Open Source in the military
The Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Acquisition, Technology & Logistics recently published the "Open Technology Development Roadmap Plan", another step towards moving the military to open standards, if not open source. This is going to be a long road, given that they can't even publish their own objectives in an open standard. The document makes the business case for open source: it argues how the DoD can do it's job better using open source. To quote from the report:
[Open source software] and open source development methodologies are important to the National Security and National Interest of the U.S. for the following reasons:- Enhances agility of IT industries to more rapidly adapt and change to user needed capabilities.
- Strengthens the industrial base by not protecting industry from competition.
- Makes industry more likely to compete on ideas and execution versus product lock-in.
- Adoption recognizes a change in our position with regard to balance of trade1 of IT.
- Enables DoD to secure the infrastructure and increase security by understanding what is actually in the source code of software installed in DoD networks.
- Rapidly respond to adversary actions as well as rapid changes in the technology industrial base.
It also mentions that China wants to become an open source leader. Are they hoping that military types who won't respond to issues of effectiveness, cost and fitness for purpose will be motivated by "us and them" competition?
...and there lies the key problem with open source in the military, the fact that by releasing software as open source you enable it's use by your potential future enemies. This makes open source a very tough sell in this environment. I'm convinced that the sale can be made, based purely on technical grounds.
