Spanish Region Goes Entirely Open Source

greengrass writes to tell us TechWorld is reporting that the Spanish region of Extremadura has decided to go completely open source with their day-to-day operations. While the region has long been a supporter of open source software, within a year it will be a requirement that all officials use the ODF and PDF formats for all documents. From the article: "Extremadura, Spain's poorest region, made headlines following a 2002 decision to migrate about 70,000 desktops and 400 servers in its schools to a locally tailored version of Debian called gnuLinEx. The government has estimated that the total cost of this project was about 190,000 euros (£130,000), 18 million euros lower than if the schools had purchased Microsoft software. "

Comments

Is it just me?

[olego]

I read that as "Spanish Religion Goes Entirely Open Source", and spent the next few seconds wondering about the implication of this transition.

Re:Is it just me?

[Torstein Haldorsen]

I misread it the same way, and I am in the process of actually founding an "Open Source Religion". A coherent organized worldview that is dynamic, module-based and upgradable. In contrast with the thousands of years old, monolithic, static and all-to-often fundamentalist doctrines that monopolize the religious market today. I say it's about time they get some competition.

Re:Is it just me?

[Anonymous Coward]

Most religions are already open source - apart from the Scientology that is.

And look at their forking problems! Proof positive that proprietary religions don't have the same forking problems and open source religions.

Re:Is it just me?

[Mr_Dyqik]

Penguinquisition

or

Inquistion is Not Quite the Usual InquiSITION

(guess where I got bored in the previous line)

Re:Is it just me?

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, Christianity is a fork of Judaism; its main selling points being less restrictive input criteria and no need for hardware modifications. Islam is a fork from Christianity that reintroduced some of the features of Judaism 1.x whilst remaining basically incompatible. Satanism is also a fork from Christianity.

As for the polytheistic religions, they aren't so much forks as localisations. The Norse god Odin, for instance, is the same as the Saxon god Wotan. (except Odin didn't make cheap light bulbs in the 1970s).

Re:A Goal!

[grcumb]

Please, if you're going to use football (sorry, 'soccer') metaphors, at least do it right. It should be:

"GGGGOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAALLL LLLLLLL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"

No, no... the GP post was alluding to:

[PaulBu]

"NOBODY expects the Spanish Inquisition!" ;-)

Paul B.

Judgement day

[owlman17]

Hasta la vista, Microsoft.

Nobody

[Life700MB]

Nobody expects the now Open Source based Spanish Inquisition!


--
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Re:Credit

[Chaffar]

Actually, I believe "Extremadura" means "Extremely Hard" in Spanish, so it should be a better fit for a well-equiped Spanish pornstar than for a major distro.

Spain is a socialist country these days...

[CptSpatula]

Seriously, I wonder how long it will be before a direct mental connection between Open Source and socialism develops in the minds of Americans. It'd be an easy weapon to deploy against Linux.

Re:A Goal!

[cloricus]

Sorry, I'm from Australia...You know, the place that had a slight chance in the last world cup until Itally decided to use our game for diving practice? So it's more like:

"YOU TOOK A BLOODY DIVE!" ...Funnily enough this is probably what Microsofts price per seat offer will do in the country in question.

For those that don't know....

[Maelwryth]

gnuLinEx is spanish for GNU Linux.