| I'm excited, skeptical, and interested all at once. When the hackers leave, who's going to end up doing maintenance on these projects? It's not unusual for a gov't developer to work on a project just long enough to be productive, only to have them leave for greener pastures (often a promotion or relocation). In this case, most will want to stop suffering at lower salary and go back to SV. So it seems like it's going to be USDS holding the bag; unless there's a solid plan to transition the workload back to the VA (either organic or contractor), then USDS will have to maintain every project they start (forever). On the other hand, I bet there are more than a couple good developers within the VA that would love to take over the projects, if only there were a permanent position they could do it from. Why can't Ash Carter set up more permanent positions? Worst case scenario, a new President comes in and sunsets USDS, requiring VA to maintain the workload. VA balks, they hand it to Deloitte/BAH/etc, and we're back to square one. Best case scenario, USDS build quality solutions that last decades and can become the next legacy system that VA builds on. And maybe USDS (if it's still around) can re-revamp the system, etc etc. Also, I really don't understand the lobbyist's angle on open source: isn't all code written by a federal employee already in the public domain? (with obvious exceptions re: security etc) |