Finally, there is the evidence from the vendors. In February 2000, GTSI, a computer vendor that the federal government frequently buys from, signed a deal with Red Hat to distribute Red Hat Linux through federal procurement systems. But nearly a year later, GTSI's sales of Linux are so small they barely register. By that standard, Linux in government -- at least at the federal level -- is a dud.

What's happening here?

Infiltrating the government

What's happening, at least in the US, is the traditional Linux model for penetrating a large bureaucracy. Linux enters at the bottom, with early adoptions by individuals scattered throughout the organization. They either bring in their own copies of Linux, or order one and pay for it out of petty cash or even their own pockets. They install Linux to do standalone jobs, such as Web serving, handling email, or doing specific kinds of calculations. Unless it is a high-profile application like a Beowulf supercomputer, even people using the services may be unaware that they are using Linux. Consequently, many individual Linux projects remain unnoticed unless they're unusual or someone makes a point of publicizing them.

Computing installations, which are more IT-oriented, tend to report fairly high percentages of Linux use because they have a higher concentration of specialized applications like Web and mail servers (as well a higher concentration of Linux champions). LAN administrators are seeing some Linux growth, because they sometimes handle systems with mail or Web servers, but vendors