Obama Email

I had heard about http://change.gov/, so I decided to put in my $.02:

"We could save a great deal of money by moving government agencies toward using the Linux operating system and Open Source/Free Software in general. The momentum is there and growing - the DOD, NASA, NSA and US Army already use it in some applications.
I believe it deserves consideration for much wider deployment, given it's proven quality and security. A Gartner study just said that 85% of enterprises are already using open source and the remainder will do so within 12 months.
http://news.cnet.com/8301-13505_3-10098310-16.html

"Free Software" refers to freedom, not price, but the excessive licensing fees paid to proprietary vendors are often unnecessary, and in Microsoft's case, perpetuate an unethical monopoly, stifle innovation and put a burden on government agencies budgets, and on ordinary citizens too.

Also, we should promote, if not legislate, open standards in Internet technologies and document formats. Preventing vendor lock-in and allowing open access to public records and documents without requiring any one companies product seems desirable. These closed file formats force users to pay for accessing information that should be freely available to all. They also hinder competition because it is difficult to produce a competing software product, if the file format is a secret.

Educational institutions should be encouraged to use and teach Open Source/Free Software, not only to make our education dollars go further, but to prepare students for the new software model that is gaining ground very rapidly with governments and corporations worldwide.

This technology and philosophy has reached a maturity and achieved a critical mass of adoption that I think warrants consideration for more government use.

I have noted more advantages in a blog post here:
http://linuxlatitude.blogspot.com/2008/03/in-lattitude.html
(oriented to home and small business users, but many facts still relevant).

Thanks for reading and congratulations on the election! "

Maybe I'll get the national CTO post? ;-)