Just for a source of ideas, I'm trying to build a list of examples of governments using free software on a large scale. Does anyone know of list, and/or a list of articles about big public sector installations?
The ones I can think of are:
The city of Munich
Extramedura, Spain
Brighton, UK (there was an article about this collapsing, but apparently it didn't)
Brazil
Venezuela (or just the military? or just the navy? and I think the petrol company too)
Ecuador http://rudd-o.com/archives/2006/12/13/%c2%a1success-for-free-software-in-lat...
Hi Ciaran,
On 14 Feb 2007 04:40:46 +0000, Ciaran O'Riordan ciaran@fsfe.org wrote:
Just for a source of ideas, I'm trying to build a list of examples of governments using free software on a large scale. Does anyone know of list, and/or a list of articles about big public sector installations?
The Federal Foreign Office, Germany, but most stuff is written in german language. You can start here: http://www.twerner42.de/ (and here: http://www.opensourcejahrbuch.de/blog/162).
Cheers, Torsten
On Wed, 2007-02-14 at 04:40 +0000, Ciaran O'Riordan wrote:
Brighton, UK (there was an article about this collapsing, but apparently it didn't)
Eh, I've never heard of a project in Brighton :D
The was supposed to be a roll-out in Birmingham libraries - that was the scheme that collapsed. They spent more than €130,000 more on the free software solution than a proprietary upgrade would have cost, and the report says the scheme wouldn't ever have recouped that cost:
http://www.opensourceacademy.gov.uk/solutions/casestudies/birminham-city-cou...
They were supposed to setup 1500 PCs, with a €600,000 budget (roughly), but only managed to setup 200:
http://news.zdnet.co.uk/software/0,1000000121,39284683,00.htm
There was a technical report available at some stage, which was hilarious (they couldn't get floppy drives to work, and ended up writing scripts to control them - users ended up complaining because the scripts were deleting all the data on the discs...).
There was a roll-out of StarOffice at Bristol, and although I've read online that it "failed" I think that was simply confusion with the disaster at Birmingham - it was a very different situation. They made big savings moving 5500 desktops to StarOffice, because they previously weren't using a standard Office suite - they had a mix.
Cheers,
Alex.
Am Mittwoch, 14. Februar 2007 05:40 schrieb Ciaran O'Riordan:
Just for a source of ideas, I'm trying to build a list of examples of governments using free software on a large scale.
What do you mean with large scale?
South Tyrol uses Free Software at a larger scale:
The public administration uses OpenOffice.org since the mid of 2005. Even not exclusively. This was one step in line with the action plan to the South Tyrolean Information Society:
http://www.provinz.bz.it/specials/esuedtirol/index_d.htm#k13
All servers in the comuns use GNU/Linux and on the client they use OpenOffice.org.
http://www.cocos.bz.it/sezione/best-practice/best-practice-gemeindenverband/
All italian speaking schools (from the first class to the collage) use GNU/Linux (project FUSS)
The public transport company at South Tyrol uses Free Software since 1993:
http://www.cocos.bz.it/sezione/best-practice/best-practice-sad/
Happy hacking! Patrick
On Wed, 2007-02-14 at 04:40 +0000, Ciaran O'Riordan wrote:
Just for a source of ideas, I'm trying to build a list of examples of governments using free software on a large scale. Does anyone know of list, and/or a list of articles about big public sector installations?
I can quote Italy where 80% of PA datacenters run free software. What that
For those reading Italian, the national counsil for IT in PA (CNIPA) has an observatory of local and national experiences of using free sw: http://www.osspa.cnipa.it/rilevazione/public_browse_quest.php
Depending on what you want to demonstrate, you can get interesting data from the research published by the EU http://ec.europa.eu/enterprise/ict/policy/doc/2006-11-20-flossimpact.pdf I have stopped trying to gather experiences in PA because there are too many to count.
bye stef
Hi Ciaran,
Ciaran O'Riordan ciaran@fsfe.org writes:
Just for a source of ideas, I'm trying to build a list of examples of governments using free software on a large scale. Does anyone know of list, and/or a list of articles about big public sector installations?
The City Schwäbisch Hall in Germany also uses GNU/Linux. It was the first city in Germany switching to GNU/Linux.
German: http://www.schwaebischhall.de/Linux.1630.0.html English: http://www.hoise.com/primeur/03/articles/monthly/AE-PR-01-03-52.html
Best regards, Bjoern
On Wed, 2007-02-14 at 04:40 +0000, Ciaran O'Riordan wrote:
Just for a source of ideas, I'm trying to build a list of examples of governments using free software on a large scale. Does anyone know of list, and/or a list of articles about big public sector installations?
- Many french administration are now using OpenOffice, one of the first was the "gendarmerie nationale" with 70 000 desktops:
http://www.zdnet.fr/actualites/informatique/0,39040745,39203431,00.htm
They're talking about some desktop full Linux in gendarmerie. Many other administrations now use openoffice, I doubt many new Microsoft Office are currently being bought.
- A plan is rolling to do the same openoffice roll-out for all the central administration, 400 000 desktops:
http://www.lefigaro.fr/eco/20060905.WWW000000348_ladministration_francaise_s...
- Small scale but symbolic, the french national assembly PC should all migrate to full free software:
http://www.zdnet.fr/actualites/informatique/0,39040745,39364970,00.htm
- Agriculture ministry, 500 servers migrated from NT4 to Linux:
http://www.zdnet.fr/actualites/informatique/0,39040745,39243613,00.htm
- All the web and back-end work for the tax administration is running on free software with support purchased to external companies (and contributions done under contract must be returned to the community). 4000 servers, 33 000 000 tax receipts (DB is Oracle though).
PDFs linked here (Jean-Marie Lapeyre work):
http://guerby.org/blog/index.php/2007/01/30/144-politique-fiscale-et-transpa... http://synergies.modernisation.gouv.fr/article.php3?id_article=160
- The tax administration project "copernic" was a huge project, everyone was expecting failure but in the end it ran extraordinally well so within the french administration (more than "just" tax :) there is now established confidence that free software can work great on a large scale and this is very important for the future.
- I believe many local/city administrations have migrated partially or totally too, but I don't have links handy.
Hope this helps,
Laurent http://guerby.org/blog/
Ciaran O'Riordan ciaran@fsfe.org writes:
Just for a source of ideas, I'm trying to build a list of examples of governments using free software on a large scale. Does anyone know of list, and/or a list of articles about big public sector installations?
Tamil Nadu? http://community.zdnet.co.uk/blog/0,1000000567,10004746o-2000331766b,00.htm
Peru? http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=20050926191316526
Kerala? http://www.financialexpress.com/latest_full_story.php?content_id=138497
I've been building a list of governments that are rejecting Vista, but they are not necessarily choosing free software as their alternative.