For government workers, open source is too much of a risk. They have used Microsoft and others in the past, and they works. Everybody is complacent with software they know. If one day somebody shows up to work and Microsoft Word has been replaced by OpenOffice, well, meetings will be called. Of course, nobody will get fired over open source software (very few things short of a felony conviction will get you fired from a government job), but there will be forms filed in triplicate, maybe even quadruplicate. It's not that government employees fear risk. They just have nothing to gain by taking one. Mandating that open source be considered doesn't alter the path of least resistance.
Well, I hope he's wrong on the thesis, but he sure nailed the nature of our government workforce.
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