German Parliament Considers Linux

daramannen writes ""The committee is examining whether switching the Bundestag's more than 5,000 computers to open source would improve stability and security, as well as save money, Schroer said. By the committee's estimate, implementing open source software throughout the federal government could result in savings of 250 million marks (US$116 million)." "

Comments

consider the costs

[Kallahar]

It's a good thing in the long run, but what are the costs of switching that many people over? Sure the OS is free, but all that tech support time is quite expensive, especially in the beginning. How long would it take for them to recoup in savings the loss for the switchover?