Linux in the US Federal Government?

Grech asks: "I work for a US federal agency that replaces its workstations and attendant software every 3-5 years. At the moment, the environment for most workers consists of an OS, an office suite, a UTS60 emulator, and an X Server. Logic seems to say that when all this gets ripped out and replaced in a year or so, it could be done cheaper with Linux, but a case will have to be made, and a strong one. I've got the arguments, but I need the numbers and the anecdotes to back up such a huge project."

Comments

Figuring the costs

[fm6]

. Do you really think switching EVERYTHING.. would fly with the users of these systems? Don't you think the training costs, and the costs involved with the reduced workflow ... are worth the reduced software costs?

You're probably right. But we need more information before we know for sure. The office suite is the central issue, because word processors, presentation programs, and spreadsheets (especially spreadsheets) are the apps that are most user-customized. So do your users just write the occasional letter, or do they have a lot of customized Word templates? Do they use Excel for casual budget planning, or are there huge apps built with VBA?

The retraining issue is significant, but not as big as you might think -- the low-level details of NT are pretty hard to deal with anyway.

And when you measure the costs and advantages of Linux, avoiding license fees is only part of the picture. There's lower admin costs, less down time, better security....

It's also relevent to ask why civil servants face this mandatory upgrade cycle. If it's because their software keeps outgrowing their hardware, that's another reason to consider switching to Linux. Even out of the box, Linux has lower hardware requirements than NT. And they can go lower still if you're selective about the features you use -- something that NT just doesn't let you do.