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Comment by monooso

3 months ago

> That would probably end up cheaper in the long run. But nobody wants to sign up to be the one driving the switch.

If memory serves, the French government (and various French municipalities) have been actively moving to Linux since the early 2000s. The French police even have their own Linux distribution, GendBuntu [1].

And yes, the reported cost savings are around 40% [2].

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GendBuntu

[2]: https://www.zdnet.com/article/french-police-move-from-window...

5 comments

monooso

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jimbob45  3 months ago

That just ends with everyone back in the same boat. Serious enterprises will still need OS support and no one is anywhere near prepared to challenge Microsoft for OS support contracts whether they be Linux, Windows, or otherwise.

  • pdonis  3 months ago

    > no one is anywhere near prepared to challenge Microsoft for OS support contracts

    I don't think governments and large corporations are getting OS support from Microsoft. Certainly none of those I have worked for did so. The support people have to use MS tools, at least to some extent, but they're not MS employees and they have no inside connections with MS.

    It's true that what "OS Support", or more generally "Supporting workstations for employees", would amount to would be different for a large organization that uses Linux, compared to what it is for a large organization that uses Windows. But "different" does not mean "worse". I would expect the quality of such support to be better once it sinks in that the organization means what it says about using open source solutions. And there are plenty of open source software projects that would love a huge influx of customers willing to pay for features (LibreOffice comes to mind, for example).

    • alsetmusic  3 months ago

      > I don't think governments and large corporations are getting OS support from Microsoft. Certainly none of those I have worked for did so

      I’ve received excellent powershell-based support for their cloud services. I can’t imagine what I’d ask of them for OS support. If we can’t solve the issue in a timely fashion, we just reimage the device.