What are they actually using in terms of special apps? I suspect most of it are web-based eGovernment applications, perhaps accounting (SAP?), on top of OpenOffice. The GNU/Linux applications involved are all very stable by now, so this seems like a reasonable decision. The press release actually mentions an increase in workstations from 1,500 to 9,500, and a reduction in system malfunctions. I don't think it is plausible to have either 70 or 46 actual support tickets, as suggested by the description here. That doesn't make sense given the number of machines involved, whether they're running Windows or GNU/Linux or whatever. Besides, the PR compares the modern-day GNU/Linux installation to Windows NT. Seriously? (PS: Was it the German foreign affairs office that changed back to Windows recently, due to general user unhappiness?)

This is tyranny of a set of minorities, who all expect to have their irrational beliefs respected and tolerated. Is this another instance of what the ecologist Hardin called the Tragedy of the Commons? By making use of simple, seemingly reasonable demands, a large number of individuals exploits a shared resource (culture, education) up to the point where the total of the actions disables the system. Religious and political freedom may now destroy the education system and with it the environment that makes these freedoms viable in the first place.

Wow, that's big news. I heard him speak last year when he got the Rumelhart prize - the story about how he worked out Bayesian networks is humble. I think, some paper napkins were involved. The whole lecture is archived here: http://thesciencenetwork.org/programs/cogsci-2011/rumelhart-lecture-judea-pearl