The government is asking industry to help rewrite how it buys technology. We should answer.

Industry spends a lot of time complaining that government rules get written without us. As the U.S. federal government begins its new fiscal year, it is asking us to help write the rules that govern how it buys from the commercial marketplace. Technology companies should not let that invitation go unanswered.

Done right, this overhaul means agencies get modern technology faster, taxpayers get better value, and more companies, including small and non-traditional firms, can compete for federal work. Done wrong, it locks in the same slow, clause-heavy buying process for another generation.

The Revolutionary FAR Overhaul has been unusually open from the start. Last year, the Office of Federal Procurement Policy and the FAR Council released rewritten parts of the Federal Acquisition Regulation as model deviations, each with a way for the public to weigh in, before formal rulemaking began. The General Services Administration and the FAR Council took the comments they received and then published a list of what they changed because of that feedback. They used industry feedback to make the model deviations nimbler for contracting officers and less burdensome to small and non-traditional contractors, thereby further opening up agency access to commercial technology companies. 

Now the formal rulemaking is underway. On Sept. 18, the council published four more proposed rules, bringing the total to eight of a planned 12. Comments are due Oct. 19. The administration, OFPP and the FAR Council deserve credit for doing this work quickly and in the open. Industry should match that effort.

The stakes are hard to overstate as whatever is finalized over the next year will likely govern how agencies buy cloud, software, and AI for decades to come. The FAR is a behemoth that creates the foundation for all government buying policies and practices. It took effect in 1984 and has been added to consistently since, but it has never been rewritten from top to bottom. The closest we came was the 1990s, when Congress passed two acquisition reform laws and the FAR was rebuilt around them, with a new Part 12 for commercial items and a rewritten Part 15 for negotiated contracts. Those changes have shaped federal buying for about 30 years. 

This rewrite is built to last just as long. Executive orders can change when administrations change. Regulations adopted through notice and comment are much harder to move, and undoing them takes another full rulemaking. 

For commercial technology companies, the latest draft rules represent a significant shift. Today, government contracts carry long checklist clauses of statutes and executive orders, and contracting officers can add more at their discretion. The pending proposed rules remove the checklists while creating a more flexible framework that can be applied consistently across agencies. Each clause would say on its face whether it applies to commercial buys, and an agency would need to issue a deviation to add additional clauses. Commercial software would come with the rights in the license the government bought, creating parity with the way companies go to market commercially today. Additionally, the government could better leverage cloud computing through consumption-based purchases, saving taxpayer money.

Changes like these are why every company that sells technology to government should read these rules and file comments. That includes commercial software and cloud providers, AI companies, and the firms that deliver technology-enabled services, not just the legacy companies that have been filing comments for years. The council has shown it can accept changes based on specific recommendations, so give it specifics. Tell it where a proposed clause conflicts with how you sell commercially and suggest the language that would fix it. If commercial companies stay quiet, the firms that have always shaped these rules will continue to shape them into the future.

What’s more, there is still plenty to adjust to get closer to right. For instance, the line between commercial and non-commercial technology needs to be clear. The FAR Council needs input on how software built with mixed funding is treated with respect to license retention and right-of-use. And new flexibility for agencies to tailor commercial clauses needs guardrails, so a company selling the same product to two agencies isn’t held to two sets of rules. Companies should take the time to send recommendations that can better enable their ability to enter the government market. 

The Alliance for Digital Innovation will file comments on these rules and stay engaged as agencies put them into practice. We will work with OFPP, the FAR Council, GSA, and other agencies to make sure these changes work in practice as well as on paper. But in order to solidify the excellent work to date to create a FAR that is flexible, transparent, and delivers the right tools for the government, it will need to be a full team effort. The government has asked industry to help write the rules it will use to buy for the next generation. We need to say yes before Oct. 19.

Ross Nodurft is executive director of the Alliance for Digital Innovation.