[ Thanks to M.
Fioretti for this link. ]
“First question: in my opinion, people saying that Free
Software saves money overlooks the fact that those who use it on
their job, for example a public employee, may need some training to
use all its features. If you consider this, Free Software saves
money only in the long run, doesn’t it?“Of course, in medium and big organizations, the costs of
software licenses are only a small part of the total costs of using
and maintaining that same software (even if, only in Italy, the
total amount of software licensing costs in local and national PAs
is hundreds millions of Euros every year), but let’s look at the
whole picture. If you only consider the cost of software licenses,
it’s easy: Free Software wins”