From: "Joe Barr" 


http://www.sltrib.com/2003/Mar/03242003/monday/41107.asp

  By DAVID McHUGH
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

    SCHWAEBISCH HALL, Germany -- At first glance, there is not much
    cutting edge about Schwaebisch Hall, a provincial German town of
    crooked medieval streets whose biggest employer is a savings bank. But
    Schwaebisch Hall has jumped to the front of a growing technology
    movement by replacing Microsoft software on all city computers with
    open-source applications based on the free, unproprietary Linux
    operating system. It is the first city in the world to do that, local
    officials claim, saying the switch will save money, improve security
    and break their dependence on just one supplier. Companies such as
    Deutsche Telekom and 7-Eleven, along with government agencies in
    Germany, France, the United States and other countries, are
    increasingly relying on open-source software for heavy data lifting,
    mostly on servers that do Internet and database work.

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