Proprietary Software Vendors Demand Changes To Issa’s IT Reform Bill

A coalition of technology vendors demanded changes on Friday to proposed legislation that would overhaul the way agencies purchase information technology, saying they will not endorse the bill in its current form. The groups criticized the Federal Information Technology Reform Act, proposed by Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Calif., for creating a new Commodity IT Acquisition Center tasked with overseeing large, governmentwide information technology contracts.

That new center might “create more confusion for government procurement officials and could hamper the acquisition process, not simplify it,” a spokeswoman for one of the industry groups, TechAmerica, said in an email announcing the letter...

Friday’s letter also criticized Issa’s legislation for urging agencies to use open source software, which is often cheaper than proprietary software and sometimes easier to update and maintain. That suggestion “strays from the core principle that statutes should be technology neutral,” the organizations said...