North American Gov't Offices that Won't Move to Linux?

eugene ts wong asks: "There have been a quite a few stories lately of governments cutting budgets and seriously examining the use of Linux in their offices. I'm getting the strong impression that the majority of government desktops will become Linux desktops. Is this true? As of right now, how many US state governments and Canadian provincial governments -do not- use Linux for their work stations? As of right now, how many -do not- intend on installing Linux? I think that knowing this is important so that we can direct our attention to the appropriate governments, in hopes of helping them to make the correct choice."

Comments

Slashed budget means no research

[stefanlasiewski]

There have been a quite a few stories lately of governments cutting budgets and seriously examining the use of Linux in their offices. I'm getting the strong impression that the majority of government desktops will become Linux desktops. Is this true?

There is a big difference between "examining" and "implementation".

Governments, like most large institutions, are slow to change. Changing from Windows to Linux desktops costs money. Many State and City governments in the US are in the midst of their worst budget crisis' in 20-40 years. Now is when the freeze spending, lay off workers, and cancel research. They're not just going to change willy-nilly.

I am actually talking to people who work for several cities in the San Francisco Bay Area about using Gnome or KDE for their desktops (I'm probing out of curiosity, and I want to see what's planned for 2 years down the line).

Their additude about switching desktops is usually something like "Sure, Linux could be great, but are you INSANE? We'll save $x00 tops, but it will cost nearly that much to install the new software, train everyone to use it, and then fix the bugs."

As of right now, how many US state governments and Canadian provincial governments -do not- use Linux for their work stations?

None? We occasionally see small cities switching to Linux, but I doubt that there are any State governments who use Linux Desktops on a systemwide level.

Look, I love the Linux desktop. I use Gnome almost on a daily basis, but I still need to use Windows to run MS Office so that I can send my resume to people who request MS Word format. If I send it using any other format (including OpenOffice's MS Word format), I get complaints on the other side like "The formatting is all screwey".

Re:The CORRECT Choice...

[Strange Ranger]

You make an important point. But please consider:

Technical and budgetary considerations aside, and in the spirit of democracy, I think any free (as in speech) open source solution would be a more correct choice for our governments to adopt, rather than be beholden to any one corporation, especially a proven monopoly.There are plenty of reasons for this, not limited to:

Avoiding huge conflicts of interest
Security and Trust
Not putting all the eggs in one basket,
Moral and philosophical ideals of the People owning their own systems.
Not turning Redmond into a military target.
Not sending millions of tax dollars to a monopoly.
Creating demand, increased competition, and insentive to innovate in a severely depressed technology market.
I'm sure there are more.

I think where possible technical considerations and getting the cheapest solution should be at the bottom of the list of reasons the government should choose its systems. Let's not be penny-wise and pound-foolish.