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."

web applications

[johnjones]

Thats nice I still don't understand why my tax's are spent on OS license only for the users to login to web applications

Linux supports kerberos so authentication is not a problem its down to choices and management

what would be interesting would be what applications they need to run... is there a list somewhere ?

regards

John Jones

The expense isn't the license, it's support

[blarkon]

In terms of person hours, the cost of a Windows and Office license is such that if an IT support person needs to spend more than a couple of hours directly supporting a Linux machine over its lifetime than they would supporting an equivalent Windows/Office machine, the organization is spending more rather than less money. And people who can competently support Linux aren't cheap - they are certainly more expensive on a $ per hour basis than the stream of Windows support people that Microsoft created a whole division called Microsoft Learning for to ensure that supply exceeds demand. Until competent Linux desktop support people are as cheap as competent Microsoft desktop people, it's going to be hard to overcome the fact that while the OS may not cost a dollar to license, computers require support and support costs $. (And given the whole OSS financial model is to make the $ on the support end ... )

Hardly an issue these days

[MichaelSmith]

With so much stuff running remotely through web interfaces, operating systems matter very little.

Re:sometimes it takes a crisis

[ozmanjusri]

Because change, even beneficial change, has a threshold of inertia to overcome.

Re:The expense isn't the license, it's support

[masshuu]

Reminds me of what the trainers at work said.

Sit a linux admin and a windows admin in a room together and tell them to walk away from their mail exchangers for 2 weeks. The linux admin will be indifferent and the windows admin will visibly twitch, snap, and kill everyone.

Oh the stability of windows products.

Re:The expense isn't the license, it's support

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Re:The expense isn't the license, it's support

[rtb61]

Well the 'FACT' is due to M$ greed and their upgrade policy, windows and office support costs a packet, each and every forced upgrade cycle. Windows can and often is a nightmare to support, auto upgrade has to be disabled just in case and then manually done. Document incompatibilities in between versions needs constant support. Reality is, due to the simplicity of administering a Linux system (the windows registry sucks dead dog's dicks, why, why, oh why the fuck why) with text file configuration, a competent Linux administrator can get a huge amount done in a very short time, pay twice as much to often get ten times the work done in the same time.

PS you pay more for better skilled people, so what you are really saying is that Linux trained system administrators are better skilled then windoze admins (having contracted out both I can guarantee on average that is true). In fact often those Linux admins are far better at administrating windows systems then your typical windoze admin.

Which becomes cheaper, as its seldom needed.

[Artemis3]

Yes, but then again, once you have things settled and working properly, you rarely ever need support. Unlike some other proprietary OSes, where things are constantly breaking, a Linux machine always works unless the hardware fails.

I have lived such a transition. Before, Windows machines would break all the time, and people in support were always overwhelmed. Now with Linux in desktops, after a small period of shock from users because of the change, its boring and very rarely support is ever needed. People also tend to stick to their work, since they can no longer try/install random malware of the day.

You are also forgetting, support for free software can come from anywhere; you are not tied to a single vendor. And i mean real support, such as, "i need program x to do y, can you change it?"

Chaining yourself to a single vendor is business suicide; and a loss of sovereignty to a foreign corporation from a government perspective.

Once you break of the chains, you will never want to go back.