Is the solution open source or open standards?

Military Information Technology has an editorial pushing for open source software for the military.

The article is set up by a vignette describing a new coalition sensor and how open source software allows it to be integrated into coalition network after “the command interface has been modified to import data from the new sensor.”

Open source software would make that possible. But, so would open standards. In fact, with open standards (open interfaces actually) implemented in the coalition network and the sensor, there’d be perhaps no need to modify the command interface at all. Oh, and those interfaces could be implemented in open source and proprietary code, should military leaders demand it.

Having spent six years now learning about interoperability standards in my work with OGC, I fear there’s still a lot of places they are not fully understood. Perhaps this was just an unfortunate choice for an example. It is however one chance to point out that open source is not the answer to every problem. Perhaps open source is becoming the hammer for every nail?