Large Dutch cities supporting open source
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| Arthur Buijs from the Dutch OpenOffice.org community just pointed me
| to this Dutch article. According to the article, a number of large
| Dutch cities including Almere, Assen, Eindhoven, Enschede,
| Groningen, Haarlem, Leeuwarden and Nijmegen have decided to
| support open source. The article says that the cities are
| interested in open source because Microsoft software is being
| perceived as expensive and the software does not not work well
| together with competitive products on other platforms.
|
| [...]
|
| Here is the full article: A large number of big cities don't want
| to be dependent of Microsoft anymore. Together they have 1.2 million
| inhabitants. They demand open source software from their suppliers.
| Almost all desktops run Microsoft Windows and also have word
| processors and spreadsheets made by the American software giant
| installed. It has been some time that counties - and not only in
| the Netherlands - try to be less dependent of Microsoft. For some
| time there have been very good alternative programs. Some are even
| free of charge. In real life, they are rarely used because
| ict-companies do not support them. Attempts to force them have run
| into problems with European legislation. Eight large Dutch counties
| have now taken the first step by publishing a manifest calling on
| ict-companies to support open source. In fact Almere, Assen,
| Eindhoven, Enschede, Groningen, Haarlem, Leeuwarden and Nijmegen are
| giving a message to these suppliers, saying they don't stand a chance
| getting major orders if they don't comply. Some of these counties
| have already dumped their suppliers for that reason. The software
| of Microsoft - and some other leading (database) companies - is not
| only expensive. Another problem is that their data is not exchangable
| with competitors programs. These software giants also invent new
| standards, forcing their clients to buy new software and convert
| their data to those new standards. Dutch government promotes the
| use of open standards and open source by their Ososs program. A
| spokesman of Ososs says the action of these counties is a true
| breakthrough for open source software.
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http://blogs.sun.com/dancer/entry/large_dutch_cities_supporting_open
Ian will be happy now.
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