Every government is trying to cut some costs, and in the past two decades a good sum of money goes to supporting computers. One way many governments in Europe are looking to cut costs are to use open software instead of their for-pay counterparts. When a government chooses to use open systems, they do not have to pay any fees to use and develop the software. This is a win-win for the government, everyone who uses the software, and the citizens of that government. The government is able to pay less for a service they need, the software they contribute helps everyone, and the citizens have a chance of paying less taxes.
The most recent government to toy around with this idea is the German government. Germany developed it's own version of Linux, named LiMux. They tend to be free of cost, and allow the open exchange of data, which allows for more transparent governments. However, most of the cost associated with open systems comes from migrating from old systems.
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| The mascot of the LiMux project |
During Germany's cost analysis they found that switching to open systems would save them money, while HP found the opposite. Obviously it cannot be both, so one of them is wrong. In the article, the German government says that HP over estimated a lot of the migration costs, and under estimated Linux's ability to run on older hardware. Considering that HP has close corporate ties with Microsoft, it is unsettling that they would suggest to stay with closed systems.
Even though it seems like HP is the only bias player, the City of Munich could also be bias. The officials of that town probably have less experience estimating costs associated with these kind of transitions. That's not to say that Munich is probably wrong, but they could be intentionally underestimating.
Source: http://www.h-online.com/open/news/item/City-of-Munich-disagrees-with-HP-s-Linux-migration-study-1797232.html
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