What is Proprietary

Free, libre, or open source software (FLOSS) offers the promise of cost-free, modifiable, high-quality software, for a multitude of tasks (e.g. desktop operating systems, office suite applications, graphics manipulation packages, etc.). Given that this software is free in terms of cost and ability to modify, we should see its widespread use throughout public administrations whose limited budgets generally give rise to the need to find ways to cut costs wherever possible, while simultaneously providing ever expanding ranges of services to their constituencies. However, we find open source software’s use at the desktop and application level rather sparse. We look at 3 specific cases of open source software use: one for provision of local e-government services, a case where a small municipality has applied open source software within a desktop environment, and a case where a large city government has embarked on the wholesale replacement of the operating system and office application suite of an entire city’s implementation of desktop workstations.