The INQUIRER: The idea is to make you laugh as well as cry
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UK government workers say dump Microsoft for open source
USE OPEN SOURCE is UK government officials' answer to Prime Minister David Cameron's request for ideas to cut expenses, suggesting that the civil service stop buying Microsoft software in favour of free alternatives.
Last month Cameron asked more than a half million UK government workers for cost-cutting suggestions to help trim Britain's looming fiscal deficit. Over 56,000 ideas were submitted and Chancellor of the Exchequer George Osborne published a sample of them on Friday 9 July.
According to Businessweek, among many obvious suggestions such as switching off lights and centralising the purchase of office supplies there were two proposals to dump Microsoft products for open source software.
One suggestion read, "In terms of spending less, what about migrating the whole of government ... from Microsoft products to Linux and open-source software like Openoffice."
Osborne has been receptive to the idea of using free and open source software in place of expensive proprietary software products in the past.
Doing this will undoubtedly save the UK government a bundle and realise several other benefits, too. It's about time. µ
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Some folks just don't get it:
1) It is OK to pay for training to upgrade from one version of Micr0$uck$ LoseDoze O/S to another; It is entirely absurd to pay for training for Linux.
2) It is OK ot pay for training to upgrade from one version of 0ffice to another; It is entirely absurd to pay for training for OpenOffice.
3) With Micr0$uck$ LoseDoze O/S you can point and click and browse the web and make pretty pictures and create fancy documents. All tasks that are nearly impossible to do on a Linux based machine.
4) System administration is way too easy with Micr0$ucks LoseDoze. You can take an online course for a few hours and become a registered professional engineer from Micr0$uck. You save big $$ on your IT budget by not having to worry about having IT professionals who know anything about computers.
5) Micro$ucks$ LoseDoze - where do you want to go today?
Hey I see a lot of people defending the Vole. Let's ask you a few questions:
1. There's A LOT of office suit out there, why don't anyone mention to replace them? Is that because they cost less than Vole office or because they have their own market share and customers? Not just like someone who forced and locked other to use their own product.
2. Training cost?! Don't make me laugh, did you even open a document in OpenOffice?
3. How much a typical employee need to know about computers? More than just working with documents and some other similar stuff.
4. Think you should pay twice to a linux administrator and you need some of them for a server room. But on the other hand see what you'll get:
You want to upgrade- NO upgrade cost.
You want to add more systems- NO software cost.
You want to add more software and services- NO software cost.
It doesn't matter you have 10 or 100 or 1000 systems, all software is free and you can install as many time as you want.
Well if you're not sure about FOSS yet, you can test it on a selected group and examine the result. Then you can make the decision yourself;-)
When did anyone ever get any training for the MS software in the first place?
Never.
We migrated staff from 3.1 and mainframe terminals to NT and they just got on with it once it was plonked on their desks.
We migrated folks to XP from NT and they just got on with it.
You can stick Linux and OO on a desk and after a week they will have got it.
However, the execs will still expect to have all their MS toys and then so will their PAs and the slow migration back to MS products trickels down.
Its all or nothing.
Interesting people advocating that all change is good or bad and is more or less expensive so I thought I'd bring things back to reality:
Opensourve does not been over complicated
Proprietory does not mean simple
Opensource does not mean holy
Proprietory does not mean evil
Opensource does not mean cheap
Proprietory does not mean expensive
It's all a matter of balance and letting people who have brains making decisions. I made my first file and print server last year and it took me under 3 hours but trying to figure out exim really wasn't worth the time! One thing I can tell you, our users outrightly rejected Openoffice die to incompatibility with docx and macros so that really isn't an option I'm sure for the govt.
To tackle the conversion argument my opinion is don't change it if it isn't broken. If you've paid for something it's not going to save you money to replace it unless your getting loads of problems.I don't see the point either in migrating To a Linux based desktop environment as this would not help users or support teams. However everything should be considered for it's merits when things come up for renewal or when a new project is launched as Opensource may save the day, be cheaper and more flexible and provide better user experience.
Rant over - let me know if you broadly agree or not!
It
OK:
http://www.sd73.bc.ca/district-operations.php/page/linux-in-education/
- Thousands of Linux workstations (both student and administrators) (see "screenshots" and "projects" links at right).
- Mostly all running as thin clients off of centrally-managed Linux servers(easy administration/swap-out of workstations). A few Ubuntu fat-clients for special uses.
- No viruses, able to use existing desktops, simple conversion to thin-clients, huge savings to IT budget, students, teachers, and administrators love the system.
- No need for "weekly reboots" as in Windows-based systems. No license fees.
- "Security issues?" 90% of the web runs on Linux, including all the major banking sites and most stock exchanges. If Windows viruses (from the Internet, flash drives, or wherever) do not devastate Windows systems, then false-positive deletions of unprotected system files from "anti-virus" products like McAffee do a great job of this themselves...and then there is all the constant patching and updating of system-wide virus signatures, security band-aids, etc.
So it would seem to be kind of foolish to stay with a Microsoft-based system nowadays, especially considering the expense and all the effort it takes to keep it running and upgraded. Centrally-managed thin client/server systems are the way forward.
Those posting in favour of keeping on with Microsoft-based fat client systems in government must not be UK taxpayers, as I would think taxpayers would want to decrease -- not increase -- the spending of their tax dollars on IT, and free up these dollars for spending on social programs, yes? OR, perhaps they have some kind of "vested interest" in Microsoft?
Right. On the one hand, we have a large project by a major municipality, that is very generously funded.
On the other hand, we have... you, proffering the usual excuses.
Let us know when a conversion like this actually DOES save money, okay? Because your promises of a return on investment at some point in the future seem pretty empty.
And really, isn't that what Linux and Open Sores runs on: empty promises and excuses?
not govt, but a related exchange, recorded here
http://www.theinquirer.net/inquirer/news/1049499/university-challenged-ditch-microsoft
here
http://www.theinquirer.net/inquirer/news/1050051/ou-opens-crack-for-open-source
and here
http://www.open2.net/digitalplanet/opensource_interview.html
all recording te efforts o which the qustion as avoided
th lock-i costs of proprietary software are well known. That's one of the reasons Limux is turning out to be more expensive. It's a one time cleansing of the augean stables.
If public sector IT stopped sucking up these widdly diddly features designed to make it so expensive to change software between vendors let alone, gasp, using FOSS, life would be a better place.
Moreover if all public facing software were truly technology neutral and standards compliant (so I could use my software of choice) then this would also solve a few problems.
Oh yes let's not forget the 2005 study by Patrick Dunleavy et al, on how suppliers stitch up the public sector (aided, no doubt, by some supine public sector workers) from
http://www.governmentontheweb.org/
Cost seems to be the major objection trotted out above. -- Wrong premise when dealing with gov'ts, for a start: they all LOVE higher costs. And if it screws up public services and records, great! -- Similarly from view of citizens: if it screws up gov't operation, great!
But I doubt costs would be higher because: a) Hardly anyone uses more than a tiny fraction of M$ Office capabilities. b) Switching to Open Office won't be difficult when one is familiar with complexity, no more than going from Office 2003 to 2007.
I specifically deny that M$ Office has any advantages of networking with multiple authors, as I think that's actually quite *dangerous* for public use, allows things to be slipped in without any real approval.
In any case, conversion costs would be *wise* in the long run, because the alternative is for *all* gov'ts to be locked-in to a single vendor that produces shoddy products with dozens of *known* flaws which every hacker in the world is intent on exploiting. go_ogle cleaned out M$ OSs from their operation for a *reason* -- should gov'ts accept *known* risks of M$?
Some people are just stupid. Open Sores is not a money-saving proposition. Munich had the same idea, and it turned out that switching to and running Linux is far more expensive than remaining with Microsoft. Details at http://limuxwatch.blogspot.com/
How amusing. It appears that the Microsoft Ninja Licensing force has already swung into action in this comment column.
As someone who has used it with few problems for many years, OpenOffice is a good alternative to MS-Office and will save in the ms-standard .doc format if required.
Don't forget, you save money every time there is an 'upgrade' fee to pay, or you can just get off one of the MS licensing schemes that keep you using them forever. Just say no!
The comment Title says it all.
Look, I'm running either an Ubuntu derivitive: Super OS, or PS-BSD on my main computers. NO viruses, etc, etc,etc. FULL software for office. You all know the drill. No up front costs. PC-BSD is dead ez to set up. Secure as Fort Knox. Download and rock 'n roll baby!!! 15-24 min set up tops. No licensing or per seat fees. Great price. Community support. Best deal on the planet. www.distrowatch.com
"Doing this will undoubtedly save the UK government a bundle and realise several other benefits, too"
It's ignorance such as what is stated above which ends up costing the Govt soo much money. Speaking without true knowledge of the subject matter is costly and irresponsible.
This is a joke, it will not save money. Simply the time to switch users and the amount of time wasted at the support end by users saying this is in the wrong place is going to be pathetic.
Its more cost effective to use what people already know and I governments dont pay retail or standard enterprise costs so what would be £199.99 for Windows 7 Pro for normal users is more like £25 for a government PC, which when you think of all the support currently out for it and the currently trained engineers (yes lots are pathetic) you have got to look at the bigger picture.
Scathing! I have worked in the NHS and I can assure you that sysadmins in the NHS do not sit around Idle :-) If we had been using Linux however then as things would break less often we could have have spent more time idling. To think people sit around doing nothing in governmental is incredibly naive and actually quite insulting. Not to say it doesnt have problems which it does. One of problems is the IT managers dont have a clue as they dont have an IT background. The second is that sysadmins are bound by so much red tape that to restart a server takes a long time. You then get politicians meddling with it for example trying to negotiate contracts for systems that then have to be interfaced with and half the time are then not used.
So please dont blame the Indians - blame the Chiefs!
Open sauce, surely. The Inquirer, your standards are slipping!
Generous "support" from Microsoft gives sys admins an easy life. Simply installing MS patches and updates is sufficient to cover their asses.
These same sys admins and their idle management are tapping out memos to oppose this as we speak:
1) security implications for HM gov
2) retraining for IT staff
3) retraining for users
4) no vendor security support
5) compatibility with other business information systems
6) I'm sure there's a dozen other IT management buzzwords they can throw in: recoverability, business continuity, interference with electric kettles.
With the scale of objections that are likely to emerge, it would make you wonder how the public service in other countries ever managed to adopt FOSS. How did the French parliament manage?
Similar calls were made on the Irish government as a means of maximising IT expenditure in schools. The general response was that fear of losing Microsoft jobs/investment trumps any potential savings. Oh wait, that sounds like a government backed monopoly. Somebody ring Brussels (again).
Like all IT departments you should not go for fully one or the other. Whats the point for example running a webserver on IIS unless it has too or a fileserver? On the other hand I'd hate to have to use OpenOffice. My opinion most of the time is keep OpenSource stuff server side in the form of Linux and apps for it and proprietory desktop side as every user knows it (just about). Keeps re-training costs and server costs down and no doubt improves backend reliability. Oh and ditch the amount of stupid outsourcing deals and quit the rediculous Dell only sourcing policy.
Simples :-) .
"Doing this will undoubtedly save the UK government a bundle and realise several other benefits, too. It's about time. "
I'm no lover of MS license fees but there are significant retraining costs and don't forget the conversion of all those macros which automated stuff in office.
As we type an elite Microsoft Ninja Licensing force is being dispatched from Redmond. Instructions: Remove OpenSource Influences from UK.gov, with extreme prejudice (i.e. most of the neighbourhood), junkets and "training packages" to be made available. Ultimate deterrent to be used only if all else fails, MOAB is in reserve. (Mother Of All Balmers).
.. and perhaps it won't
we all know the Gov't IT projects are only there to provide the minister a nice cushty retirement job as an "advisor"
not to mention that average civil servant monkey wouldnt be able to tell his excel from his elbow. But its good to see the open sauce evangelists work there too :)