I was pleased to see a mention of Linux, Ubuntu and Puppy Linux in the Nov. 18 issue of the Daily Yomiuri, an English-language daily published alongside the Yomiuri Shinbun. Takamitsu Saito, who writes the Economic Forum commentary dedicated his entire column to discussing Linux as a solution for keeping older machines in a working state.
His article is also surprising for his mention of the Hokkaido government payout of 140 million yen to Microsoft over illegal software use — something I had not heard about. Horrifying though, since at today’s exchange rate, that’s around US$1.6 million.
And considering the lightweight lip-service that western media pays out to Linux — the BBC’s recent head-patting of the Ubuntu release comes to mind — it’s nice to see someone making a serious and logical case for the use of free software, in a national-level news publication.
If you get a chance read the article, and if you would like to send him a note thanking him, there’s an e-mail address for the newspaper on this page. 😉
Motho ke motho ka botho 
The province of Bolzano, Italy, saved over 1 million euro by switching to Open Office.
They also have created a custom GNU/Linux distro (Debian based) to replace Windows in elementary schools, saving over 300.000 euros.
More info (the whole Bolzano story and some info about Free software) here (unfortunately in italian only)
Good post, thanks … It is ShiMbun, not Shinbun.
The Japanese “n” (ん) sound is pronounced like an “m” to English-speaking ears when it comes before a “b” or “p”. Both English spellings are found as they’d both be pronounced the same: しんぶん
…that’s a very encouraging article btw.