Government Technology: An Open Question

“For years, it was a back-office passion for a select few. But
government interest in open source software (OSS) took a decidedly
large leap forward in 2004 when the city of Munich, Germany,
announced it was switching 14,000 desktops to the Linux operating
system. Soon after in the United States, the public sector was
startled to hear that Massachusetts adopted a new policy requiring
state agencies to pursue open standards options (originally open
source) for new applications.

“Since then, the public sector has acknowledged that OSS is no
longer a geeky, technological sideshow, but ‘an architectural
element that has attracted a critical mass of institutional users,
forcing attendant changes in the software industry,’ according to
the Center for Digital Government…”

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