Real World Government Open Source
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| Currently, said Welty, 65 percent of the Board's applications run on
| Linux, 89 percent of their Web applications run on Apache, and 67
| percent of the applications requiring a database use an open source
| product such as MySQL.
|
| And the Board is not alone. Welty said a recent survey of 128
| departments resulted in 50 responses of which 30 said they were using
| open source. "These are not just backwater applications," said Welty,
| they include the Department of Finance, the Franchise Tax Board,D
| epartment of Justice and the Governor's Office.
|
| Also, said Welty, the State Archives is interested in open standards.
| "How do you guarantee that what you are doing today will be able to be
| read 100 years from now?" He said the answer is to adopt standards for
| archiving using non-proprietary products.
|
| [...]
|
| "Who should set the tech roadmap for the organization," asked Welty.
| "Who controls our IT budget? Is it controlled by the licenses we
| inherited? Who controls the destiny of our data? Off-the-shelf software
| may be easier to install," he said, but it imposes proprietary file
| formats, and limits access to data by product upgrades. With open source,
| he said, data is not buried in proprietary black boxes. "We really do own
| our own data."
|
| [...]
|
| Welty said his department's budget for software is so low, it runs on
| "budget dust." When the state went through a recession, he said, "Some
| departments cut people to pay software licenses. We didn't have those
| licenses and didn't have to cut people."
|
| And finally, said Welty, open source is great for disaster recovery. If
| there is another disaster like Katrina, "disaster recovery just screams
| for open source." While proprietary stuff might have a long procurement
| cycle, with open source the department can jump in and begin working
| immediately. "The key is: 'It's OK to use open source," concluded
| Welty.
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http://www.govtech.net/news/news.php?id=101651
Only yesterday:
Red Hat Government Users Conference to Spotlight Emerging Trends in Linux and
Open Source Solutions
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| The event, hosted by DLT Solutions, is designed to help government
| and academic end-users meet their specific needs and find the right
| solutions as the prevalence of open source solutions in the public
| sector continues to surge.
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http://biz.yahoo.com/bw/061012/20061012005047.html?.v=1
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