I used to work for an organization that used SAS. As I recall, its only selling point was backwards compatibility with 1970's IBM mainframes. I rewrote all the SAS scripts I was given in a mix of other languages (R wasn't an option at the time, and I hadn't discovered Python yet). I don't know much about R, but I highly recommend python for its versatility.

Or hire/contract to write new open source software. If you have an need in your agency for software features that aren't already available in open source, you could justify funding one or more programmers to develop them as an open source product.

I've had experiences both with desktops and servers...in my experience approval of open source is rare, and far more difficult to push through. I've never seen Apache or an open source database installed on a DoD system, only the proprietary Netscape web server and using ColdFusion rather than PHP for server-side scripting. I've seen requests to use PHP rather than ColdFusion get shot down purely on the grounds that PHP is open source. That's not to say I haven't seen open source on DoD systems. I have seen (and used) it, but it's been the exception rather than the rule.

On the contrary, the miltary is culturally paranoid of anything open source. The rare open source package that makes it on an "approved" list is nearly always shot down by local IT staff, who consider open source to be a security risk. The only exception is the software that comes pre-packaged with Solaris, and Sun workstations are being rapidly replaced by Windows boxes. If this initiative has any impact at all on the software actually used by the DoD, it will be an improvement.

That was hyperbole. The sewing machine in question is like a CNC machine so you can make it move all sorts of ways, but I don't actually think impalement is likely. Any number of other problems (sewing machine grinding to a halt in the middle of a job because the OS crashed) seem entirely possible.