Governments Using Open Source Software

The Open Source Government
—Linux Insider, May 17, 2004

The federal government is being pushed toward adopting open source technologies by the same fundamental factors driving their adoption among corporate users: mounting pressure to implement significantly lower-cost systems that are easier to maintain in an effort to deliver services that are more competitive.

"Think about what the mission of governments here and around the world is. It is to make their respective economies more competitive in the global market place, improve the health care and education of their citizens, defend the population, and to protect the environments," Fisher says. "What we are seeing is that the adoption of open standards is allowing governments to innovate faster and to be more responsive."

Fischer believes that despite the aggressive adoption of open source technologies by the U.S. government, Uncle Sam is lagging behind the adoption rate of many foreign governments around the world, most notably China, India, Canada, and Germany. After they have carefully analyzed the pros and cons of moving to an open source platform such as Linux, most foreign governments move quickly and sometimes massively to a new environment, unlike the U.S. government.

Take the municipal government of Munich, Germany, for example: Last May, city officials removed 14,000 copies of Windows from workers' desktop and portable systems and replaced them with SuSE's version of Linux. The primary reason for the switch was to gain more flexibility to incorporate a wider range of lower cost technologies, which could be passed along to the public.

Recommended Reading Government Policy toward Open Source Software Can open source software-software that is usually available without charge and that individuals are free to modify-survive against the fierce competition of proprietary software, such as Microsoft Windows? Should the government intervene on its behalf? This book addresses a host of issues raised by the rapid growth of open source software, including government subsidies for research and development, government procurement policy, and patent and copyright policy. Contributors offer diverse perspectives on a phenomenon that has become a lightning rod for controversy in the field of information technology.