The United States of America (USA) is one of the pioneer countries in the development and use of FOSS since 1980s. In 1990, NASA Ames became one of the first two customers to purchase commercial support for free software. The USA has also hosted many FOSS events, some of which were sponsored by the US Army.
Many policies were released in USA on the state level since the 2000s. There has also been adoption of FOSS by some leading companies in the market, for example, in 2000 IBM announced allocating $1 billion investment in Linux. In 2016 the American company RedHat becomes first $2b open-source company.
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FOSS on the USA federal level
On the federal level, there are a few example to be mentioned. In 2003, the first Federal open source policy was issued which permitted FOSS acquisition, development and use as long as it complies with COTS or GOTS policies. The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) announced its open source policy in 2012.
FOSS on the USA states level
On the states and cities level, The city of Largo is one of the earliest high-profile cases of a government administration migrating over to Linux. The IT system of this small city in the state of Florida, USA, supports 800 city workers, including local safety and health services. Implementation began in 2000 and their experience with Linux in the years since then have been nothing but positive.
In 2009, the City of Portland, Oregon released the first US municipal government open source policy. The policy favours the acquisition of open source.
California in 2010 released an open source policy stating that OSS is to be considered when procuring software. In the same year, San Francisco released an open source policy as well mandating evaluation of open source in software procurement for purchases over $100,000.
In 2012, New Hampshire passed open source/open data legislation that requires state agencies to consider open source software and promotes the use of it by state agencies.
FOSS on the USA federal departmental level
On the federal departmental level, the US Department of Defence (DoD) issued a memo in 2009 reiterating that open source software is commercial software and encouraging the various branches of DOD to consider open source when selecting and procuring software.
Factors of FOSS proliferation in the USA
There are several factors, which have enabled FOSS proliferation in the USA, i.e. the nature of the US open and competitive market, which provides a space for FOSS to grow; the adoption of FOSS by big companies and government departments such as Department of Defence; strong R&D and big investments in FOSS such as IBM investments in Linux.
Although policies and memos released were not explicitly promoting FOSS but rather encouraging organizations to consider its use in a competitive way, FOSS was adopted by some states/cities (such as Portland and San Francisco), state departments (NASA and DOD) and big companies (IBM). The essence of this experience is that policies are not the most important factor, other factors including demand (state departments and organizations that have precise demands about software) and supply (strong FOSS developers and companies) were more dominant in this experience.