New and strict mandates from the Office of Management and Budget and the White House are bearing down on government agencies, forcing them to consolidate and streamline operations. More than ever before, information managers are under intense pressure to standardize their environments for the sharing of information - and to do so in ways that beef-up data security.

That was the consensus of top IT experts who recently gathered for an industry summit webcast, "The Case for Linux in the Federal IT Sector," conducted by Larstan Business Reports. The panel comprised Paul Smith, vice president, Government Sales Operations, software vendor Red Hat; Mike Fitzmaurice, manager, Linux Business Development, solutions provider GTSI; and Scott Ruff, manager, Linux Business Development, Hewlett-Packard.

The webcast panelists noted that increasing numbers of federal IT systems are transitioning from proprietary Unix operating systems to Linux, the leader in open source, to gain platform flexibility, reduced total cost of ownership (TCO), enhanced security, greater collaboration, and a host of other advantages.

Moderated by Larstan's editorial staff, the webcast examined a wide range of relevant issues, including:
-- How migrating to Linux and an open source system helps federal IT managers achieve federally mandated goals, such as collaboration;

-- The key attributes and benefits of open source systems, as opposed to those that are proprietary and closed;

-- The pressing cyber security issues that open source solutions can address; and

-- The operational - and ultimately strategic - benefits that can be accrued from effective implementation of Linux open source architecture.

All three panelists agreed that there's an enduring notion among end users that Linux is less safe than proprietary systems, but they dismissed this idea as a myth. They noted that open source software provides more transparency and control, allowing users to detect and fix security vulnerabilities in real time, as opposed to waiting for proprietary vendors to fix the chinks in the armor. They also explained that a diverse group of technologists within the developer community are continually scrutinizing open source code. This "many eyes" approach makes open source more robust, reliable and secure than proprietary, closed code.