The US Department of Defense is making a serious effort to improve open-source adoption. It will be issuing new guidelines to make it easier for the department to use open-source software. The department has stated that open-source meets the purchasing requirements set forth by the department and will help them better identify and eliminate threats and become more agile to changing requirements.
CNET noted the irony of such efforts since Linux was one identified by the US Department of Defense as one of such threats in the past. (Source of remarks: CNET: https://news.cnet.com/8301-13505_3-10384067-16.html?part=rss&subj=news&tag=2547-1_3-0-20).
The Defense Department stated that open-source software will also bring some clear advantages that proprietary software may not be able to offer. Such benefits of open-source software include:
-- suitable for rapid prototyping and experimentation
-- a cost advantage
-- unrestricted ability to modify software source code
-- reduction of proprietary restrictions
-- identification and elimination of defects through peer-review system
