Swiss Government Prodded To Consider Using More FLOSS

Governments are huge users of IT and probably the biggest customers of M$’s and “partners” stuff.“Edith Graf-Litscher, representative of the Sozialdemokratische Partei der Schweiz (SP) for the Canton of Thurgau, wants to know if the Federal government has concerns weighing open source and proprietary alternatives. She sent a list of seven questions, including for the governments’ top-ten proprietary software vendors, specifying amounts spent on licences and maintenance.
…a 2006 study estimating that Europe’s public administrations could save around 36 per cent of their IT costs by increasing their use of open source. A 2012 study values the annual savings achieved by open source in European countries at 114 billion euro, with its total contribution to the European economy around 342 billion euro. "These studies show open source’s enormous economic potential."” Simply by demanding government account for the volume of that custom, a Swiss politician is hoping to wake up the government from its nightmare of walking endlessly on the Wintel treadmill and getting nowhere. The obvious savings in other European governments by using FLOSS and the huge potential savings by migrating IT to FLOSS should stimulate more action.

See Swiss to study economic potential of open source.