Peter Quinn on FOSS Adoption
Matthew Overington and Steven Deare write ‘Sandal and Ponytail Set’ Cramping Linux Adoption? for CNet News.com.
In the article, Peter Quinn discusses the effect of FOSS developers’ typically-casual dress code on their reputation among business users. However, he also says that FOSS and open standards like ODF are being investigated at almost every state IT shop in the US:
“I think there’s something going on in every agency in every (U.S) state,” he said. “Whether the CIO knows it or not, that’s a different thing. I think almost everybody, they say, ‘It’s not happening at my shop, I promise you,’ but when you (go) to their shop, it’s happening. So I think it’s happening everywhere, but there’s varying degrees.”
IT folks must keep quiet for fear of reprisal from the well-monied and entrenched corporate lobbyists. “When you think about the lobbying power and the cash that’s available for opponents of open source and opponents of OpenDocument, there is a significant amount of money and resource that people can and will bring to bear,” says Quinn.