Network World News: Military Enlists Opensource Community:

http://www.networkworld.com/news/2009/042709-military-open-source.html?nladname=042909linux

  Many companies, including Pixar and Dreamworks, have learned to save money and develop proprietary computer systems that are specialized to the tasks that they do(in the case of those studios, 3D computer generated animation).  Others, have learned to use Enterprise versions of Linux by companies like Red Hat and SUSE.  It drops the Operating System license costs from hundreds of dollars to tens of dollars for thousands of computers.  

 I regularly use a couple open source programs for producing my artwork, and also to replace my lack of Microsoft Office.  I use Open Office, supported by Sun Microsystems (www.openoffice.org) for any documents, spreadsheets, or presentations I need.  Several local governments around the world have also gone to using enterpise versions of Linux (based on UNIX) along with the Open Office Suite for doing government business.  The cost savings for tax payers is incredible!

 With DoD looking to save money, they started an open source development community.  As a veteran, who intends to learn some code, I might contribute at some point.  Linux, by its nature, can be made incredibly secure due to its basis as a UNIX system.  Anyone who used UNIX, or Mac Operating Systems, or Linux can tell you just how secure it can be. 

 This is definately a positive step forward, and I believe its a wise move.  With the economy in trouble, and cutting costs of government a high priority (despite spending sprees in other areas of government) open source computer programs are coming to the forefront.  Now, if the rest of the US and state governments could catch on to the fact that they could save us taxpayer dollars by dumping propriety, expensive, and over priced operating systems and programs where ever possible...