The 577 French members of parliament and their assistants will use the Ubuntu GNU/Linux distribution, starting this summer. The parliament last week selected the companies to handle the migration of the 1145 PCs.
The contract is awarded to Linagora, a Paris based Linux specialist and IT services provider Unilog, a subsidiary LogicaCMG. According to a news report by ZDNet, the migration will cost about 80,000 euros.
Apart from the operating system Ubuntu, France's parliament will start using OpenOffice, a suite of Open Source office applications and Open Source web browser Firefox.
The French National Assembly decided to switch to an Open Source desktop in November last year. The move was initiated by deputies Richard Cazenave and Bernard Carayon.
It is not just the French parliament that is moving towards Open Source. In December, Thierry Breton, France's Finance minister, began a project to stimulate French Open Source developers. Peugeot Citroën, Europe's second-largest car manufacturer, announced its plans to migrate 20,000 desktops to Suse Linux last month.
Popular
Ubuntu is a derivative of the Debian GNU/Linux distribution, started in 2004. Its desktop version is one of the most popular distributions. Andalucía, one of Spain's seventeen independent regions, based their Guadalinex distribution on it.
Several of the other contenders offered to install the GNU/Linux distribution Mandriva. This is the second most popular desktop Linux version, partly developed and maintained in France.
According to the French online newspaper Tribune, France now has about 400 companies specialising in Open Source software. The newspaper estimates the use of Open Source software could create about 50,000 jobs in France in the coming three years. Linagora, one of the companies that is involved in the parliaments move to Ubuntu, employs 65 people. It estimates its sales turnover will reach about 8 million euros this year.
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