Re: [ox-en] Free software: Europe vs U.S.?
- From: Stefan Merten <smerten oekonux.de>
- Date: Tue, 07 Nov 2006 08:13:44 +0100
Hi Sharif and all!
Last week (13 days ago) sharif islam wrote:
This might be slightly off topic.
I don't think it's really off-topic because this question can lead to
a general picture of the current state of affairs. That's certainly
interesting.
I was wondering if there has been
any study done comparing Free Software adaptation in Europe and the
U.S.
Not that I know of. But may be we can share what we know about these
things here.
As Magius already pointed to there is a relatively broad governmental
movement all over Europe to switch to Free Software. This happens on
all levels - from the European Community to the local communities.
There are some lighthouse projects such as the decision in Munich (one
of the biggest German cities) to switch its software infrastructure to
Free Software at least in part. A similar project exists in Vienna.
Some years ago another lighthouse project were the switch to Linux in
the German Bundesverwaltung (AFAIK a central national institution
maintaining the Bundestag (German parliament)). There are also smaller
projects in German local communities and there is a general tendency
to see Free Software as a chance to share the results of hard
(programming) work done inside the governments. There are also similar
projects in other European countries. May be people can give examples?
As far as the adoption of Free Software by European corporations is
concerned this is of course more difficult to tell. However, there
certainly is a general trend to adopt Free Software more and more. For
instance the Systems (one of the major German computer fairs) this
year has Free Software in the focus. See for instance
http://www.oekonux.de/liste/archive/msg12476.html
Mit Freien Grüßen
Stefan
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