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City of Barcelona Dumps Windows For Linux and Open Source Software (europa.eu)

Posted by EditorDavid on from the public-money-public-code dept.

An anonymous reader quotes Open Source Observatory: The City of Barcelona is migrating its computer systems away from the Windows platform, reports the Spanish newspaper El País. The City's strategy is first to replace all user applications with open-source alternatives, until the underlying Windows operating system is the only proprietary software remaining. In a final step, the operating system will be replaced with Linux... According to Francesca Bria, the Commissioner of Technology and Digital Innovation at the City Council, the transition will be completed before the current administration's mandate ends in spring 2019. For starters, the Outlook mail client and Exchange Server will be replaced with Open-Xchange. In a similar fashion, Internet Explorer and Office will be replaced with Firefox and LibreOffice, respectively. The Linux distribution eventually used will probably be Ubuntu, since the City of Barcelona is already running 1,000 Ubuntu-based desktops as part of a pilot...

Barcelona is the first municipality to have joined the European campaign 'Public Money, Public Code'. This campaign is an initiative of the Free Software Foundation Europe (FSFE) and revolves around an open letter advocating that publicly funded software should be free. Currently, this call to public agencies is supported by more than 100 organisations and almost 15,000 individuals. With the new open-source strategy, Barcelona's City Council aims to avoid spending large amounts of money on licence-based software and to reduce its dependence on proprietary suppliers through contracts that in some cases have been closed for decades.

3 of 255 comments (clear)

  1. In breaking news.... by chrism238 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    In breaking news, Microsoft has just announced that it will supply the City of Barcelona with free licences for all of its software needs.

    1. Re:In breaking news.... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Most IT shops do not know the answer to three questions
      1) How much (all up, everything) do we pay microsoft in licence fees per year
      2) How much do we pay other vendors for licence fees
      3) Over 3 years how much have we paid for software- all up, including lawyers, audits, and licence management packages, and administrators who add nothing to the bottom line ensuring 'compliance'

      Looks like one city has asked these questions, and cost per seat is visible. The main haters of open source are click and pointers who can't learn - and they need to go.

  2. Thanks to the cloud by aussie_a · · Score: 5, Insightful

    What really makes this possible is the cloud. Typically industry specific software will make it really difficult to migrate away from Windows, but as more and more of these programs migrate to a browser based interface, Linux compatibility shoots through the roof.

    By going with a phased approach where the OS is the last thing to migrate, they have already demonstrated more forethought than many other organisations. The real milestones will be when they get finance to move away from excel and when they replace senior members of IT. Until they meet those milestones, this will in all likelihood end up being a giant waste of money and time.