687.000 euros of free software for the Ministry of Agriculture in 2013

Contrary to popular belief, free software is not necessarily synonymous with free. The Ministry of Agriculture, for example, spent 687.000 euros last year on non-proprietary programs. However, it has opened its portfolio more for proprietary solutions. Explanations.

After having launched a first salvo last year in the direction of all the members of the Ayrault government, the deputy Isabelle Attard renewed its operation last June. The goal? Know the amount spent annually by each ministry for software (Microsoft Office, Windows, VLC...), whether free or proprietary. And the first answer to fall comes from the Ministry of Agriculture, which indicated this week having disbursed 2,129 million euros during the year 2013. This amount is substantially identical to the previous year, since 2,088 million euros had then been paid for software.

In detail, the majority of this sum was allocated to proprietary software: 106.000 euros for office software, plus 1,336 million euros for infrastructure software - such as DNS server or IMAP messaging. This therefore gives us 1,442 million euros for the owner against 687.000 euros for free software. Nevertheless, this amount granted to free software is the largest of the entire detailed period, which goes back to 2008, as Isabelle Attard had requested.

Free for messaging, office automation (LibreOffice), web browsing, etc.

Even if the Ministry of Agriculture does not specify which proprietary software has been purchased by its departments (Windows? Office?), it recalls its commitment to free software and gives a few examples. We learn in this sense that the Rue de Varenne “ uses free software including:

At workstation level: with regard to the office suite, the ministry opted for the OpenOffice.org suite (now replaced by LibreOffice) in 2008 and generalized the use of the OpenDocument pivot format. The same is true for all common messaging client software, Internet browsing, multimedia playback, etc.
At the software component level the heart infrastructure: operating system for production center servers, application components, supervision software, database manager (progressively since 2012), software components of the decision-making information system (for certain use cases),
At the level of certain software packages, particularly in the collaborative field: messaging, diary, company directory, forums, electronic document management, Internet and intranet sites, etc. »

Repeating almost word for word the elements of language distilled during the answer to Isabelle Attard's previous question, Stéphane Le Foll again assures the MP that his ministry “ has been implementing for many years a technical strategy making extensive use of free components ". He explains in this regard that: the use of this type of software is systematically studied both technically and economically (in full costs) », and that it is only at the end of these studies that it is decided to use free or proprietary software.

The Ministry of Agriculture, a dwarf compared to the giants of Bercy or Defense

While waiting for the other ministries to also reveal their figures, let us remember that according to the figures obtained last year, the Ministry of Agriculture was rather one of the "small" acquirers of software, far behind the giants of Bercy (nearly of 100 million euros annually), Interior and Defence, which both showed more than 70 million euros in expenditure for 2011.

Here is our summary of the information collected last year: