Open Source in the federal administration of Germany

Mar 18, 2000, 18:07 (1 Talkback[s])
(Other stories by Fred Mobach)

[ Linux Today reader Fred Mobach writes: ]

"At http://www.heise.de/newsticker/data/odi-15.03.00-001/ you can read an article in German of Heise news. It's about Open Source in the federal administration of Germany.

"A short summary :

The coordination and advisory board (KBSt) [http://www.kbst.bund.de/] of the Federal Government for information technology in the federal administration has published a proposal [http://linux.kbst.bund.de/] to use Open Source Software in the federal administration. The board sees as possible fields of implementation of Free Software like the operating systems Linux and FreeBSD servers and desktops. They're also pointing to the possible savings : not only less license fees but also less hardware costs as older hardware can be used because of the lesser need for resources.

They have more argument for the use of Free Software. That are the problems involved with the use of proprietary formats in commercial applications. But also the higher security level which can be reached with Open Software because of the possibility of audits and corrections.

From the past they know also of some "accidents" which have questioned the trust in commercial hard- and software. Many problems which prevented the use of Free Software in past have been solved already : the installation of Free Software is nowadays as simple as the commercial versions and education and support are sufficiently available. Last but not least there is no dependency on suppliers.

"Very good that after France also Germany as European countries have seen the light at the end of the (encrypted ?) tunnel :-).