Open Source Technology and National Security

I have read several articles that support the idea that the US DoD should adopt open source and open technologies more readily to match the productivity gains that many companies in the private sector have attained. The recent article, "Open Source in the national interest", provides a strong case for adopting open source in the DoD more readily. The 79 page April 2006 report mentions specifically how IBM has transformed itself by adopting open source readily.

There was a 2002 Report by Mitre that advocated the same. The 2002 article is not in as much depth as the more recent article noted above.

If Google, Yahoo, EBay, Amazon, IBM and many others are doing so well with open source technology on the large scale, then I think our government can do the same. It would just require a transformation of the government IT organizations. This is definitely more difficult than it sounds but when I see entire countries adopting open source technology (i.e. EU, Japan, Korea, China, India) I get that feeling that we might be falling behind or losing our edge by not following suit. I think it is in our national interest and so do many others in this ever changing computer science field.