Why does Open Source achieve better CMMI than CMMI practitioners?

(Rough thoughs that I hope to build into an essay.)

• What is CMMI?
• CMMI level 3 involves common processes across an organisation to ease.
  
• In a corporation, this means Processes and Tools are mandated from the top of a company down. Tools are often selected and then mandated by Management.
• In corporations, innovation in processes and tools are often stifled in a drive to try and maintain common processes across the corporations.
  
• OS achieves common processes across projects without having a mandate from the top. Eg: Most OS projects are now moving to Subversion for Configuration Management.
  
• Difference: Practictioners choose their tools based on their merits. The best tools become the defacto standard.

Why can't big companies compete on small contracts?

• Big companies can't bid on small projects because they are not competative. Reason given is they have too many overheads. This should not be the case. The big company should be able to reduce overheads by using the economies of scale.
• This implies to me that Big Companies are imposing inefficient processes on their staff.
• Why can't a big company sponsor a startup division without imposing the company overhead.

Recommendation:

• Allow each business unit to pick their own tools and processes.
• Provide opportunities for business units to share experience and suggest tools.
• Allow processes and templates to be developed as if they were an open source project.

Examples:

• My experiences with CMMI and OS.