They are warming to it, especially when it is offered by solid companies who can provide the support. The 'services not licenses' business model of a lot of OS

They are warming to it, especially when it is offered by solid companies who can provide the support. The 'services not licenses' business model of a lot of OS suppliers actually works quite well with Govt IT. The downside is that the existing players are huge (due to large contracts) and hard to dislodge. It is getting better though (I spent some time building http://apps.gov http://apps.gov if you want a sort of overview of the type of 'free market' that is trying to be provided to federal agencies here).