This paper contrasts the arguments offered in the literature advocating the adoption of open source software (OSS)--software delivered with its source code--for teaching and learning applications, with the reality of limited enterprise-wide deployment of those applications in U.S. higher education. Drawing on the fields of organizational management, information systems, and education, the author argues that the gap between the advocacy for OSS teaching and learning applications and the enterprise-wide deployment of OSS for teaching and learning is a consequence of the divergent perspectives of two organizational sub-cultures--the technologist and the academic--and the extent to which those sub-cultures are likely to embrace OSS. This alternative conceptualization of the gap between advocacy and enterprise-wide adoption also includes recommendations for closing the advocacy-adoption gap. (Contains 1 figure.)