DOD gradually embracing open source

The Defense Department, looking for ways to cut costs and share information, is slowly but surely embracing open source software, sister publication FCW’s Amber Corrin reports.

"The problem with proprietary solutions is the limited set of folks who can use them, rather than opening the core components to the community to drive...and just be the experts and the integrators," Andy Goodson, program manager for Lockheed Martin's Distributed Data Framework, told FCW. DDF is a newly open source software search engine for intelligence.

Lockheed Martin is touting its open source approach as a way to eliminate licensing costs while speeding up the process of incorporating software changes from the field. One result would be increased ability to share information among U.S. and coalition partners.

Critics such as database software giant Oracle counter that open source still can’t meet DOD requirements for reliability, security and information assurance.