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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: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 21 2014, @10:49AM
That's absolutely not what Kompatscher is saying. He's saying, if they can't find enough cost savings through license fees to balance the budget, then they will move on to staff reductions. It says quite a lot that he even thinks he can find salary-scale cost savings in their current license structure, but that's a very different message than "convert or lose your job."
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 21 2014, @01:44PM
Having recently priced out a modest lab not using MSDN. Lets just say the MS cost was a large chunk of that lab. The hardware was literally cheaper than the software. This was not your ordinary desktop computers either. I am talking 4way socket 8 cpu XEON cpus 500+ gig memory each...
Basically be able to move to 'free stuff' or we will find someone who can. MS better get its licensing act together or will see more and more of this.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by tangomargarine on Monday April 21 2014, @02:15PM
I was going to say that the summary did a very poor job of convincing me...then I read the article and I'm still not convinced.
At the risk of being naive, I think the submitter is reading a bit too much between the lines that may not be there.
"Is that really true?" "I just spent the last hour telling you to think for yourself! Didn't you hear anything I said?"
(Score: 2) by n1 on Monday April 21 2014, @03:26PM
I'll openly admit that I wasn't totally convinced by the title or the implication either. However, I thought it was clear enough this was the submitters opinion and the statement from the article stood by itself, if read properly. I think it was mostly wishful thinking on the part of the submitter. Possibly not the best editorial decision I have made.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 21 2014, @06:57PM
it was clear enough this was the submitters opinion
Had you left in my usual *Windoze* spelling, it would have been even more obvious. 8-)
-- gewg_