Protest slows NASA open source project

The National Aeronautics and Space Administration’s plans to transition to a content management system with open source architecture are on hold for a little while.

The agency awarded a $40 million blanket purchase agreement in mid-December to Rockville, Md.-based InfoZen to replace the agency’s existing CMS – operated for several years by eTouch Federal Systems LLC – with open source architecture to run its 140 websites and 1,600 web assets and applications.

But that contract has come under protest from eTouch Federal Systems LLC, which filed a formal bid protest on Dec. 28 against NASA’s new deal with InfoZen.

The contract is now under review by the Government Accountability Office with an expected resolution by April 8, according to a NASA official.

The official said it was unclear whether work under the new agreement with InfoZen would begin. The contract has a one-year base and four one-year options and was previously scheduled to begin Feb. 1, 2013.

Bid protest aside, the contract with InfoZen appeared to fulfill a goal outlined in NASA’s Open Government Plan, which called for the creation of a single infrastructure to support the agency’s websites and applications, giving preference for open-source technology.

The agency’s Open Government Plan was a direct result of the Obama administration’s Open Government Initiative.

In a statement released prior to the bid protest, NASA said the agreement with InfoZen will provide a cloud-based solution for Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS), Platform as a Service (PaaS), and Software as a Service (SaaS) for internal and external websites and web applications. Services will include content management, as well as search and collaborative services, such as blogs and wikis.

NASA’s main portal, www.nasa.gov, attracts 600,000 unique web visitors per day and more than 140 million visits per year. The agency has been soliciting user feedback for the redesign, and NASA.gov content manager Brian Dunbar recently discussed plans for the site in a PBS.org podcast.

Further details from NASA were not available. InfoZen’s CTO Christopher David said he could not comment on details of the contract or InfoZen’s plans for NASA, due to the bid protest. Meanwhile, eTouch did not respond to requests for comment.