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Free software is software free of restrictions and limitations, and is sometimes also available under an arrangement where there is no purchase fee. Many governments and organisations around the world are moving to GNU/Linux. We illustrate some of these below.

An article in ZDNet UK on November 30, 2004 (http://news.zdnet.co.uk/software/linuxu) reports how Europcar International reduced its IT costs with Debian GNU/Linux thin clients. The car hire firm cut its hardware and maintenance costs dramatically by migrating 1,500 rental stations to thin clients running Linux, with another By converting fat clients to terminal servers running GNU/Linux they reduced the total cost of ownership by 60 percent. Europcar tuned a version of Debian to include specific inventory, security and remote management tools needed by the company. The main advantage for Europcar was the ability to centrally manage the terminals in its 1,500 rental stations spread across Europe, dramatically reducing the cost of maintaining the systems and in particular the cost of implementing updates.

The Venezuelan State Government announced in September 2004 that it will switch to free software (see, for example, http://venezuelanalysis.com/news.php?newsno=1373). President Chavez announced that free software will be used ``in an official and obligatory manner ... in the public administration.''

The Munich City Government announced in June 2004 (see, for example, silicon.com), that its year-long trial had proved a success and the local government would migrate its 14,000 desktops to Linux over the next 4 years. Microsoft have since fought very hard to turn this decision around.

The Swiss Taxation Office distribute a CDROM with the open source office suite called Open Office. On the CDROM is an Open Office version of the Tax form. Tax payers fill in the form and lodge their returns electronically.

In June 2003, at the Net World Order conference, held at the CeBIT trade show in New York City, and sponsored by the Business Council for the United Nations, Bruno Lanvin from the World Bank said

These countries need cheap and efficient technology to make the giant leaps necessary to catch up with the rest of the world. Many are now using Linux, which looks to become the No. 1 operating system in China and India soon.

Spain's regional government of Extremadura announced in April 2002 (see, for example, Linux Weekly News) its LinEx project, a GNU/Linux distribution based on Debian with GNOME as its default desktop environment. Extremadura set itself the goals of creating conditions for wide-spread adoption of information technology and increase computer literacy among the citizens. However, their Microsoft solution was not possible because of license costs. So the Extremadura government turned to open source software and the government gave away the product CDs to government offices and schools. The Extremadura government announced an installed base of over 80,000 LinEx computers in schools and 33 computer centers for use by the general population.

Mexico City's municipal government announced plans in March 2001 (see, for example, Wired News) to move to the Linux operating system and ``to use the money it saves to fund social welfare programs.''