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An increasing number of federal IT systems are being migrated from proprietary Unix systems to open-source Linux systems and desktops in order to gain quicker upgrades, platform flexibility, increased security and several other advantages, a trio of IT experts concluded Monday during an online panel discussion.
That was the consensus of top IT experts who recently gathered for an industry summit Webcast, “The Case for Linux in the Federal IT Sector,” conducted by Larstan Business Reports Inc.
Panel members were Paul Smith, Red Hat Inc. vice president of government sales operations; Mike Fitzmaurice, Linux business development manager at GTSI Corp.; and Scott Ruff, manager of Linux business development at Hewlett-Packard Co.
In a 2005 Larstan survey of 300 federal IT managers, 63 percent of the respondents said they either agreed or strongly agreed with the statement: “Open-source architecture is valuable, and my organization should adopt it.”
The primary reason the government is attracted to Linux systems and desktops, Fitzmaurice said, is that “the government can adopt these systems faster, and can deploy in much quicker time.”
“Open source in general is more reliable, offers better security, and is more compliant with service-oriented architecture,” Fitzmaurice said. “Overall, the government is going to benefit in those areas. And in most cases, its going to be more cost-effective.”