The challenges to government's adoption and participation in open-source communities is often thought to be a simpe culture clash, but in reality it goes deeper than that, accordning to NASA's newly-appointed chief technology officer.

“The issues that we need to tackle are not only cuture, but beyond culture,” said Chris Kemp, formerly chief information officer at NASA's Ames Research Center in Moffett Field, Calif. “And I think we need new policy and support from the administration and Congress to help us tackle" them.

Kemp spoke May 5 as part of panel at the Open Government & Innovations 2010 conference, held in Washington D.C. Kemp will oversee the agency's enterprise architecture division and be responsible for the introduction of new and emerging technologies into the agency's IT planning.

And open source is a key element of Kemp's strategy.