Government institutions are a prime target for open source software for many reasons, primarily the low cost of ownership and relative ease of upgrading to the latest standards and software. Network World has pieced together a map of governmental adoption of open source around the world, and it paints an interesting picture of worldwide open source adoption.
From the article:
Broadly speaking, Europe and South America are the biggest hotspots for open-source use in government, with Bulgaria being an example earlier this year of a country requiring all software written for the government to be FOSS (free and open source software). East Asia and North America also have plenty of countries with laws on the books (See also: The US federal government now has an open source policy – but it doesn’t go far enough). These laws are harder to find in Africa and central Asia, however.
