Use of Free and Open Source Software ( FOSS ) in the U . S . Department of Defense Use of Free and Open - Source Software ( FOSS ) in the U . S . Department of Defense is a 2003 report by The MITRE Corporation that documented widespread use of and reliance on free software ( termed " FOSS " ) within the United States Department of Defense ( DoD ) . The report helped end a debate about whether FOSS should be banned from U . S . DoD systems , and helped redirect the discussion towards the current official U . S . DoD policy of treating FOSS and proprietary software as equals . History . Version 1 . 0 . The FOSS report began in early 2002 as a request relayed to Terry Bollinger of The MITRE Corporation to collect data on how FOSS was being used in U . S . DoD systems . The driver for the request was an ongoing debate within the U . S . DoD about whether to ban the use of FOSS in its systems , and in particular whether to ban GNU General Public License ( GPL ) software . The U . S . Defense Information Systems Agency ( DISA ) was also interested , and agreed to sponsor the report . The first draft was completed two weeks later , and version 1 . 0 was released a few weeks after that . It quickly gained notoriety for its documentation of widespread use of FOSS in the U . S . Department of Defense , and consequently was mentioned in an article about free software in the " Washington Post " . The attention resulted in a new round of reviews and edits . Microsoft Corporation requested that Ira Rubinstein , their legal counsel and liaison for DoD software policy issues , be permitted to participate . Rubinstein , who is listed in the preface as the first reviewer , produced the most detailed critique of the report . His recommendations resulted in a massive expansion of the coverage and analysis of free software licenses . Version 1 . 2 . The final report , version 1 . 2 . 04 , was completed on January 2 , 2003 . It was first published on the DISA web site , and is now available on the DoD CIO web site on open source software resources . Impact . Prior to this report , very little data had been available about how — and even whether — FOSS was used widely in U . S . DoD systems . The report changed this aspect of the discussion immediately , proving beyond any reasonable doubt that the U . S . DoD was already a major user of FOSS . More importantly , the report documented that FOSS was being used in important and even mission - critical situations . One of the more surprising findings documented in the report is that the cyber security community was the most upset of any group at the prospect of FOSS being banned . From their perspective , FOSS provides high code visibility and the ability to fix security flaws quickly and quietly . As a result of the findings , any serious consideration of banning FOSS was dropped . The effort to develop a policy on using FOSS instead moved towards a much more even - handed policy that was initiated with the Stenbit open source software policy , that requires U . S . DoD groups to treat FOSS in the same fashion as proprietary software , and subsequently made even more explicit in the 2009 Wennergren clarification of the Stenbit policy . The broader impact can be realized by recognizing that if the security - conscious U . S . DoD had banned FOSS , it is likely many other federal components , state and local governments , corporations , and international groups would have followed suit . The result would have been a world much less friendly both to FOSS and to FOSS - like efforts such as Wikipedia . Findings . Below is the executive summary of the report . The full report was published in multiple formats , which can be found along with related open source software resources on Bollinger ' s personal website .