Talk:FOSS A General Introduction/Why FOSS?

This book might benefit from using more recent sources for savings and other benefits realised with free and open source. Here are some primary sources, that can be quoted freely, as per the European Commission's copyright notice (https://joinup.ec.europa.eu/page/legal-notice): Unless otherwise indicated, reproduction is authorised, except for commercial purposes, provided that the source (Joinup) is acknowledged.

Hope this is useful, Gijs Hillenius

1) https://joinup.ec.europa.eu/elibrary/case/dutch-city-ede-spends-92-percent-less-its-peers-software-licenses

(January 2014) The city of Ede, the Netherlands, currently has an annual total ICT budget of six million euros. According to the Dutch Berenschot benchmark for municipal ICT costs, that is 24 percent less than other municipalities of comparable size are spending.

2) https://joinup.ec.europa.eu/community/osor/news/moving-libreoffice-saves-toulouse-1-million

(July 2014) Toulouse, France's fourth largest city, has saved 1 million euro by migrating all its desktops to LibreOffice, an open source suite of office productivity tools.

3) https://joinup.ec.europa.eu/community/osor/news/rationalising-ict-takes-portugal-open-source

(February 2015) In 2016, Portugal aims to save EUR 10 million by moving to free and open source.

4) https://joinup.ec.europa.eu/community/osor/news/gummersbach-completes-switch-open-source

(October 2014) The German town of Gummersbach announced that this summer it has completed its switch to Linux PCs, retiring a decade-old proprietary operating system no longer supported by the IT vendor. The migration has saved the town a five-figure sum, and Gummersbach expects a further reduction of IT costs, a combination of savings on proprietary licences and lower hardware costs.

5) https://joinup.ec.europa.eu/community/osor/news/city-turin-move-open-source-desktops (September 2014) The Italian city of Turin will switch to a complete open source desktop system, over the next 18 months. In August, the city administration decided to phase-out the current outdated proprietary system on its 8300 PCs and replace it by the Ubuntu open source alternative. Turin estimates the move will save some six million euro over the next five years.

And then there are other advantages:

a) https://joinup.ec.europa.eu/community/osor/news/changing-limerick%E2%80%99s-government-services-boosts-open-source

(November 2014) “We gradually introduced new open source solutions over the past five years”, explains Mihai, “and discovered that we gained much more than saving costs.” Compared to proprietary solutions, free software is fast to implement, allowing the IT department an agile and immediate response to new or changing IT demands. “It is also a way for the city to support local ICT service providers”, he says. It explains why Limerick made the open approach a core principle for its government services model.

b) https://joinup.ec.europa.eu/community/osor/news/open-standards-and-itil-lead-open-source-frances-gendarmerie-tells-korean-ict-mi

(June 2014) Using an open source desktop lowers the total cost of ownership by 40%, in savings on proprietary software licences and by reducing costs on IT management. Using Ubuntu Linux massively reduces the number of local technical interventions, says Major (Commandant) Stéphane Dumond. "The direct benefits of saving on licences are the tip of the iceberg. An industrialised open source desktop is a powerful lever for IT governance."

Disadvantages - support
In the disadvantages section, I would list support as another issue. If FOSS projects have any support, it tends to be community-driven, with the quality and timeliness varying widely. In contrast, paid software often includes phone or email based support from knowledgeable people. 50.54.143.155 (discuss) 16:26, 22 May 2019 (UTC)