I'm surprised that it took me this long to stumble across Matt Asay's blog. In his recent posting, he mentions a discussion with Stan Taylor on open source intelligence. It turns out that I had the same class from Professor Taylor a long time ago. Since I was an IR major as an undergraduate, open source intel is an old idea, but not related to open source software which is what I was just thinking about. I was wondering if California had done anything at all with SO10, the CPR recommendation to explore open source alternatives. Specifically, the recommendations were:

• For potential immediate savings, departments should take an inventory of software purchases and software renewals in the Fiscal Year 2004-2005 and implement open source alternatives where feasible.
• Incorporate open source software as a viable alternative to any software procurement.

According to the recommendations, "savings could range from several hundred thousand dollars to millions."

A lot was made of this recommendation when it came out in places like CNET and ZDNet, but little has been heard since then. Clark Kelso and Massachussetts CIO, Peter Quinn, spoke at LinuxWorld recently, but based on this photo, there wasn't much interest.