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Like the one on this page:
http://www.ogc.gov.uk/
(just turn it through 90 degrees)

Allegedly it cost 14k
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/1901656/OGC-unveils-new-logo-to-red-faces.html

Could have been worse; could have been this one:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/artanddesign/artblog/2007/jun/05/howlisasimpsontooktheolym
(£400,000, that one).

First of all, why use crappy openldap when you can use the Netspace directory server that red hat bought and opensourced.

I have foung openLDAP to be reliable, compatible and easy to use. Can you elaborate on why you think it is crap?

There is a reason why they paid 23$ millions for it...

And the reasons are?

Then, AD isn't just a LDAP server with usernames and passwords....

Nor is openLDAP just a store for Windows user names and passwords. I use an openLDAP server for Windows services as well as providing user configuration for other services such as sendmail. The great advantage of using FOSS is that you are free from vendor lock in and can consider non-proprietary alternatives in other areas of your network.

Which is why many people can only use Windows setups. There's nothing like AD in the FOSS world. To start with, FOSS client apps should be lockdown-able from the server. But you can't do that...

I mean, in a office with a linux server and some linux clients, try to lockdown some options on Firefox, the desktop, evolution....surprise, you can't do it. Oh, yeah, there're a lot of workarounds everywhere, but they are different if you use KDE or Gnome or depending on the app you are using. It's a horrible mess.

Nowhere in the article do I see a desire to use FOSS desktop clients. The submitter simply wants to replace AD server with a non MS LDAP based alternative.

Windows clients and servers, on the other hand, are VERY well coupled. The day someone cares to fix this in the FOSS world, a lot of people will start using Linux in corporate networks.

This is otherwise known as vendor lock in. Some of use have tried very hard to break free of it to avoid being held to ransom by a vendor.

Until then, Windows is pretty much the only realistic option. I can't understand why Red Hat, Suse and Ubuntu don't put more efforts on this, it's one of the biggest showstoppers for Linux adoption.

I have been running what you consider an unrealistic option for the best part of a decade. I have yet to be fired. Sirius the consultancy I recommended have a client list of blue chip companines, local govenment and schools. They are all running some form of FOSS backend. You might like to take a fresh look at FOSS, it really works in the real world.

In my previous post I forgot to mention that OGC/Becta are the government agency's responsible for technology in the UK educational environment. It is considerably easier for a UK school to use a Becta accredited supplier than any other supplier. It is an incredible achievement for Sirius to gain that accreditation as no other FOSS consultancy has managed to cut through government red tape thus far.

from the linked article what's that?
"The ethos behind the development of ITIL is the recognition that organisations are becoming increasingly dependent on IT in order to satisfy their corporate aims and meet their business needs. "

One possible translation:

"IT is important"

I recall a Slashdot comment that referred to Forbes magazine as "capitalist porn". This link seems to point at more of the same thing -a place where those of a management-mindset can go to have their sense of importance stroked.

There might, in fact be something useful buried in the biz-speak on the linked website, but any real value seems likely to be lost 'mongst a million mind-numbing meetings and micromanaging memos in an overblown orgy of organizational onanism. The danger sign is the repetitively redundant overuse of reference to "corporate" aims and "business" needs. What other sort of "aims" and "needs" can a company or organization have? (Assuming that than an inanimate construct can have "needs" at all!)

A truely effective technique does not need a lot of structured promotion -no one "hypes" basic book-keeping practices, but they work and therefore, they are used.

As mentioned already by someone else, Prince2 is fast becoming the defacto project management standard in Europe. I wouldn't be surprised if it would become the defacto standard in the world because Prince2 focuses so much on viability of a project.

At each phase Prince2 checks whether the reason for doing the project in the first place are still valid. If not, a the project is halted or even shutdown. This way, Prince2 tries to assure that projects are done with a valid businesscase. Not only before the start of a project, but also while running the project.

Prince2 can be quite daunting and it's not recommended when all you're doing is upgrading the local Exchange server. But projects with a budget above 100K dollars could benefit from running them with Prince2.

And no, Prince2 is not just for IT projects. Although it started life in the IT world it has become a generic method that can be used in any line of business.

I work in the UK Civil Service, and we use (a loose form of) PRINCE2 as recommended by the Office of Government Commerce.

However, the trick is to know what of it to use and what not to. That comes with practice, experience and common sense. No methodology, however good, can replace these.

I work in the UK Civil Service, and we use (a loose form of) PRINCE2 as recommended by the Office of Government Commerce.

However, the trick is to know what of it to use and what not to. That comes with practice, experience and common sense. No methodology, however good, can replace these.

"no significant obstacles were noted for the adoption of Open Source in infrastructure developments"

/joelethan

So the final results page offers some mild amusement when looking at the file types on offer. In June 2002, the "Open Source Software Policy Document" was released in RTF, PDF, HTML and ... Word DOC. September 2002's "Guidance on implementing OSS" was only released in PDF. Then, a glimmer of hope! The Qinetiq (what a stupid name...) report was released in PDF, RTF and none other than OOo SXW! There may be hope yet... but no, the final report that this article is about was released in RTF, PDF, HTML and DOC.

The question is: why bother releasing in .DOC when there's an RTF right above it? Hmm...

The government's statement is here.

Contrary to the thumbsucking BBC think-piece pointed to, this is not just about Microsoft (although it concerns them, obviously). The UK government has had its fingers burned badly in the last few years over huge IT projects that have gone wrong - the Home Office passports debacle, thanks to Siemens, was just one of them, but there have been others involving EDS and Accenture, all using proprietry software, all costing buckets of cash and all having severe problems with overruns. This has as much to do with trying to avoid those messes than the BBC's "Beast of Redmond" bogey monster.

Some more good news is that the government statement included this comment:
At the same time OGC announced its latest deal on pricing arrangements for Software with IBM. This will offer enhanced discounts across the public sector with additional savings where Linux products are specified.