The Italian city of Turin, famous for its medieval Jesus shroud hoaxing, is dumping Microsoft and heading toward something more Open Saucy.
Turin is currently running Windows XP which goes to show that not only is its famous shroud mediaeval.
Apparently Turin thinks that it can save €6 million over five years by switching from Windows XP to Ubuntu Linux in all of its offices.
The plan is to install it on 8,300 PCs, which will generate an immediate saving of roughly €300 per machine. This figure is made up by the cost of Windows and Office licences.
Another good reason why Turin did not want to upgrade to Windows 8 is that its computers were so old their designs were found in Leonardo Da Vinci’s scrapbooks and it was not believed that the new Windows would run very well on them.
The switch to Ubuntu was officially approved in early August and is expected to take around a year and a half to complete.
The move has been talked about for two years. The project was temporarily put aside due to economic concerns — it probably would have been too costly switching from XP while Turin still had valid and paid licences running. Now that those Windows licences are expiring, however, the time is ripe to experiment with new products.
Turin is one of the biggest municipalities in Italy to switch to Open Source and it could be an example for other cities to follow.
