The CIO of the U.S. Department of Defense, John B. Sherman, has released a memo titled “Software Development and Open Source Software“.  This document identifies that The Department must follow an “Adopt, Buy, Create” approach to software which gives priority to open source software when looking for software solutions. This means that DoD must look to open source first, before creating in-house solutions for software projects. It also opens the door for DoD funding of open source software in the case where an application provides much of the needed functionality, but needs further development to meet the need.