US Department of Defense enlisting open-source applications

After reading the case, do you think the shift to open-source software involved a major cultural change for the Department of Defense? Would you expect the same to be the case for large companies? Justify your answer.

The culture of an organization advocates the manner in which the organization functions. For example, in the form of a defense organization, culture of secrecy is of utmost importance. For it to accept open-source applications would require a major cultural change for the Department of Defense, which, in my opinion it did. Adopting to open-source resources is never free of risks as open source is reachable by public and private contributors alike. The Defense Department must be cautious about not to let wrong doers reach their systems in my opinion.

I think that large companies may not rely on open source because of their unique set of requirements. It would be really hard for them to have cultural changes to shift to open-source. Open-source is usually what satisfies the needs of a larger audience rather than specific. Having said that, companies which are not yet large enough can take advantage of the open-source applications because they are free. As they grow, they may start to identify their unique needs and requirements and then start to move away from open-source to applications built for them by private software development companies.