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When and how can Free Software really save public money?
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| A few days ago, during an email conversation
| about efficient public services and waste of
| money in Public Administrations, I had to
| answer a couple of questions. Since those
| answers may interest many other people, here
| they are.
|
| (note for newcomers: the "Free Software"
| discussed here is software like Ubuntu (a
| distribution of Linux) or OpenOffice:
| software that can be legally copied and
| installed without license costs, supported
| by politicians of all parties, even in the
| European Union)
|
| First question: in my opinion, people
| saying that Free Software saves money
| overlooks the fact that those who use it
| on their job, for example a public
| employee, may need some training to use
| all its features. If you consider this,
| Free Software saves money only in the
| long run, doesn't it?
|
| Of course, in medium and big organizations,
| the costs of software licenses are only a
| small part of the total costs of using and
| maintaining that same software (even if,
| only in Italy, the total amount of software
| licensing costs in local and national PAs is
| hundreds millions of Euros every year), but
| let's look at the whole picture. If you only
| consider the cost of software licenses, it's
| easy: Free Software wins.
`----
http://stop.zona-m.net/it/node/99
Indian Kids Most Active Downloader of Open Source Technology [Youth Survey]
http://www.pluggd.in/indian-kids-download-open-source-the-most-youth-survey-297/
Recent:
Steps to adopt open source standards draw flak
,----[ Quote ]
| Indiaâs open source software lobbyists
| allege that the countryâs proposed draft
| recommendations for adopting open
| technology standards and software for
| automating different government departments
| and functions, favours popular software
| solutions from large companies such as
| Microsoft.
|
| According to people familiar with the draft
| recommendations, a meeting of the apex body
| on Standards for eGovernance was held last
| week, and the policy is close to being
| approved. ET was shown a copy of the
| proposed recommendations by one of the
| persons who requested anonymity.
|
| [...]
|
| The most contentious point of the policy is
| that it includes standards which may be
| royalty free and non discriminatory (RAND)
| as compared to fair royalty free and non
| discriminatory (FRAND), which many experts
| had recommended.
|
| âThe entire standard should be royalty-free
| and not just the âessentialâ parts of it.
| In other words, All patent claims necessary
| to implement the standard should be
| royaltyfree. Also, royalty free on
| FRAND/RAND is self-contradictory. If a
| Standard is Royalty Free (RF) then it
| cannot be RAND,â says Venkatesh Hariharan,
| a blogger and expert on open source
| affairs.
`----
http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/infotech/software/Steps-to-adopt-open-source-standards-draw-flak/articleshow/5475276.cms
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