Most of the things the government "produces" are not produced by the government. They're sent out for bidding by private companies - roads, guns, websites, whatever - and the government is in charge of oversight.

And the fact that they've been proven incapable at oversight and management should figure into the planning.

But what makes you so sure the government wouldn't do better taking it in-house? And even if we throw out that possibility, we're talking about implementing off-the-shelf software here, no producing custom software.

Great point! And since - as described - it's all open source, there doesn't even need to be Federal oversight or management.

If the only thing standing between now and doing it is the will and tech support, that's an easy problem to solve.

> You mean that the private contractor hired to do the HealthCare.gov website, CGI Federal, did a lousy job?

That may be true as well, but any customer that's changing requirements at the last minute and demands idiotic deployments (nationwide, hard deadline, untested, lots of PR, etc.) is ultimately responsible for what happens.

Maybe every single vendor should have sensed that outcome, but it's more realistic to think that someone will take that contract, even if it's doomed.