saves 15 million euros in license costs
This attitude is plainly wrong. If you use Linux because it is free as “free of charge” then you are missing a point. You should use it because it is open.
I would even say that they should contribute the same amount of money to organisations that actually develop a software that they are going to use. Because they will certainly need support and security patches and this will never be free
But that will convince nobody to also switch
Some people use it because it’s free, some because it’s open, and some simply because it’s not Windows nagging them. With every movement that gets popular you’ll have people that don’t join for the cause but because something in the movement aligns with them, we should allow those people to use the software without making this a purity thing, at the end of the day desktop Linux needs users, not zealots, first and foremost.
The fact that people can come in and put up with Linux in spite of not being here for the cause should be celebrated.
As the article notes they are planning to invest 9 million euros in the transition, so they clearly don’t expect it to be “free of cost.” The difference is paying 15 million euros to license some proprietary American product, versus investing 9 million euros in the free software world.
Great done! We can take inspiration! In Slovakia, the government pays cca 17 millions euros per year for MS stuff, so comparable in span.
