Free software, the PA would save 675 million. But the observatory is out of resources

A check from forty million euros from Rome to Redmond. Perhaps the most substantial spending effort of all time to supply Italian public administrations with software Microsoft. The tender, called electronically in May, will expire on June 18 and from the award onwards, the institutions will be able to participate by purchasing user licenses that are valid for one year. In 2013 they will start again. And that's not the only shopping campaign in progress. Fujitsu has just been awarded the supply of 40,000 Office licenses for 12.6 million euros. A quick survey in the Official Gazette is enough to discover how every public body of the Italian State, central or peripheral, is engaged in some tender to buy proprietary software. A river of public money which, in a time of hardship like this, can only revive the theme of open source, free and almost free source code.

Keep reading the article in Il Fatto Quotidiano (And here are some clarifications about Flavia Marzano)

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