O-STEP: Transitioning an Industry to Open Source Software

At 9:45 am on March 17, 2003 in a session at the "Open Standards/Open Source 
in National and Local eGovernment Programs" conference, Tony Stanco, Director 
of The Center of Open Source & Government, will present O-STEP.

The Open Source Threshold Escrow Program (O-STEP) is a program to help 
transition the software industry to the Open Source paradigm. O-STEP permits 
traditional proprietary software companies to escrow their source code until a 
stated Sales Threshold is reached. Once the Sales Threshold is hit, the code 
escrow breaks and the code is released to the Open Source community. O-STEP 
has substantial benefits for both software companies and governments around 
the world.

O-STEP will re-invigorate the software industry and result in more competition 
by re-balancing the rights between users and producers in a way more 
appropriate with the incentives framework of the U.S. Constitution. The 
current intellectual property regime creates vendor lock-ins for critical 
infrastructure software.

Companies benefit because they are given the opportunity to make their 
products industry standards for e-government and e-commerce. Governments 
benefit because the program removes the risk of long-term vendor lock-in and 
increases competition.

O-STEP establishes a system where governments can purchase e-government 
solutions in the knowledge that the more they purchase, the sooner the escrow 
is broken. The program, therefore, harnesses the network effects inherent in 
software to make the code an Open Source standard. Once the escrow is broken, 
the source code is available to everyone, and competition is restored to the 
area.

For more information and an example using Corel’s WordPerfect see 
http://egovos.org/ostep.ppt.

Biography:

Tony Stanco, Esq.
- Founding Director, The Center of Open Source & Government
- Associate Director, Open Source & eGovernment, Cyber Security Policy
and Research Institute, George Washington University
- Former Senior Staff Attorney, Corporation Finance, Internet and
Software Group, U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission
		
Contact Information:

Tony Stanco, Esq.
Associate Director
Open Source and eGovernment
Cyber Security Policy and Research Institute
George Washington University
[NSA Center of Excellence in Information Assurance]
2033 K Street, NW, Suite 340
Washington, DC 20006
tel 202-994-5513
fax 202-994-5505
http://www.cpi.seas.gwu.edu
Stanco@seas.gwu.edu
Stanco@gwu.edu

Founding Director
The Center for Open Source & Government
http://www.eGovOS.org
tony@egovos.org