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Spain's Extremadura Starts Move To GNU/Linux, Open Source
jrepin writes "The government of Spain's autonomous region of Extremadura has begun the switch to open source of it desktop PCs. The government expects the majority of its 40,000 PCs to be migrated this year, the region's CIO Theodomir Cayetano announced on 18 April. Extremadura estimates that the move to open source will help save 30 million euro per year. Extremadura in 2012 completed the inventory of all the software applications and computers used by its civil servants. It also tailored a Linux distribution, Sysgobex, to meet the majority of requirements of government tasks. It has already migrated to open source some 150 PCs at several ministries, including those for Development, Culture and Employment."
Take as many as you need, they're free.
What is a deltic?
It's when your hand hovers uncontrollably over the "Del" key.
"I've got more toys than Teruhisa Kitahara."
That's a nice, well used, and wrong chestnut.
Incredibly, the only real data to back up such flimsy assertions comes from companies that have, by amazing coincidence, received money from Microsoft. Purely for something unrelated, naturally.
The fact is that Linux is considerably more flexible to configure and deploy than Windows. It also does not come with huge complexity of auditing license compliance (yes, there are some companies that offer Linux support license; no, they are not like Microsoft's licensing complex). So if you are a lone administrator using your home computer or keeping up a small office, Microsoft may come easier to you (largely because that's what you've used growing up). Once you get to something larger, all these handwaving assertions start to break down.
It is a very convenient propaganda tool, because intuitively many people can agree with it, based on their own experience of working on their own computers. So people don't question it as much as they should.