Following many European goverments pledging to switch to Linux, the US army is beginning a similar program with the goal of gradually moving the entire army to Linux, according to the Register. The motivations behind the switch include better security, sability, and vendor independence. A major switch involving so many computers will not happen overnight, however. The army is using Red Hat’s software to ensure interoperability with the Windows computers currently in use. This will allow the army to make a slow transition over sevral years (as the European goverments plan to do as well) to Linux without issues.

The army is also working on weapons and vehecles that will be more Linux-friendly. My question is do they intend to release the code as open-source code. GPL nuke drivers anyone? (Just kidding.) Either way, it looks like Tux is armed and dangerous.

Now that many parts of various goverments are moving to Linux, how long can it be before everyone in the goverment is using Linux? Of course, it will take years for these projects to complete and even more years for the rest of the goverments to preform the switch, but it looks like Microsoft’s dominance in the goverment will soon end. With this competition in the goverment, Microsoft is now facing serious competition in every market they compete in and it looks like their time on the throne is coming to an end.

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