
In all new development and acquisition programs, the Air Force wants the ability to rapidly and affordably upgrade both hardware and software without being beholden to the systems’ original manufacturer.William LaPlante, chief of Air Force acquisitions, insists the service must demand open architecture systems and take ownership of the “interface,” or the basic blueprints, of every new program to avoid being hamstrung by proprietary designs.In a hyper-simplified analogy, LaPlante likened traditional acquisition models to buying a house without free access…