Driving Better Governance With Open Source

"Ten years ago, open source—notably Linux—was often labelled a ‘fad’ or destined for the ‘hobbyist’ market,” said Mark Bohannon, Vice President for Corporate Affairs & Global Public Policy at Red Hat.

"Fast forward to today. Owing not only to the benefits of the technology, but also to the benefits of the collaborative innovation model, open source software has by any measure become mainstream and vital to enterprise and government IT architecture."

In the Public Sector, Bohannon notes that most governments now are more likely to engage on how open source can help them achieve the innovation they need to be able to serve their citizens today and in the years to come.

"They are increasingly more interested in becoming participants in the open source community, as opposed to simply being purchasers,” he said, adding that this strong global trend allows governments to explore the potential of using open source software solutions for a wide variety of infrastructure, platform and application needs.