[ Thanks to Kelly
McNeill for this link. ]
“In a recent article Paul Ferris of LinuxToday made a bit of an
argument, that the US govt. should use Free Software/Open Source
Software for security reasons.”
“While I’m certainly not going to argue with him, I have a much
simpler reason why the US govt. should use Free/Open Source
software (since that’s getting to be a lot of typing…. From now
on, I’m going to use Free Software and Open Source Software
interchangeably. Just insert whichever term is your preference).
Quite simply, it’s a concept most anyone can understand. Saving
money.”
“When you think about the thousands, quite probably even
millions of computers used by various govt. agencies, when you
think that you end up paying even $20 for a copy of Windows on each
of those systems, it will add up quickly to a rather large
sum. Then, consider that using Linux or FreeBSD, a single CD
could legally be used to install a copy of the OS on each and every
one of those systems…. The price per install becomes negligible
rather quickly. Even if you buy a separate CD for each individual
agency, you’re still going to be saving quite a bit of money on OS
licensing fees.”