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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.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 21 2014, @04:28AM
a fucking TRUCKLOAD of salt
You really don't get the "a grain of salt" metaphor, do you?
Hint: You went the wrong direction with the quantity.
not in 5 fricking years has he EVER said Microsoft or Windows
Why would he advertise for the competition?
When M$ says "Linux", it's accompanied with "cancer".
certifiably batshit
We'll let everyone judge for himself.
Something I wrote previously: [soylentnews.org]
Blogger and Linux advocate Robert Pogson taught high school in the Great White North in one of the poorest communities north of the Rio Grande.
He started with a pile of disused Lose95 boxes infected to the gunwales, without a COA anywhere to be found, zero budget, and with no Linux experience.
The cost of shipping anything to that remote area was ridiculously expensive.
Your situation can't possibly be any worse.
One thing he found was that every year there were a few kids who wanted to learn even more than the basics.
He channeled that energy and that made his workload lighter.
M$ teaches dependency--specifically corporate dependency; don't fall into that trap and don't teach the kids that.
You are reminding me of story of the ponytail.
http://tinyurl.com/KenStarks-vs-WindozeSupportGuy [tinyurl.com] (orig) [blogspot.com]
-- gewg_
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 21 2014, @11:07AM
The path to refuting "Voldemort syndrome" is not likely to include "M$" and "Lose95."
Look, Pogson has taken a perfectly reasonable statement by the South Tyrolian governor, and allowed his anti-Microsoft fantasy to turn it into a projected David-vs-Goliath campaign. The actual statement, any reasonable reader understands that Kompatscher is trying to save money by reducing licensing costs. (-- notice the period, indicating the completion of a thought) If they can not balance the budget by reducing licensing costs, then they will reduce staff. (new thought, indicating a second strategy for balancing the budget)
It's like saying "I'm trying to pay off my credit card debt by cutting out latte's. If that doesn't work, then I'll cut back on beer." That doesn't mean I've been drinking latte-flavored beer - it means I've prioritized categories in which to reduce expenses.