[panamafrank]

I've heard from people that work in government that the tools they use are allowed to use are restricted by overly complex procurement rules. The result is that non-technical teams are forced to use ancient software as anything else (even if it's opensource) isn't kosher. How could this be reformed?

[brandonb]

I could believe that, but my personal experience is that we were able to introduce pretty modern tools--AWS, Node, Backbone, Hipchat and Google apps for communications. Getting these approved required going through a rather complex security audit and dispelling a decent amount of FUD, but otherwise, there's no real legal barrier to using modern open source software.

I think what was probably key is to find an internal champion within the organization you're working with. If you can find a good partner on the business side, you can often get things through the bureaucracy if you're patient and diligent.