14 DAY TRIAL // Germany has been in the news many times with its open source policy, usually at the local level, but now the Parliament is getting involved, and it's making some serious accusations towards its Foreign Ministry.
We've all heard about Munich's success story and its move from proprietary software to a Linux solution. It's one of the most impressive examples, especially since Microsoft lobbies that city intensely. There were even rumors that Munich might return to Windows and other proprietary solutions, but that didn't happen.
Now, it looks like the Parliament is also getting itself involved in this open source battle, albeit with the help of a rather small party from Germany that is advocating the use of open source solutions wherever possible. The Greens, as the party is named, are making inquiries about the software used by Germany's Foreign Ministry and its reasons for adopting the proprietary software.
Proprietary software has high costs
One of the reasons why open source is now much more sought after is the fact that it's much cheaper than proprietary software, sometimes tenfold. So, when an institution has the option of adopting open source but chooses proprietary, that entity will probably need to provide a very good explanation for it.
"In 2008 about half the embassies and consulates were using Linux desktops; in 2014 the vast majority of the ministry’s more than 12,000 PCs is running the usual proprietary desktop and office solution. Linux and other open source tools are still used for the ministry’s application servers, proxy servers and other servers. About 50 percent of all the servers at the Foreign Ministry are running Linux. The Greens doubted the costs and the efficiency of this change back, and wanted details on the IT security measures," is noted on joinup.ec.europa.eu.
In its defense, Germany’s Foreign Ministry explained that it's still spending a lot of money to maintain the Linux servers, and it has provided a break-down of the license costs for the proprietary systems.