Department of Defense to open source Corporate Management Information System

The DoD’s Defense Information Systems Agency (DISA) and the Open Source Software Institute (OSSI) announced a Cooperative Research and Development Agreement (CRADA) between DISA and OSSI, a US-based non-profit membership organization.

The CRADA involves release of an open source version of DISA’s internally-developed Corporate Management Information System (CMIS) for the purpose of a collaborative partnership between Government, non-profit organizations, academia and industry to research and develop state-of-the-art capabilities and functionality for DISA software for use by DoD, the Federal Government, state and local governments and the public.

The CMIS program is a web-based Federal administrative software suite consisting of more than 50 applications which handles human resource, training, security, acquisition and related functions for DISA’s more than 16,000 users worldwide.

Jack Penkoske, DISA’s Director of Manpower, Security and Personnel said:

CMIS is a core product within the DISA’s IT system. We have a lot invested in the CMIS application suite and numerous other Government agencies have asked if we’d allow them to adopt CMIS for their internal use. We chose a CRADA and open source model so that we could leverage other agencies’, academic, industry and the Open Source community’s enhancements and modifications to improve DISA’s system. We believe this will be a win-win for all involved.