Shift to open-source software

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.

Absolutely yes, as culture leads to technology adoption. Therefore, the shift to open-source software involved a major cultural change for the Department of Defense. Open source does not only involve community gains, but their goals would be to share the experience they had attained with the community. Therefore, open- source software enabled the Department of Defense to work with certified merchants and thus become part of the community. In addition, their mission of protecting the people through maintaining peace and order achieved a greater sense.

For large companies, they would have to build an organizational culture to enable successful adoption of digital technologies. Besides, the organization should develop a culture and the community as well and make time for people to test, share their experiences, collaborate, and learn what works and what does not work. By contributing to the community and being open to them, they would have developed their brand loyalty. Besides, by being part of the community, they would learn about the peoples’ needs and wants easily than their competitors in closed doors.

Answer 2

Open source software development involves the input of people from community to contribute to the development cycle of a software. For the department of Defense, it did involve a major cultural shift because when it comes to the matters of defense are kept secret from the communities. Involving the community in software development is a major paradigm shift for defense department. Doing this, they have enabled themselves to use the skills of an open audience instead of a few computers experts sitting behind closed doors and developing software. This is also an opening to engage with the larger community.

I do not think that large companies can follow the model of open-source because open source is usually not profitable as compared to what organizations aim to do. To follow this type of software development, I think that companies need to engage more with the communities and develop an internal cultural of diversity and open mindedness.