德国外交部将它的11000台电脑全部换成GNU/Linux和其它开源软件。这一举措将使外交部相比其它部门大幅度的减少维护费用。马德里德国大使馆外交官、前外交部IT主管Rolf Schuste表示，“外交部需要在一些偏远和困难的地点运行电脑。我们每年每台电脑要投入1000欧元，但仍然远低于其它部门的每年每台电脑平均超过 3000欧元的费用。”他表示开源桌面系统维护费用比私有系统少得多。日本和韩国的大使馆都全面替换到了开源系统，马德里大使馆是从去年10月开始使用 GNU/Linux，他表示替换很成功。
The Foreign Ministry is migrating all of its 11.000 desktops to GNU/Linux and other Open source applications. According to Schuster, this has drastically reduced maintenance costs in comparison with other ministries. "The Foreign Ministry is running desktops in many far away and some very difficult locations. Yet we invest only one thousand euro per desktop per year. That is far lower than other ministries, that on average invest more than 3000 euro per desktop per year."
The ministry has so far migrated almost four thousand of its desktops to GNU/Linux and expects to complete the move by the summer of 2009, Schuster said. About half of all the 230 embassies and consulates have now been switched over. "It is not without problems. Our developers don't know Japanese, so they don't understand the problem and we have to look for a developer in Japan to help us with some font issues we have in Open Office."
"The embassies in Japan and Korea have completely switched over, the embassy in Madrid has been exclusively using GNU/Linux since October last year", Schuster added, calling the migration a success.
来源：
http://solidot.org/linux/08/11/03/0927216.shtml
http://www.osor.eu/news/de-foreign-ministry-cost-of-open-source-desktop-maintenance-is-by-far-the-lowest
