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Andalucia Adopts Free Software

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the welcome-to-the-hotel-california dept.

InodoroPereyra writes "Browsing Linux Today I found a link to an HispaLiNUX article stating that Andalucia goes OpenSource. More specifically, "All public educational centre necessities are intended to be fulfilled, first of all, with Free Software [...] It is compulsory to all hardware acquired by official educational centres to be fully compatible with Free Software operating systems. Furthermore, it must be preinstalled in all new bought computers". Andalucia is a region located to the South of Spain, with about 7.5 million inhabitants. This is an important follow-up to the many stories on Linux in Extremadura."

4 of 268 comments (clear)

  1. Small nations by G3ckoG33k · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Small nations/language groups may indeed follow suit. I remember when Microsoft refused to make an Icelandic version of Windows some years ago. Reason? Too few users... Well, there are actually 250,000 icelanders, like a larger city block. Which makes me think of my 25 minute old Mandrake 9.1 installation. It boasts support for 60 languages, including Icelandic.

    1. Re:Small nations by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Interesting

      With a small yet relatively prosperous nation like Iceland, wouldn't it be worthwhile to really saturate them with information on Linux? Iceland seems to be very progressive (they want to rid themselves of fossil fuels as soon as they can), so I would imagine they'd be fairly receptive. The Icelanders I've met are very proud of their language, and unless MS has gotten around to releasing a localized Windows version, that issue could be used to get their attention

  2. Economic Development by luzrek · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Sounds like they want to encourage Open Source software to encourage the local economy. Makes sense, they won't have to send X-dollars per computer to MS or IBM or SUN or Apple and that money can stay in the local economy. Before someone says, "but what about the cost of training?" The money spent on the computer training for people to use OSS will also stay in the local economy and is actually a direct expendature on educating the local work force.

    --

    Galium Arsenide is the material of the future, and always will be.

  3. Close minded by binaryDigit · · Score: 3, Interesting

    The question is, is the REQUIREMENT that all systems contain Free (they didn't say OPEN, just FREE, I don't know if this is a translation thing, but there is an important distinction) software good or not. Are they limiting themselves just as they would be if they declared "all systems must have Microsoft software". What if it turns out that MacOS actually suits their needs the best? (ok, you can stop laughing now)

    The article is light on background and I don't read Spanish, so I don't know what precipitated this decision (purely financial, political (aka Anti-Microsoft), technical, or whatever). So it's hard to tell just how well thought out this is.