From: srctran@world.std.com (Gregory Aharonian)
Subject: DoE software reuse as bad as DoD
Organization: The World Public Access UNIX, Brookline, MA
Date: Fri, 18 Dec 1992 15:29:03 GMT

    I often note how ineffectual and wasteful are DoD software reuse policies,
especially from a private supplier point of view.  To be fair, the DoD
does no better or worse than other government agencies when it comes to
creating rational policies for effective reuse of government software and
its transfer to the private sector.

    Case in point is the DoE, which has had a software reuse/clearinghouse
operation for over fifteen years, and has made many more mistakes than the
DoD.  For example, here is their current price schedule for purchasing
software from their distribution center:


	              Price Structure for DOE Software

	     Customer  	    	 Personal  	     	  Super
	     category  	    	 computer  Mainframe 	  computer

	DOE  	       	    	 $140 	   $ 500     	  $1,200
	Other federal agencies 	  160 	     570     	   1,360
	U.S. universities   	  165 	     615     	   1,475
	U.S. public    	    	  510 	   1,835     	   4,560
	Foreign	       	    	  780 	   2,715     	   6,700


Why is this a bad pricing structure?  First, most DoE codes are in Fortran,
and most scientists and engineers are used to porting such codes across
platforms with ease, which for supercomputers is helped by tools from the
manufacturer.  Thus to save money, I would buy the personal computer version
and port it myself, given the very high markups for the non-personal computer
versions.  Thus if there is any economic need by the DoE center to charge
high prices to recoup or cover some support cost, it is undermined by
the market.

Second, given the great internetworking of DoE labs in this country, most
DoE people can usually get a DoE computer program just by contacting their
colleague at another site.  In fact, I have gotten DoE software from DoE
authors by contacting them personally, people who didn't want to see me
or others spend lots of money for their software.  Also intra-agency
exchanges of small sums of money (these costs) is not an efficient method of
government operations.

Third, standard practice in the real world, is to offer the academic world
a real cut-rate price, lower than the wholesale price (though maybe slightly
crippled).  Especially if your interest is fostering technology transfer and
education (like the DoE claims), you offer the academic world a lower price.
Not so for the DoE in this case.

Fourth, a uniform pricing policy is not optimal for making profits.  For
example, a 100 line computer program (that you acquire the listing for in
a DoE technical report for $20 and type in yourself) costs as much as a
300,000 line library of numerical analysis subroutines.

Finally, a problem that plagues most government reuse efforts, is that the
programs are available unrestricted.  Once you buy a copy, you can do
whatever you want with it, including posting it to the Internet.  I have
seen sales of some of the better programs from a variety of agencies killed
because they were posted to the Internet.  Also anonymous ftp allows DoE
scientists to "naively" undermine the DoE sales policy.

In short, the DoD's ability to do something with reuse is no better or worse
than the other agencies, as all are based on faulty economic assumptions.
(Of course it doesn't help that the DoD, in its usual arrogance, has shown
little interest in the operations and histories of these other efforts,
from which much can be learned).

The aggregrate of all of the government's software is a very valuable
resource, reflecting tens of billions of dollars of original development
cost.  These exercises in waste are incredible to watch.

Greg Aharonian
Source Translation & Optimization
-- 
**************************************************************************
Greg Aharonian
Source Translation & Optimiztion
P.O. Box 404, Belmont, MA 02178
Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada