The U.S. military is no laggard when it comes to open-source software adoption, but apparently thinks it can do better. The U.S. Department of Defense on Tuesday issued new guidelines designed to remove roadblocks to open-source adoption, arguing that open source can help the Defense Department "anticipate new threats and respond to continuously changing requirements."

The Standish group recently completed an extensive study that examines factors influencing open-source adoption. Based on five years of research and analysis, the report provides intriguing insights into open-source adoption levels and the way that open source is reshaping the software industry.

The Defense Department's guidance on the military use of open-source software has been a long time in coming, and should ease the widespread concerns in the military about open source-use.

In reading through IDC's excellent report, "2007 Industry Adoption of Open Source Software, Part 2: Project Adoption," analyst Matt Lawton stumbles across an intriguing observation in open-source software adoption. He apparently believes it is a weakness of the current open-source landscape, but I believe it is a strength. The observation? That IT departments do most of the services around open source, rather than third-party consulting companies.

In a Sunday conversation with Luqman, we discussed what we thought were the best avenues for the adoption of Open Source on a larger scale. We agreed that students and small business could be key influencers in the future widespread use of FOSS.

The dam holding back U.S. federal adoption of open source just burst with the introduction of the Defense Department's Forge.mil.

I’ve been getting told that my recent review of KDE 4 wasn’t fair because KDE 4 isn’t really ready for prime time. My response: “When is any program, especially an open-source program, ready?”

There was a time when Open Source software was considered has poor man's software. Now, with the economy slowdown in all the industries, adoption of Open source software has increased dramatically and its common to hear from all the big entrepreneurs to adopt Open Source software.

Tech Data, Synnex, Red Hat, Novell and the Open Source Channel Alliance continue to promote open source applications to VARs and solutions providers. But are open source VARs really ready for prime time? Yes and no. Here’s why.