[keithpeter]

"But pushing citizens to use Linux is NOT government business"

Not sure where you are from, but in Europe/UK local governments do get involved in promoting what might be described as lifestyle choices. E.g. smoking cessation, getting more exercise, healthy eating, making recycled furniture available cheap to poor people by establishing and promoting 'social enterprises' as we call them in the uk.

I see the free CDs as that really, just saying 'there is an alternative to chucking your old PC away, just try this and see if it is enough for you'. Not so much pushing linux from any political/anti-microsoft position, just saying you don't have to spend (more) money.

[mathnode]

Yes. Less waste, and in theory users will be given more secure and up to date software experience, which should provide safety and confidence for online shopping, for more tasty taxable purchases.

+1 for environment +1 for Capitalism

EDIT: last +1 for education, and employment. No need to get a new fancy computer to do your homework or write a CV.

[keithpeter]

Not to mention reduction in costs for local and national government if people can fill in forms online as opposed to paper or going to an office...

[skaevola]

But that would require the local government to allow forms to be submitted online. Which mine hasn't :(

[keithpeter]

UK: big push to get 'open government' going and my local council has a big advertising campaign getting people to use their web pages. Not always online, some services mainly call centre based.

I imagine this will vary widely by country

[sageikosa]

The CDs may be free to the recipients, but they were not zero cost. The money to procure them came from somewhere.

[keithpeter]

Yes, of course. My local government spends quite a lot on marketing and publicising the social enterprises I mentioned in grandparent post.

A few thousand CDs won't cost that much. Canonical themselves supply Ubuntu CDs for £80 per 100. I'd imagine it gets a lot cheaper per 1000.

You can pay £900 to advertise a job in our local paper, and that is for a 10cm two column advert with two insertions. I had to pay £100 to move a piano not so long ago (specialist private mover).

[v0lta]

Of course not, but CDs are incredibly cheap if produced in great numbers. And as a German I can only agree with keithpeter. It's perfectly normal for local government to spend tax-money outside of "classic" duties to promote a public issue. Especially something with an environmental background.

Something else you should keep in mind is, that Munich is pushing towards electronic bureaucracy, which would require access to a PC by everyone.

[sageikosa]

Perfectly normal is an observation of frequency of occurrence, and one I won't dispute. "hiddenfeatures" was complaining that this was (to paraphrase with words from your observation) "perfectly normal", which he found odd in that his tax money was promoting this, when he didn't see this as a government function.

"keithpeter" referenced that in Europe/UK (and I will confirm that various jurisdictions in the US of A do so as well) local governments promote all sorts of pet social projects. At this point "keithpeter" referenced free CDs.

That's when I pointed out the CDs were not free to produce which was "hiddenfeatures" point about tax money going to promote a product.

Now, I'm not sure where "hiddenfeatures" is from, but I am from the US of A, and things like this do happen here as well, and some people don't like it for a variety of reasons. Constitutionalists, for instance can't find Linux promotion in any of the original Articles, nor in any Amendments.

For me anytime I see even small amounts of money spent I compare it to what I've been taxed for the year and calculate how much of my money went to support the program. If its less than I have been taxed, I can claim to have completely funded the program, if it's more, then I can calculate how many years I had to work to completely fund this a program. If it's far more than I can be taxed in a lifetime, I try to calculate how many people like me will have all of their lifetime tax money poured into said program.

[keithpeter]

> "For me anytime I see even small amounts of money spent I compare it to what I've been taxed for the year and calculate how much of my money went to support the program."

Does your analysis include any estimate of corresponding benefits, specifically reduction in costs down the line?

[sageikosa]

Yes, I calculate benefits when I spend my money. When the government spends my money I ask why, if its because the government will then spend less of my money on something else, I ask why is the government doing the other thing to begin with.

I'm pretty sure blood won't run in the streets and mass murderers won't roam with impunity if we don't install Linux on our old boxes.

I'm all for the government being limited to fewer things, so the political will has less to argue about, and we can all get back to talking about the weather and arguing about religion.