Reading the article and this thread, I see that the argument is about Central Government and the USA. For people living outside the US, your mileage may vary - mine certainly does.

Living in a country whose prime minister by his own admission, "struggles to do more than switch on a computer"^[1], Government tends to have the reputation of being overly bureaucratic and clueless, rather than directly hostile towards Open Source. What counterbalances this is the large lobby of technically savvy individuals, who do understand Open Source, and have not taken the Gates' shilling.

There are several cases where Open Source has won, due to the argument of saving money; after all it's hard to undercut something that's free. What works against this is the FUD from the major software vendors about lack of support. My experiences are that most open source software is better supported, because people care about it - Perlmonks being a case in point.

Currently, there is an anti-trust case worth following of Microsoft V the EU, see The Register. Although not directly about Open Source, it says much about attitudes of many EU countries to Microsoft. In most cases, there is more take up of Linux in Local Government than Central Government.

I'm also fascinated by what's going on in Brazil. Could any Brazilian monks enlighten me as to how the Government's procurement policies which favour Open Source, are working out.

[1] Metro 60 Second Interview with Tony Blair, 5th April 2006.