[marcosdumay]

Well, federal government worker here too, but not on the US government.

Those rules are there because a malicious worker can cause a huge amount of damage. They are a pain (one entity I worked once spent about $15k (in people time) contracting $100 worth of ssl certificates, in a process that took more than a year (so, no certificates for the site during a period), we were forbiden from contracting the service for more than a year... and the contractor was another governmental entity. The rules are maddening, but they are necessary for a democracy.

The problem is that governmental IT is out of place. The government will never be competent in contracting software development - the only known tool that works in keeping government contracts honest is auctioning, and agile is simply not compatible with auctioning. The only possible way out is by doing IT in-house.

[narag]

An in-house team serving several departments can work well: providing infrastructure, defining communication protocols, quality and security standars, helping subcontracting.