US Defence department frit of being 'open'

Apparently the reason is that term "open" is a rude word in military terms. Being caught in the open is the nightmare of every soldier. It is a word meaning something that should be made secure, usually with lots of camouflage and blokes with very heavy weaponry.

A department of defence Open Source Conference, which was designed to get DoD staff used to using the "o" word, seems to have found that it needs to do more work in overcoming the prejudice.

One of the problems is how the software is made, which is completely different from how big military projects are executed. The military likes its software to be made like IBM made it, a nice factory operation that appears on time.

However, Open Source projects, while better tested, often get dumped or left for long periods of time because a development team decides to get a life for a bit. More than half Open Source projects are dead because no-one can be bothered with them and will never be finished.

Or so it says, here. µ