Local authorities, hospitals and other public bodies in Cork and Kerry are set to save millions of euro in computer software licence fees by switching to free and open-source licensed software.
A meeting of the South West Regional Authority (SWRA) was told yesterday that huge savings could be made by borrowing an "OpenCD" from libraries in the region, and copying the contents distributed under an open-source licence.
The South West Regional Authority is the only one in Ireland to have been chosen for an open-licence pilot programme with IBM, for use with MS-Windows, the authority director, Mr John McAleer, said.
He said IBM was keen to see how it would work because its next generation of computers was likely to switch to open-source, free software, thus saving around €600 per machine.
The first sample discs were distributed to authority members yesterday, and are to be available soon in public libraries so people can borrow and copy the discs, which are "free and open" and are not governed by copyright.
The intention is to have 50 desktop locations within the local authorities operating on the software, Mr McAleer said.
At the moment each local authority in Cork and Kerry pays around €500,000 in annual licence fees to the major software companies.
Mr McAleer said that one major hospital in Dublin expected to save some €13 million by switching to the open software.
The SWRA has produced the new software itself with input from an international team of experts and from the computer department of the University of Limerick.
Also involved in the development of the software were the EU COSPA programme and the OpenCD organisation.