Commercial-off-the-Shelf (COTS)

See the following -

A Fresh Look at the U.S. Draft Policy on 'Federal Sourcing'

In a recent article in Government Computer News, I looked at the challenge of reshaping federal IT with open source without go-it-alone government-off-the-shelf approaches to open source software. In that article, I noted that the growing use of open source software by governments has shifted from "whether to use" to "how to deploy." The latest evidence for this is a draft Federal Sourcing Policy announced by the U.S. Office of Management and Budget (OMB), which drives U.S. government (USG) procurement and IT policy...

DSS, Inc. Releases New Version of Open Source EHR, vxVistA, to Healthcare IT Community

Press Release | Document Storage Systems, Inc. | June 28, 2016

Document Storage Systems, Inc. (DSS, Inc.), a leading provider of health information technology (HIT) solutions for federal, private and public healthcare organizations, today announced the release of the latest vxVistA Open Source electronic health record (EHR) version 15.0 under Apache 2.0 license. The latest version of vxVistA will improve workflow efficiency, enable interoperability and enhance patient safety through modernizing the Veterans Health Information Systems and Technology Architecture (VistA) legacy system. Hospitals, clinics, physician practices and community health organizations are able to access vxVistA 15.0 via The VistA Extensions Hub...

Read More »

How Three College Students Built a Health Provider Search Site in Six Weeks - A Lesson for the Federal Government

In six weeks, a team of three college students with no industry experience and only academic software-specific knowledge, developed and designed a health care provider search system using only open source software. To tell you how they got there, let's start with a little history of open source software in the US federal government workspace... Read More »

Who Controls Your Smartphone? And How to Leverage Open Source to Prevent it from Spying on You

There are many things about today’s world that warrant us asking that question. Do you or the mobile vendor control your smartphones? If you are a consumer, small or medium business (SMB) -- the answer is the vendor...What if you are a large enterprise or a government agency? The answer is still the vendor...How can the user regain control? Not all vendors have locked devices and walled gardens. Google’s line of Pixel hardware, for example, is a mid-market solution whose bootloader allows locking and re-locking. Pixels support two versions of Android. Google Mobile Services (GMS), where free services are tied to data monetization and a UX like Apple and Samsung devices. Secondly, Pixels can run Android Open-Source Project (AOSP) code that shares the same strengths as the GMS build, but the customer controls the code base and updates. There are several companies that are selling AOSP operating system builds for Pixel and other unlockable/lockable mobile phones and tablets...

Read More »