Linux: Save Government Million$

[Seth Johnson <seth.johnson@RealMeasures.dyndns.org>]

http://www.osopinion.com/Opinions/ScottBillings/ScottBillings9.html

Linux: Save Government Million$

By Scott Billings  

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. 

Then, you can shift your attention to the application
licensing fees. Rather quickly, I expect AbiWord, KOffice,
and others to become highly competitive products. There's
also Maxwell still floating around out there, which is
pretty good except for some of the more advanced features of
today's word processors. Cutting out application licensing
fees will probably s OS fees. 

Recently in the realm of US politics, the idea of a balanced
budget has been a rather big topic. This isn't a far throw
from the larger topic of saving money, and cutting (US)
govt. spending all around. While the totals saved by such
measures will probably only total in the hundreds of
millions, a drop in the bucket for a govt. dealing with tens
to hundreds of billions of dollars. But, that still doesn't
mean that hundreds of millions of dollars aren't worth
saving from needless spending. That money could be then put
to better use. Be it in a small tax break or helping fund
some other agency.... The end result comes down to it being
a few hundred million dollars that are no longer needing to
be paid by taxpayers.