The US Government passed into law the Megabyte Act. It's about time.

[irv]

It took them long enough to figure this out.
The Dutch have been doing this already.
The US government passed into law the Megabyte Act
http://www.zdnet.com/article/open-so...66348956972958

[wildmanne39]

Thread moved to Ubuntu, Linux and OS Chat.

[QIII]

Because this seems to fit into our tolerance for discussions of politics specifically with regard to open source, I'll leave this open for the time being.

However, if it strays from the razor's edge into a broader political discussion, it will be closed -- or more.

[mörgæs]

Interesting read, thanks for posting.

It seems like the journalist does not understand the difference between .odf and .docx, but anyway it's good to see that some change is coming.

[irv]

I am not looking for a political discussion here but more on the lines of governments, in general, are catching on to Linux and open source as being the way to go to not only save money but to standardize on documents and move to a more secure environment.

[RichardET]

Why the megabyte act? Why not a gigabyte or terabyte act?

[poorguy]

Sounds like a good idea and I see no reason why it couldn't work.

[irv]

Why the megabyte act? Why not a gigabyte or terabyte act?

Without getting political, we know most governments think in the past not the now or future. They are always two or three steps behind even in the tech world.

[PJs Ronin]

I feel lethargy is the primary obstacle in moving to open source. To change a large govt body over to open source would take a substantial capital infusion and there would inevitably be a period of disruption moving from OS/applications that "everyone knows" to the unknown, no matter how similar in appearance it may be. Few IT managers are prepared to pull the trigger on such a project especially as (because of current international security issues) govt departments are more and more being required to amalgamate (or at least share) data. So, when do you pull the trigger, before everyone else and lead off, or later in the process when hopefully some lessons have been learned and the bloodletting abated.

No one wants to go first and besides cash is one thing governments don't have much of these days; especially for a massive IT project. However, if there's a smallish govt department (say, less than 20,000 terminals) that wants to lead the pack I'd be happy to come out of retirement.

[irv]

According to the original article, the real move is going to open document format, which is a way of standardizing. Once everyone is on the same page going from one OS to another will be much easier.
People don't even think about it, but anyone using Chrome OS, or Android are already using open source. Linux is running on other hardware and with Microsoft getting onboard with open source will help push to a more standardized world.