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posted by n1 on Monday April 21 2014, @02:19AM   Printer-friendly
from the survival-of-the-fittest dept.

It seems likely that everyone here has heard the old saw "No one ever got fired for buying|using Microsoft". Well, times change.
The government of the Italian province of South Tyrol wants to save money and, noting Munich's savings of over 10 million euros, it sees Free Software as a solution. (The freedom thing isn't lost on them either.)

Governor Arno Kompatscher says "We've started to review our license costs. If there are free and open source alternatives, and where the costs and risks of changing are justified, we will switch to these." The new policy is meant to reduce IT costs. Should this fail, the region must resort to reduce its workforce, in order to balance the region's budget.

Did you catch the nuance? If you are a gov't employee and they can't change software because you aren't adaptable enough to use something other than Windows, you can plan on being the first one out the door. Hat tip to Robert Pogson for just the right spin on this story.

 
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  • (Score: 1) by The Archon V2.0 on Monday April 21 2014, @03:10AM

    by The Archon V2.0 (3887) on Monday April 21 2014, @03:10AM (#33823)

    If you read the rest of the two paragraphs Frankensteined into one for the summary, you read this:

    > "We are of course eager to promote the local IT sector. Our aim is to find areas and niches that can be covered by local IT enterprises with free and open source solutions. We are emphasising areas where we, as a regional administration, have special skills above and beyond IT."

    That sounds a hell of a lot to me like "we're outsourcing almost everything". Keeping your job isn't going to be a matter of learning Linux or whatever, it's going to be learning it and then winning the resume cattle call that whatever contract-winning company has. Less pay and benefits? Well, they ARE the lowest bidder....

  • (Score: 2) by aristarchus on Monday April 21 2014, @03:49AM

    by aristarchus (2645) on Monday April 21 2014, @03:49AM (#33840) Journal

    winning the resume cattle call

    Mixed metaphors, or semaphore? Resume pool, OK, that could be a gamble. But call, for a position, as in a "casting call"? However, I totally lose it with "cattle call". This is a call to all cattle, as in "calling all cattle, we are going to be moving out in five minutes!" Not a call to select which cattle qualify to become Microsoft meat patties! Business, Theatre, and Cowboys, all in one short phrase. My hat is of to you, most excellent Soylenter!

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 21 2014, @02:08PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 21 2014, @02:08PM (#33959)

      ...?

      http://www.thefreedictionary.com/cattle+call [thefreedictionary.com]

      "An audition in which a large number of often inexperienced actors or performers try out."

      The poster's mixing metaphors but not that badly.

  • (Score: 2) by isostatic on Monday April 21 2014, @09:20AM

    by isostatic (365) on Monday April 21 2014, @09:20AM (#33890) Journal

    I guess it depends if TUPE applies. Italy isn't great in its tupe protections, but wholesale outsourcing of the entire it department should apply.