French Parliament goes all Linux

France's gendarmes and Ministry of Culture and Communication have done it, and now members of the country's parliament are about to switch to open source and dump Microsoft

Starting in June 2007, PCs in the French deputy offices will be deployed with Linux operating systems w/ OpenOffice.org productivity software, Firefox web browser and an open sourced email client (I don't know which one, my guess would be Mozilla Thunderbird). Well, I'm not a big fan of OpenOffice.org though, I'm very uncomfortable with their Excel equivalent (Excel, supposedly, is the only Microsoft product that I like somewhat, I'm forced to use certain others though :)). I hope they've revamped their spreadsheet and other products under the OpenOffice.

Nevertheless, this step is going to be a giant leap for Linux. It's better use of money on better products by all means. I'm waiting to see other countries' parliaments take this bold decision sometime soon too!