The French parliament has given its approval to the usage of open source applications for official purposes. The shift would begin from June next year and French officials would start using desktops and servers running Linux, Firefox and OpenOffice applications.

Even the French member of parliaments would now be using OpenOffice package, which is a free alternative to Microsoft’s office productivity suite. It comes packaged with several applications including Writer, Calc, Impress, Draw and Base.

The French government believes that by shifting to open source applications they can save money in the long term as they avoid relying on proprietary software. However, not everyone agrees with this concept.

Chris Swenson, director of software industry analysis at research group NPD says about adoption of open source applications: “The evidence on the cost savings attributable to a switch to Linux has been mixed. There has been some evidence that companies have to spend a good deal on training and support after you deploy the operating system.”