US Navy's new policy: Only open software

The US Navy just announced a bold IT policy: no more proprietary software:

"The days of proprietary technology must come to an end," [Vice Admiral Mark Edwards, deputy chief of naval operations for communications] said. "We will no longer accept systems that couple hardware, software and data."

The reasons? Innovation and cost are considered superior when delivered by open source and open standards:

"We can't accept the increasing costs of maintaining our present-day capabilities," Edwards said. "In the civilian marketplace, it's just the opposite. Some private-sector concerns are cutting their costs by 90 percent while expanding their performance."

Edwards goes on to suggest that staying ahead of the IT innovation game is a matter of national security. The same holds true for private enterprises: those that dump money into the trash can of proprietary software are doing themselves and their customers a disservice.

The open-source savvy shall inherit the earth.

Via John Scott's blog.

[pfaulstich]

Interesting. But you are completely twisting the story, especially in your last sentence. The article on fcw.com says nothing about open source. It is about open standards. Very different, especially from a military perspective. This article is about the military focusing on interoperability. This means the API's need to be published. Nothing else.

[smdelfin]

Does the statement ?The days of proprietary technology must come to an end? means only to publish the APIs?