isabella232 / arl-oss-process

U.S. Army Research Lab (ARL) - 18F Path Analysis

U.S. Army Research Lab - 18F Path Analysis

18F is partnered with the Army Research Lab (ARL) in an 8 week path analysis (PA) focused on understanding ARL's Open Source Software needs and current process. Initially, the problem we focused on was that ARL needs to be able to efficiently and transparently share open source software within legal requirements, but the current OSS process feels top-heavy to researchers. This repo stores all project artifacts related to this PA.

A cross-functional team from ARL and 18F set their vision on the following PA outcomes:

1. Generating an independent evaluation of ARL’s current open source policies and practices
2. Generating a set of open source software standards and recommendations
3. Creating a roadmap of opportunities and recommendations for ARL on how to take action

The team determined that in order for this PA to be successful, it would need to:

• Be implementable at ARL
• Reflect a diverse set of viewpoints
• Resonate as useful to others in the federal government that want to open source software

Team

• Andrew Dunkman, Engineer
• Jin Kwon, ARL Partner
• Eleni Gesch-Karamanlidis, Strategist, Project Lead

Timeline

Weeks 1–2	Weeks 3–4	Weeks 5–6	Weeks 7–8
Kickoff Plan research Conduct initial research	Conduct more research Discuss initial findings Revise problem focus if needed Mid-project check-in	Finish research Analyze and discuss findings Incorporate team feedback Develop, discuss, prioritize recommendations	Incorporate team feedback Final presentation

• Project onsite kickoff: March 26-28, 2019
• Retros: every 2 Fridays starting March 29, 2019
• Mid project onsite check in: April 11, 2019
• Final onsite presentation: May 10, 2019
• Post Mortem: May 14, 2019

Key players

• 18F
  • Eleni Gesch-Karamanlidis, Strategist
  • Andrew Dunkman, Engineer
• Partner side
  • Partner: Jin Kwon
  • Stakeholders: OSS Task Force
  • Project sponsor: Cindy Bedell and Chris Oliver

Collaboration tools

• Project tasks - Trello
• Chat - Slack
• Project documentation - GitHub

Laws and regulations

Through the course of this project, we reviewed the following:

• Federal Source Code policy (OMB M-16-21)
• 17 U.S.C. § 105 and 15 U.S.C. § 3710
• DFAR Subpart 227.72 - Rights in Computer Software and Computer Software Documentation
• DoD Memorandum: Clarifying Guidance Regarding Open Source Software
• AR 5-11 Management of Army Modeling and Simulation
• AR 25-2 Information Assurance
• AR 27-60 Intellectual Property
• AR 380-10 Foreign Disclosure and Contacts with Foreign Representatives

Contributing

This repository contains our notes, files, and artifacts, and is public by design — feel free to chime in or submit a pull request! See our contributing guide.