it looks like that company won’t be able to count on those big contracts from various divisions of the federal government much longer. In a piece from the BBC, Scott McNealy (yes, that one) has been asked by the new president to give him a report concerning the possibility of the government going Open Source.
The secret to a more secure and cost effective government is through open source technologies and products.
The claim comes from one of Silicon Valley’s most respected business leaders Scott McNealy, a co-founder of Sun Microsystems.
He revealed he has been asked to prepare a paper on the subject for the new administration.
“It’s intuitively obvious open source is more cost effective and productive than proprietary software,” he said.
“Open source does not require you to pay a penny to Microsoft or IBM or Oracle or any proprietary vendor any money.”
First, this is a great thing, but second, isn’t it interesting that our new president knows what Open Source means? (I knew I made the right decision.)
The indication here is not only that President Obama knows a thing or two about technology the other side of his Blackberry, he is also willing to make good on his talking points about tightening up the federal purse strings. He talked the talk and now he is proving he can walk the walk. How different!
The article continues with statements by Michael Tieman, the president of the Open Source Initiative.
“Scott is absolutely correct about the benefits which have been demonstrated time and again,” said OSI president Michael Tiemann.
“It’s an accident of history that proprietary standards became so entrenched so early and it’s been a colossal expense for government.”
Just think about how much this could save the government, all the way from federal, to start, to local. Beyond just the next upgrade, it means that the endless upgrade-replace cycles will be gone, and we can return to the idea that,as long as something works, and does all that is requested of it in a timely fashion, it should not be touched. (The Republicans should absolutely love this!)
–
