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French Police Save Millions Switching To Ubuntu
Ynot_82 writes "The French national police force, the Gendarmerie Nationale, has spoken about their migration away from the Windows platform to Linux. Estimated to have already saved the force 50 Million Euros, the migration is due to be completed on all 90,000 workstations by 2015. Of the move, Lt. Col. Guimard had this comment: '"Moving from Microsoft XP to Vista would not have brought us many advantages and Microsoft said it would require training of users. Moving from XP to Ubuntu, however, proved very easy. The two biggest differences are the icons and the games. Games are not our priority."'"
What the summary doesn't mention, but is worth noting, is that they were already using open source programs where possible---Firefox, Thunderbird, OOo. Now I think their migration is wonderful, but I suspect it might have been somewhat more difficult if users were asked to adjust to new programs, as well.
The only insightful comment so far, and I don't have any mod points. :(
Oh well. Yes, that is what is meant by "nothing changes but the icons".
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Yes it is. They were found guilty of breaking the law. It was in a criminal court, and they were convicted. What part of that do you not understand?
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Yep, historically that's who governments give money to the second they have freed up funds, right? It's not like it ever goes to politicians friends'(lobbyists and/or campaign contributors) causes.
Any money saved will go towards building another bridge to nowhere.