I don't know how to respond to this other than to be truthful...

On Sat, 2004-06-19 at 15:23, Michael Havens wrote: 
How does this one look?
+++++++++++
-> Editor
<- Concerned citizens

It has come to our attention that state and city governments of this state are 
not acting in the best interest  of it's citizens.
How are they not acting in the best interest of their citizens?  This is a severe accusation and yet you make a general comment with concrete fact to support it.  Many governments buy into the philosophy that Microsoft feeds them that states standardization (read all Microsoft) is actually MORE cost effective.  So they actually think they ARE acting in the best interest of their constituency.  You need to explain WHAT they are doing that is wrong.

These  organizations claim 
that they have no money yet they continue to  give  hundreds of thousands of 
dollars (if not then millions) to software manufactures.
Wow, I hope this is not how you expect to win friends and influence people.   Basically you are calling them liars.  As you state the "claim" to have no money yet they "continue to spend".  The truth is most of them do NOT have excess money.  Most of them are spending because they don't understand they have a CHOICE.  However, calling them liars doesn't help your cause.

They continue to 
do  this by leasing licenses for the operating systems (OS) and software 
produced by these companies
Technically I believe they own the licenses.  They just do a leased service contract for upgrades... Enterprise Agreement reads very strange.  It is part lease part ownership.

even though there are viable alternatives to 
their software and operating systems which are part of a movement known as 
being 'open source'.
There are not viable EQUIVALENTS in all cases.  Making statements like this makes your argument significantly weaker.

This movement is one in which the source code (inner 
workings of the program) is available for everyone to inspect and to improve 
upon. While some say this leads to less secure programs, that is not 
true.
It is not universal that it leads to more secure programs either.  Going down this route is generally fruitless as a primary argument.

 Â The individuals who write computer virii are are usually young and 
inexperienced individuals who think they are smarter than they really are 
(this is why they ALWAYS get caught).
They do not always get caught and using character attacks (even on the "bad" guys) doesn't help your argument.

And while they are looking at the code 
with malicious overtones the wiser, more experienced generations are 
inspecting the same code fixing any security flaws they might find.
I hope you are not inferring that young people are not capable of coding effectively.

Because the code is open for all to see it is also open for all to compile 
(make operational) in whatever computing environment they wish. This means 
that it is free to use as your software. This all boils down to that for 
practically nothing you can have an operating system that that runs many 
top-notch programs that many believe are superior to operating systems you 
must pay for with the same funtionality.
Do not make the primary argument "no cost" it WILL bite you in the end.

I now would finish with a listing of government agencies that have chosen to      
go with open source software to reduce costs, increase security, and to 
improve performance:

This is the first part that actually contains facts with support.  I think you should drop all the emotional argument piece and just write the person you want to influence with this list of governments (including supporting documentation).  At the top of the message simply put....

"I have noticed recently that a lot of government agencies are investigating the use of free software in order to reduce costs, increase stablity/security and reduce vendor lockin.  I was wondering if <insert government agency you are writing to here> has investigated such software?  It looks like it might be something that is a good use of our tax dollars in the long run.  I am including a list of similar government agencies that have started using such software.  Perhaps you could contact them and see if you could get similar results/benefits."

<insert your list here>

-Derek