DoD Open Technology Development Roadmap 2006

According to a 2006 report entitled "Open Technology Development: Roadmap Plan", even though the business model of purchasing physical goods and services has served DoD well in the past, it falls short when applied to software acquisition. By treating DoD-developed software code as a physical good, DoD is limiting and restricting the ability of the market to compete for the provision of new and innovative solutions and capabilities. By enabling industry to leverage an open code development model, DoD would provide the market incentives to increase the agility and competitiveness of the industrial base. The report finds that DoD needs to evaluate the impact that locking into one set of proprietary standards or products may have to its ability to react and respond to adversaries and more importantly, to technological change that is accelerating regardless of military conflict. If DoD charts a course to increase the use of open source software and create an internal DoD collaborative code repository the effects would be transformative. To summarize, the document concludes that open source software and development methodologies are important to the National Security and National Interest of the U.S.  To see the complete report, go to www.acq.osd.mil/jctd/articles/OTDRoadmapFinal.pdf