| Linux lands on government desktops in Europe |
Nov. 30, 2006
Linux desktops continue to weave their way into the top echelons of European government, according to reports on the web this week. Two recent examples include the Birmingham, U.K. City Council and the French Parliament.
Birmingham
Techworld.com reported today that the Birmingham, U.K. City Council has completed its year-long trial of desktop Linux and declared it a success -- despite a report showing it might have been less expensive to install Windows.
In today's Techworld report, Birmingham City Council IT manager Glyn Evans said that the higher cost resulted from the council having to experiment with the new technology and build up a depth of technical understanding, as well as fit it with the complex system already in place.
Nonetheless, Techworld reported, "The £105,000 saving that the report says would have resulted from going with Windows XP has also come under question as it was calculated using the special discounted licence rate that Microsoft offers councils -- something critics argue is a calculated effort to prevent public bodies from building up technical knowledge of open source offerings."
France
Earlier this week, a number of press reports noted that starting in June of next year, the French government plans to install Linux on 1,154 desktop computers in its Parliament.
According to the reports, the French National Assembly decided to make the move because it saw opportunity for significant cost savings -- even after factoring in migration and training expenses.
The French Parliament plan, also described in an Linux email newsletter from IBM, calls for the installation of Linux on nearly 1,200 desktop workstations, which will also run the Open Office productivity suite and Firefox web browser.
While other public agencies and ministries in France run Linux on servers, this announcement represents the French government's most visible embrace of the operating system on desktops.
The specific Linux distribution the government will use has not yet been determined, the IBM newsletter said.
Elsewhere
During the past year, the Swiss, Norwegian, and South African governments have made the move to Linux-based desktops. Additionally, a number of school districts all over the world have already made the jump.
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