"Texas state agencies spend more than $450 million annually on information technology, not counting staffing costs and purchases from local or federal funds. With this amount of money in play, Texas is a significant target for hardware, software and technical support vendors.
"Key Texans believe state and local governments should embrace Linux and open-source software (OSS) to reduce taxes. The local media decided differently and did not inform the general public about OSS initiatives in the legislature. This is especially odd, as the Houston Chronicle runs Linux on an IBM mainframe and the city administrators made the front page of USA Today for bucking Microsoft. In addition to the Chronicle, the parent of the Dallas Morning News, Belo Corporation, uses Linux to host web sites and invested heavily in :CueCat, a product driven by the Linux operating system. So, advocates of the OSS bill feel baffled.
"Specifically, when Texas Senator John Carona filed SB 1579, a bill to make the state consider OSS, the media remained silent. Most voters did not have a clue that the State Auditor's Office put annual IT spending at $1.4 billion. But, those costs did not escape Senator Carona..."
