SmartBUY Guides Open Source Purchases

Many believe that SmartBUY, a federal program to procure enterprise software licenses for a variety of commercially available software, will make buying open source software easier than ever before.

To use SmartBUY, users simply browse a catalog containing all possible choices, choosing the software that fits their mission best. All choices have been pre-negotiated by the General Services Administration's Federal Supply Service and processed through the GSA Schedules contracts.

"SmartBUY will have a definite impact on open source in government, since Linux will be part of it," says Tony Stanco, director of the Washington-based Center of Open Source and Government. "It definitely puts Linux on a more level playing field."

In addition to offering enterprise software licenses for open source software tools, SmartBUY also will provide licenses for other commercially available, commodity-type software that is widely used and/or of high dollar value such as office automation, antivirus protection, database, network management, and business modeling tools.

GSA officials believe that SmartBUY, which stands for Software Managed and Acquired on the Right Terms), will make the government a more effective purchaser of commercial software and will reduce costs significantly by allowing agencies to buy common applications in larger quantities.