Tuesday, February 17, 2009

Another Revolution in France?

Recently, the French government adopted Linux (specifically Ubuntu) as the operating system they will run on their computers in government buildings. Linux is an open-source operating system which means A) the source code (which makes up the operating system) is freely available to anyone who wants it, and B) it's free. This is important because it saves the government hundreds of thousands of dollars they would otherwise be spending on Microsoft's
 Windows operating systems. It also is more beneficial to France's economy as local businesses have been hired to help maintain the systems. France is hoping to inspire other countries to switch operating systems as well so they too can reap the benefits.

Fun Fact: Mac OS X (the operating system found on Apple computers and pictured below) is Linux based.



















Vance, Ashlee. "France Lawmakers Hope to Inspire Linux Revolution." 21 January 2009. 17 February 2009. <http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/01/21/french-lawmakers-hope-to-inspire-linux-revolution/?scp=4&sq=Hope&st=cse>

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