[Bush2000]

The specific case I'm talking about was the NSA doing some computer research by hardening Linux. MS used its lobbying to stop that.

Competition is now called "lobbying"?!? Nice. I see you're familiar with Marxist principles of redefining reality.

how can I justify spending millions of dollars on licenses and support when I can get the whole thing for just the cost of the support? To go proprietary would be a waste of our tax dollars.

OSS is going to cost more for support. Likewise, there are additional training costs. There is no such thing as a free lunch, no matter how many times you guys try to pull that cr*p.

[antiRepublicrat]

Competition is now called "lobbying"?!?

When MS uses its lobbyists to achieve a result, by definition that is lobbying.

OSS is going to cost more for support.

Support that statement with facts. The only place I've seen lower TCO from Microsoft was in their reality distortion field just as bad as Steve Jobs' "G4 is as fast as a P4 3GHz" one.

Likewise, there are additional training costs.

That assumes a current Windows shop switching. Otherwise, like I said in Largo, training for switching was negligible.

There is no such thing as a free lunch, no matter how many times you guys try to pull that cr*p.

Sometimes there is. When volunteers come to the shelter to help the homeless, that is a free lunch (in cases, literally). When volunteers write a world-class operating system, that is also a free lunch -- you didn't pay for it. The only thing you have to pay for, if you don't have it in-house, is support, which you'd have to pay for on any system.