principle.
• NCW objectives will not be achieved until “Off-The-Shelf” products are replaced with “Off-the-Net” products.
• The requisite skills to achieve “Off-The-Net” capabilities do not exist in MIC corporations and are actively resisted in order to preserve traditional system-centric profit models. Service Oriented Architectures require service oriented profit models that existing non-competitive MIC corporations cannot be expected to achieve.
• Adherence to traditional development practices will result in continued failure to achieve NCW objectives.
• The “Many Eyes” principle is a cornerstone security factor that cannot be matched by any closed source processes, and without which truly reliable software cannot be developed.
• Explicit mandate of open source software that leverages a community of worldwide proportions is imperative for true security and reliability.
• Explicit mandate in the DOD of open source software that leverages public domain collaboration, re-use, and development will create a revolution in military affairs (RMA), and will represent an appropriate and effective expenditure of public funds in a way that will improve national defense, promote general public security, and support critical public infrastructure.
• Arguments that posit security or legal concerns to oppose the use and support of public domain open source software are vapid, uninformed, irresponsible and support MIC profit motives that are not in the best interests of the public or of the Warfighter.
• Version control has been solved in the public domain. It has not been solved in the DOD and represents billions of dollars of waste.
• Emulation of the public domain in the DOD is not sufficient.
• The use of Microsoft Software represents blatant violation of NCW principles, waste of public funds, ignorance of real security principles, and reprehensible complacency.
• Use of Microsoft software in the DOD caused friction and inertia that retards progress and is a clear detriment to Warfighting effectiveness.

NCW capabilities will not be realized until there is congressional or executive level mandate of open standard, open source, public domain software in the DOD and all government agencies.

As Neushul quotes in the header on the original document – “You cannot solve your problems using the same thinking that caused them.” – Einstein

What do you think? Is Neushul off his rocker or the only sane person related to Military Software? Hope you enjoyed this refreshing bit of fresh thought on the subject!

Colin