Effect of Software Support Needs on the Department of Defense Software Acquisition Policy. Part 1. A Framework for Analyzing Legal Issues

摘要

It is often in the context of acquiring intellectual property needed to maintain and enhance software that data rights disputes arise between DoD and private industry. DoD representatives identify access to source code, documentation and software tools as being vital to maintenance and enhancement. This report discusses technical and managerial variables that might affect DoD's need for such intellectual property. It is concluded that the choice of a group to carry out maintenance and enhancement is a key factor in determining DoD's requirements. Other important variables include use of software standards, higher order programming languages and reused software. Consideration of these factors could enable DoD to tailor more narrowly an acquisition to those items needed to maintain and enhance software, potentially reducing both DoD's costs, and the tension that exists between DoD and private industry with respect to data rights issues.