French Interior Ministry: open source 5 to 10 times cheaper

Gijs Hillenius | Joinup | October 21, 2013

France's Ministry of the Interior says its use of Thunderbird, a free software email client, running on its 200 000 PCs since 2008, is five times cheaper than the use of the ubiquitous proprietary alternative...

The ministry reports that it is using free and open source operating systems for its servers and IT management. It is also using the Postgresql relational database management system for its databases, and on desktops, it uses suites of office productivity tools, all "leading to substantial savings."

Other areas in which this type of solution is used include its public and internal websites, e-learning solutions and document management. It also refers to the National Gendarmerie, saying it "has for several years an active policy that now allows 90% of its IT application to be free of lock-in."

The Ministry of the Interior writes that it is one of the biggest users of a free software support contract awarded in 2012 on behalf of all of France's ministries...