Open source to run on PCs donated by Italian bank and France's La Poste

Switching to free and open source software contributes to sustainability by making a more efficient use of computer hardware, allowing to use PCs for longer than when following proprietary software vendor's upgrade cycle, two very recent examples show.

Twenty secondary schools in the Italian city of Turin will start using two hundred PCs, depreciated by the Italian private bank Intermobiliare Bank. And the French administration of the municipality of Villeneuve sur Lot is helping to train youth in using free and open source software, on fifty PCs, written-off by La Poste in the French department of Lot-et-Garonne.

Illustrating the long-term capabilities of open source, the Italian newspaper La Republica yesterday quotes a director of BIM bank. "We can do this again in the future, since we have to upgrade our computers every three to four years."

BIM's old PCs will be fitted with open source by students from the Politecnico di Torino university, La Republica reports. The free and open source software is more flexible, more stable, not prone to viruses and provides schools with an opportunity to practice collaborative learning, the paper quotes council member Mariagrazia Pellerino. "Open source system does not burden the schools with license fees and is educational, by allowing anyone to help improve the product."

In French Villeneuve sur Lot, last week mayor Patrick Cassany was among the municipal officials present at the donation of La Poste's fifty PCs. The hardware donation project aims to help citizens in need, to which Villeneuve adds the facilitation of re-fitting of the PCs with free software and training the local youth in the use of this type of software. The municipality will be assisted by the local Linux user group, Agenux. "A smart way to bridge, as much as possible, the digital divide", writes regional newspaper La Depeche.

More information:
La Depeche news item (in French)
La Republica new item (in Italian)