Nicolas Barcet Free zone of nijaba

The Open Source Observatory and Repository for European public administrations (OSOR) published a case study on the french police (Gendarmerie) desktop migration to Ubuntu. Under the title "Towards the freedom of the operating system: the French Gendarmerie goes to Ubuntu ", they publish a summary of the project as gathered from a few sources within Gendarmerie and Canonical (hey, that was me!).

From the political and organizational aspects to the techical issues and the lessons learned, I believe that this case study is a must read for anyone considering or planning such a migration. Here are a few parts which I particularly enjoyed:

• "Through the introduction of Ubuntu, the networking abilities of the local police stations and the central office in Paris has improved very much. [...] This improves  daily work to a significant extent, as documents can be obtained much easier at any time, and from nearly everywhere. "
• "The migration of the first 5000 workstations has been accomplished successfully, according to Danek. Besides a few pending issues, “there is no big problem remaining in our IT system with regard to Linux”, he states. The openness of the GNU/Linux platform offers the Gendarmerie the possibility to constantly adapt and improve their system according to their needs, which brings many advantages compared to other operating systems."
  

Thanks a lot to OSOR and the Gendarmerie for this great piece of work.