«If all else fails, let's switch to Open Source«
Those were the words of the Cabinet of Ministers of Latvia, a country that belongs to the European Union but that since 2008 it has faced serious economic problems.
In an attempt to cut costs, they have considered staff cuts, postponing salary increases, but if this does not work they will take more drastic measures. I leave the detailed article, link of WikiLeaks.org: LINK
An excerpt draws attention:
Next year's central government budget proposal, which the Cabinet of Ministers has now submitted to the parliament for review, has dominated the headlines in Latvian media in recent weeks. The Cabinet has been struggling to prepare a budget with a target deficit rate of 1.85% of GDP by reducing ministry spending, eliminating staff positions, postponing planned wage increases for public sector employees, and even proposing measures as drastic as closing specific ministries and switching to open source software.
Which translated (modestly) would be:
Next year the proposal of the central budget of the government, which now the Council of Ministers ha presented to parliament for your review, has filled the headlines en the media from Latvia in the last weeks. The Council of Ministers has been trying prepare a budget with a rate objective deficit 1,85% of GDP by spending reduction of the ministry, the elimination of Job positions, postponing expected increases of wages for public sector employees, and even propose measures so drastic like closing certain ministries y the change to open source software.
Apparently Latvia could also use software Open Source in public entities such as Ministries, etc.
Give thanks to TheOpenSourcerer by the news.
Greetings and we would like to know your opinion 😉
http://wikileaks.org/cable/2008/10/08RIGA644.html
Hopefully the Latin American countries that have not yet taken that alternative, will do so soon. Only in Mexico, several years ago it was estimated that the payment of software licenses reached huge figures
The Ministry of Foreign Relations spent at least 400 pesos on Windows XP licenses in 2005. This without counting the rest of the software they bought.
* The Ministry of Finance and Public Credit in 2006 alone spent 68 million 671 thousand pesos on software licenses. Between 2001 and 2006 they are like 130 million pesos.
* The Ministry of National Defense between 2001 and 2006 spent 58 million 574 thousand pesos on software licenses.
* The Ministry of Public Security spent 70 million 196 thousand 991 pesos on licenses, including 13 million 953 thousand 223 pesos on a corporate licensing of M $
* Pemex Gas and Basic Petrochemicals spent 4 million 173 thousand 227 DOLLARS on licenses between 2002 and 2006
* Pemex Petroquímica spent 19 million 455 thousand 867 pesos plus 6 million 436 thousand 777 DOLLARS (plus minus 80 million pesos) on Software licenses in the last 6 years
* The Office of the Attorney General of the Republic in 2006 spent 35 million 159 thousand 835 pesos in Software licenses, of which 12 million 534 thousand pesos were directly awarded to Micro $ oft
I forgot to put the source where I found that data. http://www.alambre.info/2007/04/16/¿cuanto-le-cuesta-al-erario-el-pago-de-licencias-comerciales/
Interesting. I suppose that in all countries the savings would be significant, being able to invest that money in acquiring more modern Hardware.
I did not know these data, thank you very much especially for leaving the link.
The positive thing about these changes that are happening in the world is that although the governments / institutions of other countries still do not see the advantage of using SWL, at least they will begin to use it for economic reasons, then with the passage of time they will discover the other advantages.
Thank you for your visit and comment 😉
regards