Nice article that explains some of the history and the growing popularity of free software in US govt. Nice to see some of our tax dollars are being spent intelligently. ;)
John Hebert http://linux.oreillynet.com/pub/a/linux/2002/07/16/linux_in_govt.html Linux in Government by Sam Williams, author of Free as in Freedom 07/15/2002 Ten years after joining the research staff at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), Przemek Klosowski still remembers his first encounter with Linux. "It was 1993, and I was here as a grad student," says Klosowski, who in addition to working as a scientist at NIST is also a cofounder of the D.C. Linux Users Group. "At the time we were using PCs. Windows 3.1 was barely out. It was all very primitive. We had expensive commercial VMS and Unix workstations, but you had to fight for access. When Linux came along, it was very attractive. Suddenly you had the sophistication of Unix and the price point of PCs." Because he was a researcher, Klosowski had freedom to play with NIST's computer equipment. Although installing an untested operating system like Linux was risky, Klosowski says the risk was balanced by other factors: zero cost, zero licensing hassles, and the potential benefits that might come with running a more versatile operating system. "You were on your own, but you were also looking for a solution," Klosowski says. "Once you found the solution, you would talk about the solution, not the software. Nobody cared what software you used." Nearly a decade later, Klosowski shares the same attitude when it comes to recent news stories documenting the sudden spiking popularity of open source software within the U.S. federal government. Coming on the heels of major software contracts announced by IBM and Hewlett-Packard, the stories suggest a rising political groundswell or major marketing push. To Klosowski, however, the stories seem more indicative of a growing confluence of individual projects. Under pressure to build better, safer, and more reliable computer systems, more and more government employees are following the same trail blazed by Klosowski back in 1993. "There's no concerted effort," says Klosowski, noting the growing market share for open source programs inside the Washington Beltway. "It's more based on the technical judgment of people tasked with specific problems. They turn to open source because they can't find any other program to solve that problem." In many ways, the U.S. government's affinity for open source software seems somewhat preordained. After all, if it wasn't for the vision and generosity of agencies such as NASA, the NCSA, and DARPA (the Defense Department's Advanced Research Projects Agency), most open source software programs wouldn't even be around today. ... __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Yahoo! Autos - Get free new car price quotes http://autos.yahoo.com
