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While the revolving door is always a potential issue, and I'm sure it happens, I don't think that's a key problem for the DoD. When government officials leave o

While the revolving door is always a potential issue, and I'm sure it happens, I don't think that's a key problem for the DoD. When government officials leave office they're required to not do work, for a period of time, on things they controlled, and the penalties can be steep. That reduces incentives for the worst of abuses. Also: a US government employee who retires after 20+ years has a guaranteed pension; it's nice to get more on top, but not by risking it. No, I think the pressure primarily comes from the DoD procurement process itself. First, you have to develop the requirements. The Air Force wants a plane, the Navy wants a plane, the Army wants a plane. If you say "yes" to one & "no" the others you get a political battle. A bright person says, "I know, we'll make a plane for everyone, and the volume purchase will make it cheaper!" "Great!" everyone says. They each bring in their laundry lists of what they want the plane to do... if you say "no", then they probably won't fund it, so you have this HUGE list of requirements. Now the plane (or whatever) has to do everything. Then it goes out for bid. Only the lowest bid will win, so contractors will do their best to make it a low price for a massive number of requirements. They're under great pressure to underbid the real costs, and when you do new things it's usually more expensive than you imagine. Yet those costs will still look eye-wateringly big (because it's trying to do everything). Contractors will then say "don't require that 'bunch of useless technical data and those technical data rights... it'll be cheaper!". In addition, every time you learn something, you'll need to make a change, and that will result in a change request with a remarkably high price tag. That's partly because the contractors are motivated by profit, but to be fair, they were often pressured into unrealistically low starting costs by the process. Many of the DoD's problems aren't from "evil government officials" or "evil contractors". Many really are trying to do good things. Sometimes the problem is that the DoD procurement process has some perverse incentives that sometimes results in very strange outcomes.

h0l0cube 6y ago
Seems like if the US govt. can have a policy that disrupts the revolving door, they could also institute a policy that all tenders require the perpetual rights to technical data? Especially if this is a problem that even outsiders are aware of. So I wonder what's stopping such obvious and sensible policy from being enacted? Edit: I'll answer my own rhetorical question: because budget forecast time periods are aligned with election cycles.
- nradov 6y ago
  Just having the technical data doesn't ensure that another contractor can actually build compatible parts.
  - mixologic 6y ago
    It's probably a whole lot better than getting a contractor to reverse engineer the technical data and then building the compatible parts.
- dwheeler 6y ago
  > Seems like if the US govt. can have a policy that disrupts the revolving door, they could also institute a policy that all tenders require the perpetual rights to technical data? Especially if this is a problem that even outsiders are aware of. So I wonder what's stopping such obvious and sensible policy from being enacted? I don't think that policy (as written) would make sense for commercially-sold components (which were developed by the company without government funds and are being sold to the general public). Also, I think there are special cases where requiring the technical data isn't warranted. But I agree that policies could be greatly improved. I think it would be appropriate to require technical data and technical data rights for all custom components by default (e.g., where the government funded part or a majority of its development). Waivers would be allowed, but only after being personally approved by a Secretary or Department CIO. That would provide some actual oversight; if program managers can approve making themselves look good, by lowering short-term costs (while increasing long-term costs after those PMs are gone), the rule will have no teeth. But government personnel want maximum flexibility, and while the current policies increase long-term costs, the policies also make it possible to get promoted when people are asked to do lots with relatively little money. So many government personnel are not very interested in that kind of policy. A bigger problem is that contractors like it when their customer is stuck in an endless monopoly. Some contractors have been waging a long term effort to keep the gravy train going, and talk endlessly about the DoD "stealing our (contractor) data rights". The "stealing" they're talking about is allowing the DoD to receive the data that the DoD paid to have developed (!). Many contractors think they should have an exclusive right to the things they created using the government's money (and thus took little risk to create). For an example of this kind of absurd thinking, see: https://govcon.mofo.com/cybersecurity-and-data-privacy/breaking-dods-code-how-to-figure-out-and-resist-what-dod-really-truly-wants-to-do-to-your-data-rights/ https://govcon.mofo.com/cybersecurity-and-data-privacy/break... Don't get me wrong, some contractors are actually quite reasonable, and the DoD cannot be successful without contractors. But contractors have a lot of incentive to gain exclusive rights over what they were paid to develop, and that's a huge incentives problem. At least one past Secretary of Defense has tried to get more data rights through contracts, but it's very much an uphill battle. There are some efforts to get more technical data rights in the future. I don't know what their status is, but my understanding is that they are minor nudges towards the government getting more rights to what the DoD pays for. These minor changes are considered by some contractors as the apocalypse, which should make it clear why big policy changes are hard. Here's some information on what was proposed, I don't know what has happened to it (I don't pay as much attention to this stuff as I used to): https://www.jdsupra.com/legalnews/dod-s-new-ip-rules-may-impact-70618/ https://www.jdsupra.com/legalnews/dod-s-new-ip-rules-may-imp... I think these are at best small half-hearted measures to deal with a serious problem.
neurotech1 6y ago
The whole "Has to do everything to get funded" type problem, was very apparent with the Army's Bradley Fighting Vehicle[0]. The result was so misguided, if not comically bad, they made a movie about it, Pentagon Wars[1] [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bradley_Fighting_Vehicle https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bradley_Fighting_Vehicle [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Pentagon_Wars https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Pentagon_Wars
- dwheeler 6y ago
  The "has to do everything to get funded" is definitely not a new problem, it's structural. "The Best of the Journal of Irreproducible Results" (January 1, 1983) includes an article by William R. (Randy) Simpson about Murphy's Law, where he notes in a haha-only-serious way the many predictable problems that happen because of it. It's not online as far as I can tell, but the book can be purchased: https://www.amazon.com/Best-Journal-Irreproducible-Results/dp/0894805959 https://www.amazon.com/Best-Journal-Irreproducible-Results/d...

h0l0cube 6y ago

Seems like if the US govt. can have a policy that disrupts the revolving door, they could also institute a policy that all tenders require the perpetual rights to technical data? Especially if this is a problem that even outsiders are aware of. So I wonder what's stopping such obvious and sensible policy from being enacted? Edit: I'll answer my own rhetorical question: because budget forecast time periods are aligned with election cycles.

nradov 6y ago
Just having the technical data doesn't ensure that another contractor can actually build compatible parts.
- mixologic 6y ago
  It's probably a whole lot better than getting a contractor to reverse engineer the technical data and then building the compatible parts.
dwheeler 6y ago
> Seems like if the US govt. can have a policy that disrupts the revolving door, they could also institute a policy that all tenders require the perpetual rights to technical data? Especially if this is a problem that even outsiders are aware of. So I wonder what's stopping such obvious and sensible policy from being enacted? I don't think that policy (as written) would make sense for commercially-sold components (which were developed by the company without government funds and are being sold to the general public). Also, I think there are special cases where requiring the technical data isn't warranted. But I agree that policies could be greatly improved. I think it would be appropriate to require technical data and technical data rights for all custom components by default (e.g., where the government funded part or a majority of its development). Waivers would be allowed, but only after being personally approved by a Secretary or Department CIO. That would provide some actual oversight; if program managers can approve making themselves look good, by lowering short-term costs (while increasing long-term costs after those PMs are gone), the rule will have no teeth. But government personnel want maximum flexibility, and while the current policies increase long-term costs, the policies also make it possible to get promoted when people are asked to do lots with relatively little money. So many government personnel are not very interested in that kind of policy. A bigger problem is that contractors like it when their customer is stuck in an endless monopoly. Some contractors have been waging a long term effort to keep the gravy train going, and talk endlessly about the DoD "stealing our (contractor) data rights". The "stealing" they're talking about is allowing the DoD to receive the data that the DoD paid to have developed (!). Many contractors think they should have an exclusive right to the things they created using the government's money (and thus took little risk to create). For an example of this kind of absurd thinking, see: https://govcon.mofo.com/cybersecurity-and-data-privacy/breaking-dods-code-how-to-figure-out-and-resist-what-dod-really-truly-wants-to-do-to-your-data-rights/ https://govcon.mofo.com/cybersecurity-and-data-privacy/break... Don't get me wrong, some contractors are actually quite reasonable, and the DoD cannot be successful without contractors. But contractors have a lot of incentive to gain exclusive rights over what they were paid to develop, and that's a huge incentives problem. At least one past Secretary of Defense has tried to get more data rights through contracts, but it's very much an uphill battle. There are some efforts to get more technical data rights in the future. I don't know what their status is, but my understanding is that they are minor nudges towards the government getting more rights to what the DoD pays for. These minor changes are considered by some contractors as the apocalypse, which should make it clear why big policy changes are hard. Here's some information on what was proposed, I don't know what has happened to it (I don't pay as much attention to this stuff as I used to): https://www.jdsupra.com/legalnews/dod-s-new-ip-rules-may-impact-70618/ https://www.jdsupra.com/legalnews/dod-s-new-ip-rules-may-imp... I think these are at best small half-hearted measures to deal with a serious problem.

neurotech1 6y ago

The whole "Has to do everything to get funded" type problem, was very apparent with the Army's Bradley Fighting Vehicle[0]. The result was so misguided, if not comically bad, they made a movie about it, Pentagon Wars[1] [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bradley_Fighting_Vehicle https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bradley_Fighting_Vehicle [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Pentagon_Wars https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Pentagon_Wars

dwheeler 6y ago
The "has to do everything to get funded" is definitely not a new problem, it's structural. "The Best of the Journal of Irreproducible Results" (January 1, 1983) includes an article by William R. (Randy) Simpson about Murphy's Law, where he notes in a haha-only-serious way the many predictable problems that happen because of it. It's not online as far as I can tell, but the book can be purchased: https://www.amazon.com/Best-Journal-Irreproducible-Results/dp/0894805959 https://www.amazon.com/Best-Journal-Irreproducible-Results/d...