Letter: The danger of standard configuration
If agencies become overly focused on adhering to vendor-specific solutions, they run the risk of missing out on innovations that could better address their users' needs.
In reference to "Use of brand names in solicitations still a problem," I empathize with Red Hat and other viable software companies with regard to the well-intended work of OMB and NIST to advance standardized security configurations. Unfortunately, the message contained in both OMB and NIST recommendations is very vendor-specific and recommends the adoption of a single vendor configuration. This clearly puts the open source community at a disadvantage, since they have not been given an equal opportunity to participate in this effort, and it works in favor of Microsoft, which already has unfair advantage.
The real harm comes from having agencies get so caught up in moving to enterprise agreements that support these configurations that they overlook the real needs of the user community and miss emerging innovations that could provide greater value at lower cost.
John Weiler, The Interoperability Clearinghouse
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