The Register: Open Source in the EU–How One Agency Introduced It

[ Thanks to David for this link.
]

“Not a lot of people know that Europe has an equivalent of the
US Food and Drug Administration; but it has, it’s based in London’s
docklands, and it’s taking the Unix/Linux route to fulfil some
pretty special and exacting networking requirements.

“The European Agency for the Evaluation of Medicinal Products
(EMEA) is one of the European Community’s smaller agencies, but
it’s responsible for the evaluation, approval and monitoring of all
drugs for sale in the EU, together with Norway, Iceland and
Liechtenstein. It performs similar functions to the FDA, but its
model is networked rather than centralised, using commercial Unix
systems (currently Sun) together with Windows clients, and its
first Linux systems are being deployed by Enterprise Management
Consulting, as part of an-going two-year project.

“Hans-Georg Wagner, head of EMEA’s communications and networking
unit, is a self-confessed Linux fan, and hopes to be able to give
Linux a bigger slice of the pie in the future, but is currently
taking a hard-headed view of what Linux can and can’t do for his
organisation…”

Complete
Story