MCS is an adaptation of MLS. From a technical point of view, MCS is a policy change, combined with a few userland modifications to hide some of the unneeded MLS technology. Some kernel changes were also made, but only relating to making it easy to upgrade to MCS (or MLS) without invoking a full file system relabel.

The hope is to improve the quality of the system as a whole, reduce costs, leverage the open source process, increase transparency, and make the technology base useful to more than a small group of extremely special-case users.