For years DoD has struggled to avoid the temptation of buying software the way they buy aircraft carriers. Leaders have long recognized that it is more efficient, effective and overall smarter to buy commercial software instead of developing it in house or running inefficient, wasteful large scale development contracts to build custom solutions. And when I say years I mean it. The first major study of this issue was a DSB report from 1987! Their report on Military Software made timeless recommendations that still ring true today, making points like:

• DoD needs to change how software is acquired. Instead of buying software like DoD buys ships, new ways of setting iterative requirements must be established.
• DoD can no longer create de facto standards and enforce them on the civilian market.
• DoD must not diverge too far from whatever the civilian market is doing, else it will have to support its own methodologies and systems with little resources or training commitment from others.
• Custom built software is notoriously bad and never delivers the functionality intended, and is always more expensive in the long run. The government should be aggressively looking for opportunities to buy, in the civilian market, tools, methods, environments and applications.
• Using commercial applications provides big gains in timeliness, cost, reliability, completeness of documentation and training. 
• Unfortunately, government acquisition regulations and procedures are heavily biased in favor of developing custom-built software for individual programs. In policy drafting and debate, the mass civilian market is generally ignored.
• Government programs should use commercial-off-the-shelf (COTS) solutions whenever possible, and burden of proof should be put on leaders who claim they need to extend commercial solutions or develop their own. COTS is preferred over GOTS.

The world has changed dramatically since 1987, but not so much in DoD. Too frequently government leaders fall back on old bad habits like thinking their mission is so unique and special that they just have to hire developers or let big contracts to major systems integrators to build software for them instead of purchasing what is available from great American software companies.

There have been some bright points of success in using commercial software, and those successes should be heralded. But the failures continue. There are so many failures that I frequently find myself skeptical that any real change is possible. But I am forever the optimist. And I have just seen something that I believe could make a huge positive change.

Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth has just released an order to all defense agencies, all combatant commanders and all service chiefs and the entire pentagon leadership which aims to change the situation.

This memo, titled Directing Modern Software Acquisition to Maximize Lethality, is designed to force agencies and the military Services to use the best technology available vice trying to fumble around and create their own.

In a background briefing to the press the memo was characterize this way:

Right now, the way the Pentagon buys software is slow, outdated and filled with bureaucracy. Meanwhile, our adversaries are moving fast. This memo is the beginning to fix that, cutting red tape, working more with private industry, getting cutting edge software into the hands of our warfighters quickly before the enemy can adapt. And one of the biggest changes is using flexible contracting tools, CSOs and OTs to speed up innovation and acquisition. 

And the reason this works better — instead of spending years writing detailed requirements and going through a rigid one-size-fits-all process, we can tap into the best tech available right now, prototype it fast and get it to the field quickly if it works. So, bottom line, we’re cutting out middlemen. Software companies make software. We’re going to buy software from software companies. 

Realistically, the fight is not over. Government agencies and the big DoD entities are made of humans and for the most part they are trying to do the right thing but they have shown an uncanny ability to rationalize and redefine what they are doing to avoid accomplishing smart intent like that in this memo. This is not time for any of us who advocate for constant improvement and use of great American technology to relax. Let’s cheer on this victory but keep standing up for what is right. We should all do what we can to encourage the government buy the best instead of trying to recreate the wheel.