[spectre] Linux in Europe

[geert lovink]

Linux in Europe
By IT Analysis
Posted: 16/06/2003 at 08:29 GMT
http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/4/31207.html

Following the recent decision by the City of Munich to opt for Linux on the
desktop, it is worth taking stock of the progress of Linux in government
circles across Europe, writes Robin Bloor, of Bloor Research

This is, in my view, a determining point in the Linux story, because if
European governments move to Linux in a big way, it will boost the momentum
for Linux everywhere. We have thus assembled a set of press clippings which
chart Linux acceptance in government. The most recent clippings indicate a
trend to Linux on the desktop.

In alphabetical order...

France

The French Tax Authority deployed 950 Linux servers in 2000. (Source:
LinuxToday)

A new agency was created in August 2001, with the task of coordinating IT
efforts between different government agencies. The Agency for Information
and Communication Technologies in the Administration (known by its French
initials ATICA) has taken on the task of ensuring that government projects
use open standards to reduce costs and redundancy, and to improve
interoperability in government projects.

The French government also wants to encourage a decentralised software
industry by allowing small companies to work on open-source government
projects, rather than the concentrated software development that tends to
result from proprietary products. (Source CNN November 2001)

The country's head of IT systems at the Ministry of Culture, Bruno Mannoni,
said the department has cut back on expenses since it began replacing 300
of its servers running Windows NT and Unix to open-source alternatives.
(Source: IDG, June 2002)

Germany

The German Federal Ministry of the Interior in Berlin announced a
government deal with IBM Corp. to purchase hardware and software products
that support Linux. The official who signed the deal said that the switch
to open source would avoid a "mono" IT environment, which is more
susceptible to attack. (Source: IDG, June 2002)

A small German institute has become one of the Interior Ministry's first
agencies to implement Linux on the desktop, as the government pushes ahead
with its ambitious plans to introduce open-source software in the public
sector. One of the main reasons why the German government is pushing Linux
is to lower total cost of ownership. (Source: IDG, February 2003)

Munich is Germany's third largest city with an administrative organisation
that includes over 14,000 desktop computers. In May 2003 it chose to run
Linux and either StarOffice or OpenOffice (a decision is yet to be made) on
all those computers instead of Microsoft products. The decision was made
with the assistance of SuSE Linux AG and IBM, who are jointly bidding for
the maintenance and hardware supply. The migration program will begin next
year. (Source: IT-Director.com).

Germany is leading the march to Linux.

Italy

In July 2001, a document entitled "Government Guidelines for the
development of the Information Society" published by the Italian
government, identified Open Source as one of the enabling factors. It
explicitly cited e-health as one of the strategic fields where the Public
Administration might effectively use Open Source.

In early 2002, Mario Pelosi of Italy's Department of Innovation and
Technology said his country recently decided to form a commission to study
the desirability of Linux. (Source: Washington Post)

In June 2002, an Italian Green Party senator tabled a bill that would
commit Italy's civil service to using Open Source. The bill had cross-party
support. The bill proposed that the state administration should opt for
free software whenever its technical performance is comparable to that of
proprietary software. (Source: LinuxWorld).

The Netherlands

The Dutch Government wants to promote openness for public sector
information systems. During a symposium in The Hague, the ICT Unit (ICTU)
of the Ministry of the Interior and Kingdom Relations presented the latest
developments of its programme for Open Standards and Open Source Software
in Government (OSOSS). This programme is now supported by a new website,
which will serve as a repository of publications, best practices, news and
other information relevant to the promotion of open standards and open
source software in government. (Source: Open Source Victoria, May 2003)

Spain

In April 2002, the government of a western region of Spain called
Extremadura, with 1.1 million inhabitants, launched a campaign to convert
all the area's computer systems, in government offices, businesses and
homes, from the Windows operating system to Linux.

More than 10,000 desktop machines were switched immediately, with 100,000
more currently being converted. The regional government paid a local
company $180,000 to assemble a set of freely available software, including
operating system, word processor, spreadsheet and other applications.

The government also invested in a development centre that is creating
customised software for accounting, tracking hospital patients and
crop-yield management that the agency will distribute free to citizens. The
European Economic Commission is promoting it as a model for the rest of the
world, and officials from governments as far away as New Zealand and Peru
have inquired about duplicating the region's efforts.

Some Spanish government systems and those belonging to the
telecommunications company Telefonica were recently shifted to Linux partly
because of security concerns. (Source: Washington Post).

UK

The UK government is already an occasional user of Linux. An expert at the
British government's computer security headquarters, CESG
(Communications-Electronics Security Group - a sister organisation of the
UK's GCHQ) even endorsed Linux as the most secure computer architecture
available of its type. Linux is also in use in some areas of the UK police
force, apparently for security reasons. (Source; IT-Director.com, 2002)

So the UK appears to be the least enthusiastic of those mentioned, but
someone has to be trailing the field. The thing about EU governments is
that they tend to follow each other for the sake of standards. If they
standardise on a Linux desktop, they'll change the market.