UK Sets Open Source Procurement Policy

An anonymous submitter notes a story in the Register about the UK publishing their policy on the use of Open Source software. (Or skip straight to the policy itself.) The UK has been moving towards this for a while, and while they don't rule out using proprietary code, the policy definitely recognizes the benefits of OSS.

Comments

Re:balzac

[oliverthered]

Try using G++ from the command line, or check that you have /etc/alternitives/g++ pointing to the correct version of GCC for you libraries.

If that fails you can always move you apps to /desktop/recycle/bin

wait a second.....

[jeffy124]

I thought the Queen of England had Red Hat, why the policy requiring it? Shouldn't her majesty's endorsement be enough?

Re:wait a second.....

[Anonymous Coward]

I just clicked through that link in the Queen running linux, and not to be a troll but she switched back to IIS running on 2000

Re:wait a second.....

[BenjyD]

And look at the crappy uptimes she gets now she's using IIS. A 90 day average of 22 days? 'Server horriblis', i think.

Re:wait a second.....

[martyn s]

I think this is what they were talking about.

Re:wait a second.....

[IXI]

Finally they joined the losers:

"Windows 2000 users include [...], Arthur Andersen & Company"

Re:wait a second.....

[Shade1001]

Nah, the Queen dismissed linux last december... Sad, but true

and the defualt choice is ....

[Alien54]

An important and useful point from the policy

• UK Government will explore further the possibilities of using OSS as the default exploitation route for Government funded R&D software."

which is a fascinating surprise

Re:and the defualt choice is ....

[Anonymous Coward]

If they can be convinced to not imprison said OSS under the GNU license it will be wonderful. Otherwise things would get too political.

o/~ money, money money o/~

[Mr_Silver]

Wheee!!

I look forward to Bill Gates parachuting into the UK and depositing a ... ahem ... small donation to help us sort out the mess that is our railways!

Re:o/~ money, money money o/~

[Anonymous Coward]

Any of the Lords of London eloquent enough to convince
Microsoft that OSS is the way to go?
as the man from Peru??
--
or is this just another ploy to get a concession
out of microsoft?

Re:o/~ money, money money o/~

[cocotoni]

Yup, a donation to the Queen's election fund.

Re:o/~ money, money money o/~

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah I hope he does.

Well... whoever gets control of them really needs to be sure that the government cannot have any influence on thier decision making process.
They need to do that whilst keeping safty as no.1 priority.

Good luck Mr G.

Re:o/~ money, money money o/~

[Epeeist]

He already did. There are pictures of him with Tony Blair after he did a flying visit.

Seriously though, with the current Labour party fixation on big money (they have already taken donations off pornographers) can you imagine thisk taking off if his Billness says he would not be amused.

Re:o/~ money, money money o/~

[TurdFurgeson]

oh but wait!

you want everything for FREE!

where is the money in that?

loser

you can keep living the pipe dream because that's all you got

Re:o/~ money, money money o/~

[JimPooley]

Yup, a donation to the Queen's election fund.
I think you'll find that the only place they elect Queens is the ficticious planet of Naboo.

Re:o/~ money, money money o/~

[Anonymous Coward]

Naboo is fictitious? Shit, better change my resume.

TCO

[nate1138]

Quoth the article:

UK Government will consider OSS solutions alongside proprietary ones in IT procurements. Contracts will be awarded on a value for money basis.

Maybe now we can get some real total cost of ownership analysis for linux systems. IMHO this is something that has been lacking (except of course for the TCO workups done by Microsoft, and those can't be considered accurate. Not because they are from MS, but because they are being used as tools to outsell a competitor, and therefore are immediately suspect.) Having those numbers, as well as some solid cost-benefit analysis should help speed corporate adoption.

Re:TCO

[Anonymous Coward]

That's a very well-written document and could turn out to make for exciting times in the near future. It's just a shame that they can't spell "license" correctly.

Re:TCO

[foobar104]

Having those numbers, as well as some solid cost-benefit analysis should help speed corporate adoption.

You're making a huge assumption there. Have you ever given any critical thought to what the real TCO of Linux is? It's not too bad on the server side; discounting the NRE of hardware and server software, the TCO for a Linux server is about the same as the TCO for any other Unix server. Once you add the hardware and software back in, you end up with a package that's nice and cheap.

But on the desktop... whew! The TCO of Linux is huge. There's support costs, training and re-training costs, application development costs... it's just a killer. When-- or, more accurately, if-- Linux reaches the point where the cost of re-training your staff and acquiring the needed software is less than the cost of Windows plus Windows applications, then it makes sense-- from a TCO standpoint-- to run Linux on the desktop. But that's a long way off.

If anything, looking at the TCO for desktop computer systems will probably benefit Microsoft more than Linux.

Re:TCO

[gowen]

But on the desktop... whew! The TCO of Linux is huge. There's support costs, training and re-training costs, application development costs... it's just a killer.

This research you're citing sounds very interesting. Can you give me a reference?

Re:TCO

[nate1138]

You are 100% correct. For the desktop user, the TCO is just too high. But that's OK, because I personally don't think that it is ready for the desktop yet. It is too hard to exchange documents with Office users, the available web browsers have problems with some content (yes I know that is the designers fault, but it remains a problem nonetheless), and it's just too damn technical for sales/accounting/management types to handle. Hopefully that will change. But for now, I'm very happy to see linux making good progress in an area that it is very strong.

Re:TCO

[Space cowboy]

Microsoft don't think so - they're (Balmer) admitting that Linux TCO is less than windows, and now they need better arguments than "We're cheaper".

Plus, big government contracts are only sometimes for general-purpose bloke-in-a-box solutions, and hell, the UK will just go for MS at the moment with those ones. Fair enough.

The really lucrative contracts are the defence and systems contracts though. There's a lot of space there for Linux to make its' own....

Simon.

Re:TCO

[ThereIsNoSporkNeo]

Bah, who needs a support staff for Linux. Just have an e-mail address that in answer to any query spits out "RTFM".

Companies could save millions!

Re:TCO

[foobar104]

the available web browsers have problems with some content

I'm glad to hear somebody phrase it in those terms. I've long been of the opinion that the web content standards body is largely irrelevant; IE's dialect of HTML is the de facto standard, for better or worse, and when a browser fails to render a page the way IE does, unless there's a really great reason for it, it's the browser's fault.

Standards are all fine and good, but only to the extent that they're used in the real world. There's nothing more useless than an un-adopted standard.

We now return you to your regularly scheduled topic, already in progress.

Re:TCO

[foobar104]

I understand your point, but I think you're being kinda silly. What research is necessary to show that people who are trained to use MS Office under Windows have to be re-trained to use some other application under Linux? This is blindingly obvious. And while the learning curve from one platform to the other may be shallow in some specific areas-- like typing in a word processor, for instance-- it gets steeper when you move into other common tasks, like emailing a word processor document to a colleague. You do it one way with Word and Outlook, and an entirely different way with whatever-you-please on Linux. Voila, retraining.

You don't need a trade study to know how zero retraining on the left compares to non-zero retraining on the right.

Re:TCO

[foobar104]

I knew it! I knew it! I was even thinking, as I posted my comment, ``-1, Flamebait.'' And there it is!

I shouldn't be surprised, of course, but it always catches me off-guard when the Slashdot community (for lack of a better word) operates so predictably. Any comment critical of Microsoft gets +1, Insighful, regardless of merit. Any comment critical of Linux gets -1, Flamebait, regardless of merit.

Good thing none of this matters.

Re:TCO

[ethereal]

I think you're being kind of silly to assume that your conclusion is blindingly obvious. Most people are not advanced users of Windows; the functionality that they do make use of is already replicated quite well under Linux. Advanced users might have to learn some things, but then again advanced users are advanced because they weren't afraid to learn in the first place.

Re:TCO

[scaryman]

exactly, even with MS, people have to be retrain when a system is upgraded, I know most of the people at my mums office have had to under retaining 2 times in the last year. Just because geeks can easily switch from word under win95 to office XP under winXP, does not mean the average user will do so.
change the accounts software, another period of retraining, followed by a period of getting up to speed, upgrade the operating system to the latest version of windows, accounting software needs upgrading, more retraining.
switching over to linux would require retraining, but that is also needed for most windows upgrades by the average user.

Re:TCO

[Jason Earl]

TCO for Linux might be too high if you plan on putting a PC on everyone's desk, but if you roll out Linux desktops intelligently (ie. using thin clients) then TCO is far lower than Windows, even including retraining costs. You see, the beauty of Linux is that, for the first time in recorded history there is a fairly comprehensive set of applications that can be served up via X11. One commodity Linux box (provided it has enough memory) can easily handle hundreds of X terminals. So instead of hundreds of PCs to babysit you would be left with one server per hundred users (or so). Backups, software upgrades, account changes, client configuration, etc. all become trivial matters when you are only dealing with one machine. Likewise upgrading the clients becomes far more economical.

Yes, there are some niggly little client details that require some work, but it is definitely possible to set up Linux clients that are functional and userfriendly, and the cost savings in hardware and software (and especially staffing) can be enormous. It's even possible to use Citrix to use "legacy" software during the changeover.

Re:TCO

[foobar104]

This has nothing to do with advanced users. This has to do with my secretary, who knows how to email Word documents and web pages to me by going to the ``File'' menu and selecting ``Send To Mail Recipient'' (or whatever it is). Up pops an email message with the file attached, and she just types my name and clicks ``Send.'' She's not dumb, by any stretch of the imagination, but she's not a computer hobbyist, either. She doesn't mess with 'em for fun. She uses her PC as a tool to get her job done.

When you're using (insert name of word processor here) under Linux, can you go to the ``File'' menu (or any menu), select ``Sent To Mail Recipient'' (or something like that), type in an email address, and click ``Send?'' If you can't, then my secretary will have to be re-trained to use Linux. Can you create a PDF by printing to the Acrobat Distiller printer? If you can't, then my secretary will have to be re-trained to use Linux.

I'm not speaking from a position of experience here; I have no idea how to do those basic, ten-times-every-day tasks with any combination of applications under Linux. But no matter how easy it may be, it's different, and that means I'll have to re-train my secretary. That'll cost me money and time. If the cost of re-training my secretary exceeds the cost of a copy of Windows plus the necessary software, then Linux costs me more than Windows.

You said, ``the functionality that they do make use of is already replicated quite well under Linux.'' Back that up. Explain to me, please, how to do the following task with any combination of applications for Linux.

1. Open the Excel file containing such-and-such vendor's price list. (We get these from our vendors, so we don't get a say in their format. They come as Excel files.)

2. Open the word processing document that I just emailed you and find the table cell marked, ``paste description here.'' (I create that document, so it can be in any format, as long as it supports in-line tables.) Paste the description of part so-n-so from the price list into the table cell.

3. Turn the word processing document into a PDF, and mail it back to me for approval.

In real life, the job would be a lot more complex, of course, but it would basically consist of that list of steps, permuted in various ways. She can carry that job out very easily with Windows, using Excel, Word, Outlook, and Acrobat Distiller. How would you do that job with Linux and Linux applications? If you can do it at all, is the process close to or very different from the process my secretary currently uses? (The more different, the more it will cost me to re-train.)

I'm going to stand behind my call of ``blindingly obvious'' on this one.

Re:TCO

[foobar104]

Man, somebody really has a hard-on for me today. That's three ``-1, Flamebait'' moderations on two posts in just the past hour or so. One was applied to a post in which I said that the TCO of Linux on the desktop compares negatively to the TCO of Windows on the desktop, and two were applied to the parent, in which I said that browsers that fail to render pages the same way IE does should be considered broken. I'm glad to see that reasoned, critical opinions are treated with such respect from the Slashdot crowd.

Oh, well. Just blowin' karma today, after all.

Re:TCO

[Anonymous Coward]

Mod this guy up, not down.

Maybe you dumbshit moderates could READ the fucking post before modding it.

Re:TCO

[scaryman]

I couldn't of put it better myself.
I take it all the people in the US who cann't afford decent health insurance have perfect teeth.

Re:TCO

[Jord]

The three steps you described above are extraordinarily in software available for Linux. Having used MS Office and Linux Office applications I can tell you that any competent secretary will take a very short amount of time to make the switch. While it is true that the majority of people who use computers are not experts or advanced users, most of the people who use a computer in an office enviroment will be able to make the switch with little to no help. BTW Most office software for Linux reads MS documents just fine.

Re:TCO

[foobar104]

Your comment was no help at all. If you've used both MS Office and Linux office applications, as you say, then you should have no trouble at all telling me specifically how one would do the things I asked about. Without some kind of specific information, I'm afraid your post really carries no weight at all.

Re:TCO

[flacco]

You don't need a trade study to know how zero retraining on the left compares to non-zero retraining on the right.

You don't need to be a physicist to know that you turn motorcycle handlebars to the right to go right, and to the left to go left.

Except that's not the case. A physicist will tell you about counter-steer. The fact is, to go left on a motorcycle, you push the handlebars to the right, and vice versa.

Re:TCO

[swillden]

This has to do with my secretary, who knows how to email Word documents and web pages to me by going to the ``File'' menu and selecting ``Send To Mail Recipient'' (or whatever it is). Up pops an email message with the file attached, and she just types my name and clicks ``Send.''

She would do exactly the same thing using OpenOffice. File->Send->Document as e-mail.

1. Open the Excel file containing such-and-such vendor's price list. (We get these from our vendors, so we don't get a say in their format. They come as Excel files.)

Click on the file. OpenOffice starts up and displays it.

2. Open the word processing document that I just emailed you and find the table cell marked, ``paste description here.'' (I create that document, so it can be in any format, as long as it supports in-line tables.) Paste the description of part so-n-so from the price list into the table cell.

Click on the word processing document, OpenOffice opens it. Click on the already-open spreadsheet, find the data, select it, hit Ctrl-C (or, if you prefer, use the menus: Edit->Copy). Click back over to the word processing document, click in the cell, hit Ctrl-V (or Edit->Paste).

3. Turn the word processing document into a PDF, and mail it back to me for approval.

This is the only one that is even the slightest bit different. Click File->Print, select Print to PDF, choose a file name, click OK. Click back to your e-mail message, click reply, drag the new PDF document over and drop it on the message, click send.

Now, how painful was that, exactly?

The fact is, that you're making arguments based on the "blinding obviousness" of baseless and uneducated suppositions (that just happen to be wrong).

Re:TCO

[foobar104]

Good thing we're not talking about motorcycles, then.

Re:TCO

[foobar104]

Thanks for the info. I'm glad to see that somebody is willing to discuss this subject with me.

When you use OpenOffice's ``send document as email'' feature, what exactly happens? Does OpenOffice have its own email functionality built in, or does it fire off another email program?

I have basically the same question about PDF generation. Does OpenOffice use its own PDF generator, or does it use Adobe's, or what?

Thanks again.

Re:TCO

[swillden]

Man, somebody really has a hard-on for me today. That's three ``-1, Flamebait'' moderations on two posts in just the past hour or so.

Wow. Let's analyze this:

One was applied to a post in which I said that the TCO of Linux on the desktop compares negatively to the TCO of Windows on the desktop

Which "fact" you stated without any supporting argumentation beyond "My secretary can do this with Windows, betcha it'd be different under Linux". Your comments smelled a bit like gasoline to me.

the parent, in which I said that browsers that fail to render pages the same way IE does should be considered broken

Ah, an unabashed the-big-boy-is-always-right, standards-be-damned, everyone-else-is-wrong attitude. Gettin' pretty high-octane there, bub.

I'm glad to see that reasoned, critical opinions are treated with such respect from the Slashdot crowd.

Reasoned? Critical, certainly, but reasoned? Where's the reasoning? I saw bald-faced, controversial statements with no facts, figures or logic to back them up!

FWIW, I would be very cautious about deploying a Linux desktop to non-techies. I think it could work, but it would have to be carefully configured and tested before deployment, and I think there's a certain class of users (non-technical "power" users who like to install software and tweak stuff but don't really understand any of it) for whom Linux is *not* a good choice at the moment.

But, that's my opinion, based on my own experience using Windows and Linux, and based on my observations of non-techie Windows users who have converted over, and I'm not about to claim that everyone else should find it blindingly obvious.

Re:TCO

[swillden]

VMWare is another excellent option for dealing with legacy Windows software.

Re:TCO

[foobar104]

Look, this really isn't that complicated.

1. There are literally millions of people out there who have experience using Windows and Windows applications for basic business tasks: email, browsing the web, document handling, and so on. Let's say that 5,000 of them work for MyCorp. If MyCorp wants to deploy 5,000 Linux desktops instead of 5,000 Windows desktops (savings: 5,000 times whatever MyCorp pays per head for Windows), they're going to have to re-train 5,000 people to use different (albeit similar) tools. Whether they have to be re-trained a little or a lot, it still adds up fast. It's not clear, because of a lot of things, whether it would cost more to deploy Linux or to stick with Windows. There is no clear, universally applicable cost-savings case associated with Linux. Blame it on inertia or the entrenchment of Windows or what-have-you, but it's the case nonetheless.

2. The idea of a de facto standard is not new, and it shouldn't be controversial. At my business, we use lots of web apps, for everything from order processing to HR. When one of my coworkers complained last month that the trouble ticket app wouldn't work properly with Mozilla, there was a sudden and final answer: use IE. You can wave all the paper standards you want; if the software isn't useful because of the way it renders-- or fails to render-- pages, then it gets replaced by the better-behaved incumbent. I'm sure this scenario is being played out over and over again all over the world, even as we speak.

Both of these points speak to the same basic idea: if the open source folks want to build software that can be seriously considered as an alternative to the tools people already use, they must not force the user base to compromise. I will change to another operating system if, and only if, it benefits me to do so. Giving me software that's equivalent to, but different from, what I use now will not motivate me to change. Giving me software that isn't as useful to me as what I have now sure as hell won't motivate me to change.

Re:TCO

[skyhawker]

Without some kind of specific information, I'm afraid your post really carries no weight at all.

Seems to fit your previous posts about TCO very nicely.

BTW, for which division of Microsoft do you work?

Re:TCO

[CoolVibe]

have basically the same question about PDF generation. Does OpenOffice use its own PDF generator, or does it use Adobe's, or what?

Does it matter? Unlike the MS word format, the PDF file format is open and can be generated quite easily and reliably without the papal sanction of Adobe.

Re:TCO

[swillden]

It uses an external package for both. In the case of e-mail, mine is configured to use Mozilla. For producing PDFs, it uses Ghostscript (which, BTW, is what I've also been using for years to make PDFs under Windows; works great and saves the cost of Adobe's software).

Re:TCO

[mpe]

What research is necessary to show that people who are trained to use MS Office under Windows have to be re-trained to use some other application under Linux? This is blindingly obvious.

No more so than changing between different versions of MS Office, which also is blindingly obvious.
This kind of thing would be laughed at were it applied to driving a car too.

Re:TCO

[nate1138]

The problem with VMWare is that you have to have a copy of windows to run on the virtual machine. So there is actually a big cost problem there as far as TCO for the platform is concerned. If you have to purchase VMWare and windows, why bother running linux at all?

Re:TCO

[foobar104]

Jee-zus, talk about your knee-jerk reactions. If you read a little more closely, I was asking if OpenOffice has PDF generation built in or if it uses an external application. That's a very important question, because I need to know whether I can generate PDFs within OpenOffice by itself, or whether I'll have to make sure some external software is installed first.

I've gotta tell you, issues of cost and re-training notwithstanding, it's people like you that will put the open source software movement into an early grave.

Re:TCO

[nate1138]

Absolutely right. I don't understand why some people have such a hard time with that simple little concept. Sure the apps are similar, but not the same. People have a hard enough time learning an application on Windows in the first place. Example: I had to train a dozen or so salespeople to use that godforsaken piece of dogshit known as ACT!. It took no less than 2 days of my time to drill it into their itty bitty brains just the basics of syncing data, etc. Now imagine retraining hordes of these people on applications that don't even look the same on the surface, let alone function identically. Nightmare time.

Re:TCO

[swillden]

No, it's not complicated at all. You're just making a lot of hidden assumptions, that's all. Those assumptions may or may not be invalid, but determining the facts of the situation requires research, not statements about the blinding obviousness of the conclusions.

You are assuming:

• There is no retraining cost with using Windows-based tools. This one is easily disprovable.
• There are significant retraining costs with using Linux-based tools. This one is really complex, and the answer is sometimes yes, sometimes no.
• There are no TCO implications of a given configuration outside of license fees and training costs. This one is also easy to disprove. What's not clear at all is which solution has the better TCO (which was where the whole discussion started).
• De facto standards are more important than de jure standards. In the short term, I suppose this is often true. In the long term, this attitude would screw the whole industry badly. The right approach is not to blithely accept that only IE works with some web sites, the right approach is to *fix* the web sites so they're compliant with standards. That will have other benefits far beyond allowing other browsers to use sites. For example, creation of automated systems that talk to web sites for you is becoming more popular, and standards compliance makes those systems easier to build and less prone to bugs. Also, aging of proprietary formats is a real problem, and one that is likely going to bite us hard in a few years. Adherence to standards helps a great deal with this problem.
• Finally, you're assuming that all users and all companies have needs similar to yours. I'm working with a client right now who sees a lot of value in Linux because their users _don't understand it_. This client wants their users to have a few, specific apps to do a few, specific things and they don't want their users mucking about with anything else. They also want centralized management of all of those systems, which is easier and cheaper with UNIX-type system.

if the open source folks want to build software that can be seriously considered as an alternative to the tools people already use, they must not force the user base to compromise.

Ah, here's another faulty assumption: Forcing the user to change is equivalent to forcing the user to compromise. Change can be for the better. Many companies didn't want to pay the costs for retraining Win98 users on Win2K, but the superior stability of Win2K convinced them that the change was beneficial. My laptop has 43 days of continuous uptime right now, and it only got rebooted a month and a half ago because I wanted to play a Windows-only game. That's a system that goes through a zillion suspends, hibernates, has four different kinds of PCMCIA network cards and a half dozen USB devices attached and removed on a regular basis. That kind of rock-solid reliability is worth something.

I will change to another operating system if, and only if, it benefits me to do so.

Not me. I'll change just because I like variety. But that's just me; when making a decision as to whether or not to convert an office staff to a different system, only an idiot would do it on a whim. What I'm really saying here is: "Well, DUH!"

Giving me software that's equivalent to, but different from, what I use now will not motivate me to change.

Here's another mistaken assumption: You seem to believe that open source developers want you to use something else. Trust me: we couldn't care less what you use. We'll use what works for us. Now, I do care what my government uses, and I think representative Villanueva from Peru did an admirable job of explaining why open source software has a fundamental advantage over proprietary software, and TCO has little or nothing to do with it (although I think that in many -- not all -- cases OSS has lower TCO). For that reason I applaud the UK policy shift, and encourage them to strengthen it.

Re:TCO

[foobar104]

Driving a car? No. The gas is on the right and the brake is in the middle. The one on the left is the clutch. The big round thing in the middle is for turning. In front of you is a gauge that tells you how fast you're going.

Every car I've ever seen has those characteristics. Right-hand drive, left-hand drive, sports car, truck, whatever. The same basic user interface is found everywhere.

A more apt analogy would be to compare a car to a boat. You can do the same basic things-- forward, left, right, faster, slower-- but some of them have to be done in entirely different ways.

Re:TCO

[mpe]

TCO for Linux might be too high if you plan on putting a PC on everyone's desk, but if you roll out Linux desktops intelligently (ie. using thin clients) then TCO is far lower than Windows,

It's likely to be lower than Windows even with regular workstations. Since (l)user fiddling with hardware and software settings is out. Something Windows is only just catching up on, but hampered by legarcy application support.

Re:TCO

[swillden]

If you have to purchase VMWare and windows, why bother running linux at all?

As a temporary strategy to facilitate technology shift with long-term benefits.

Also, you can often get away with less licenses than you have users, if your users don't have to use the Windows apps all the time. Effectively, you have a small set of virtual Windows machines which your users take turns using. I believe the higher-end VMWare products will even assist with the license management to ensure that you're legal. Under this scenario, the virtual Windows boxen all live on one big VMWare server and the end-users use them over the network (X makes this very easy, of course).

Re:TCO

[foobar104]

Your post is well-written and well-thought-out. Unfortunately, I disagree with most of it. Rather than just saying ``nuh-uh'' about thirty times, I'll let you have the last word on this issue.

Re:TCO

[SurfsUp]

If you read a little more closely, I was asking if OpenOffice has PDF generation built in or if it uses an external application.

I believe it uses ghostview, an external application.

That's a very important question, because I need to know whether I can generate PDFs within OpenOffice by itself, or whether I'll have to make sure some external software is installed first.

With open source software it's not really an important question, since there's no new license to pay for. In fact, you *want* things to be properly modular wherever possible, so that each component can do the job it does best, and not fill your hard drive up with redundant code etc.

Anyway, OpenOffice is designed to let you install components whenever you want. you can go ahead and do an initial install no matter which components you already have, then add bits and pieces later if needed. I don't know about you, but I like that attitude a lot.

Re:TCO

[SurfsUp]

-1, Flamebait'' moderations ... were applied to the parent, in which I said that browsers that fail to render pages the same way IE does should be considered broken.

You're right, but only because -1, Just Plain Wrong isn't available as a moderation option. Obviously, a browser that fails to render a page in some broken IE way is not necessarily broken: it comes down to standards, as in W3C standards. Whichever browser does not correctly implement the standard is the broken one.

Re:TCO

[foobar104]

With open source software it's not really an important question, since there's no new license to pay for.

Absolutely it's an important question. Whether the software costs money or not, it still has to be acquired, installed, and (possibly) configured. This is a trade-off. Windows software has to be bought, but installing and configuring it is (usually) very simple. Linux software, on the other hand, doesn't have to be bought, but is (usually) quite tedious to install and configure. So if you told me that the commercial product costs $100 and has a three-click installer, but that the free alternative consists of seventeen packages that must all be installed individually, I think the smart choice is to just buy the commercial product and be done with it. But that's my perspective; I'm in the position of having more money than time, at least when we're talking about $100.

Re:TCO

[foobar104]

Did you not read my post in which I talked about de facto standards? All the paper standards in the world can't help you if you decide to release a web browser that doesn't render pages in the way that the user needs it to. Consider my situation. We spent a good chunk of change-- not millions, but several thousand bucks-- getting our trouble ticket application written and debugged. We have the option of either contracting with the vendor to open up that application and make the changes necessary to make it work properly with Mozilla 1.0, for a few thousand more bucks, or use IE instead of Mozilla, at no cost at all. Which do you think we chose?

Re:TCO

[hdparm]

How hard would that be in OpenOffice? Very hard:

File->Send->Document as E-mail

Besides, guess what happens when new versions of MS software are out - all users get re-trained and that's not cheap. With Linux Desktop and clever setup you can easilly offset good chunk of training costs with paying less for support needed due to user stuffup_s, not to mention ridiculous MS Licensing costs and anti-virus protection.

You will also have happier users and sysadmins because systems will just run.

Re:TCO

[Mark Hood]

De facto standards are all well and good, but why should your application require to use anything outside the feature set supported by all browsers?

Of course, if your spec says 'must work with IE' then you're stuck with it, I guess.

On the other hand, if the spec doesn't specify a browser (and I don't think it should), but the vendor assumed you were using IE, then the implementation is broken. Assumptions should not be made unless they are explicitly stated in the design documents, and agreed by all parties.

Speaking as a software vendor, if we deliver something that is not correct according to the spec, our customers don't tend to 'contract with the vendor to open the application' you 'refuse to pay until it's fixed'.

Of course, if they use code that only works on IE because you asked for a feature that was impossible to implement in any other browser, that's another matter.

But I doubt that would be the case in the Trouble Ticket application - I'd assume it's CGI and all the cleverness is in the database at the back, not the browser.

Go on, mod me down as flamebait, I deserve it :)

Mark

Re:TCO

[dd301]

Driving a car? No. The gas is on the right and the brake is in the middle. The one on the left is the clutch. The big round thing in the middle is for turning. In front of you is a gauge that tells you how fast you're going.

Which is exactly the same for all office suites. The only change will be for those so called "power" users who use 90% of the features of the packages. I would like to see some research on what the fraction of such users are. My guess is it would be pretty small.

Re:TCO

[dd301]

If you have to purchase VMWare and windows, why bother running linux at all?

You won't have to purchase all the programs for your windows setup (it is assumed that you have replaced some of them with Linux equivalents).

Re:TCO

[MrResistor]

Well, it couldn't possibly be any worse than Act, could it? Perhaps it would be easier to train people on an app that isn't a big pile of shit?

For the record, I have used Act, and it is in fact a big pile of shit. Most OSS designed with a GUI in mind compares quite favorably, IMO.

Re:TCO

[nate1138]

Umm, no you can't "get away with" less licenses than you have users. MS is very clear in their EULA. One copy to be installed on one machine. Period.

Re:TCO

[swillden]

Ahh, but there is only one copy per machine. One per virtual machine. In reality there are fifty copies running on one machine (the server), but their displays get moved from place to place all the time.

This has all been hashed out pretty thoroughly on the vmware discussion groups.

Re:TCO

[swillden]

I'm really not interested in "having the last word", and I'd really _like_ to see some good counterarguments to mine -- I'm interested in *being* right, in the sense of having beliefs that accurately reflect the state of reality, rather than just *appearing* to be right (i.e. "winning" the argument), so having you give up does me no good whatsoever.

And, if you remain convinced that you're right but still cannot articulate a single reasonable counterargument or point to a single counterexample, then this little discussion has been a complete waste of your time as well.

Re:TCO

[foobar104]

De facto standards are all well and good, but why should your application require to use anything outside the feature set supported by all browsers?

Because when we contracted to have this app, and others, written, ``all browsers'' consisted of Netscape 4 (which was long obsolete even then), IE 5 for Windows and Mac, and various second-tier products that were of no relevance to us. Mozilla didn't even exist yet.* It's unreasonable to expect that any software vendor should be held to a standard of forwards-compatibility. We would not expect them to guarantee that the apps would work with browsers that hadn't even been released yet. That's just absurd.

In any case, this job was done and paid for a long time ago, so we're in no position-- nor have we any particular desire-- to argue over it.

Also, just FYI, all our web apps are J2EE, not CGI. They have a surprising amount of presentation-layer logic, more perhaps than you might have guessed.

* Please don't talk to me, as so many others have, about the various 0.n versions. Neither I nor my company has time to mess with software that is of less-than-1.0 quality. As far as we're concerned, Mozilla didn't even exist until just a few weeks ago.

Re:TCO

[foobar104]

I'd love to hear what, exactly, you consider to be ``power user'' features in, say, a word processor. Printing, maybe? Spell-checking? Style sheets? Table of contents and index generation? Change control?

At my company, every employee, from the interns to the CEO, uses those features regularly to produce our documents. And these aren't complex documents; they're contracts, and proposals, and whitepapers. Standard stuff. To us, these aren't ``power user'' features. They're basic tools.

Maybe the problem, here, is that the developers (or at least advocates) of open source office software don't actually use office software themselves.

Re:TCO

[will_die]

I rememeber a really old TCO survey that some company did back just as Linux was coming out. They did equal machines, and all that but for services they said they could not find support equal to that which ms gave right out of the box so they went with what they could which was 24hr direct phone support and on-site service.
After totalling that in the price for the Linux box was around $17K. While the windows box was in the $4K range.

Re:TCO

[SpaceJunkie]

i think he is pointing out that "Common sense" and "Layman thinking" can be exactly the opposite of some counter-intuitive reality that only a trained scientist or accurate study would show.

Much like which direction electrical current flows. Common sense once told us it was positive to negative - but it infact flows the other way.

Re:TCO

[SpaceJunkie]

In which case a power user would be welll trained enough to quickly find similar features in another package. there more than one way to skin a cat. If the features are not there- go nag the OSS community to add them.

Re:TCO

[SpaceJunkie]

Ummm. What planet are you on bud? I can print and spell check from OSS office software - in an almost identical way to MS-Office.

Maybe the problem, here, is that the poster has never even seen or tried an open source office package.

Re:TCO

[dd301]

I'd love to hear what, exactly, you consider to be ``power user'' features in, say, a word processor. Printing, maybe? Spell-checking? Style sheets? Table of contents and index generation? Change control?

All these are present in the standard office suites in Linux. And they are atmost a menu deep. How many different ways do you think are there for spell checking? Or printing? Do you really think your coworkers can't figure it out if the print option in sthe fifth entry in the file menu instead of the fourth?

To us, these aren't ``power user'' features. They're basic tools.

What you have described are basic tools and shouldn't require retraining.

Maybe the problem, here, is that the developers (or at least advocates) of open source office software don't actually use office software themselves.

And where did you dig that one up? While it is true that many people don't want to waste their time with "productivity" software, most of the develpers and users do use them.

Re:TCO

[SpaceJunkie]

Hmmm... Well that says it all. Linux has changed a lot from its humble beginnings. I still remember the first time I installed linux - ever. I remember taking a week to get a reasonable X-Configuration. Now I can use a single CD and have it all sorted out. I can have 24hr phone support(at a small cost) and 24hr community email support at no cost. I totally fail to see the point in the above comment.

Re:TCO

[foobar104]

Be that as it may, simply saying, ``it ain't necessarily so'' doesn't make for a very productive or interesting argument.

And your example is a terrible one. The idea the current flows from the positive pole to the negative pole springs-- when it does spring-- from the arbitrary names attached to the charges. If they were called ``right'' and ``left'' or ``square'' and ``round,'' your ``common sense'' would tell you something entirely different.

We're talking about drawing conclusions from facts: people know how to use Windows, but they don't know how to use Linux. Therefore, people will have to be taught how to use Linux, at a nonzero but undetermined cost. Training costs to maintain the status quo are fixed at zero. Voila, it costs more in training to move people to Linux than it costs to keep them on Windows. If the cost of the retraining (as yet undetermined) exceeds the cost of staying on Windows (also undetermined), it makes more sense to keep using Windows.

I'd love to hear somebody explain to me how that line of reasoning is flawed. Because I haven't heard it yet.

Re:TCO

[Anonymous Coward]

Go away before I replace your secretary with a very small shell script.

Re:TCO

[Anonymous Coward]

Another master of the obvious.
The people on this board like OSS.
YOU don't.
I would advise you to move on to the Microsoft appreciation
web sites that would pay homage to your genius.

Re:TCO

[Anonymous Coward]

That was in 91 or 92 you ignoramous.
24 hour direct phone support and on-site service??
HA HA
Try getting that for $4k today.
Meanwhile linux has become shall I say infinitely easier
to use and install.
Besides only morons pay for that kind of support. If my
techies don't know the answers I get new ones. Paying
MS hard earned dollars for something that my techs should
know or be able to resolve, really pisses me off.

Re:TCO

[Anonymous Coward]

So you are talking about 1999?? Thats like the stone
ages, it so long ago in 'linux time'. Thats like me
whining about NT 4 with service pack 4.
Oh well. Wish you the best.

Re:TCO

[mpe]

Driving a car? No. The gas is on the right and the brake is in the middle. The one on the left is the clutch. The big round thing in the middle is for turning. In front of you is a gauge that tells you how fast you're going.

Cars have different numbers of gears, complicated further on a 4 wheel drive. Automatics don't have a clutch, but may have a foot operated parking brake in its place. The indicators may be on the right or the left, no standard place for horn, lights and wipers. But somehow people manage to just get on with this. Maybe because, unlike with computers, no-one would take any moaning seriously.

Re:TCO

[WGR]

There is also the problem of "How much does it cost to train new-hires trained on Linux when we have a Microsoft shop?" if the OSS trend in schools continues.

Re:TCO

[SurfsUp]

We spent a good chunk of change-- not millions, but several thousand bucks-- getting our trouble ticket application written and debugged. We have the option of either contracting with the vendor to open up that application and make the changes necessary to make it work properly with Mozilla 1.0, for a few thousand more bucks, or use IE instead of Mozilla, at no cost at all. Which do you think we chose?

You made your mistake much earlier in the process: paying money to somebody to develop content that doesn't conform to W3C standards. You should have paid the same money to somebody with a clue, and you would not ever have to worry about that problem.

Next time you pay to develop web content, show your contractor this website.

Re:TCO

[foobar104]

Mistake? Where did you get the idea that we made a mistake? We've been deploying web applications for key business operations gradually over the past couple of years, and our overall efficiency has skyrocketed. It used to take more than a week to get a sales order filled for a customer. Now that order can be entered in the morning, product ships around lunchtime, and the invoice goes out that afternoon. There's no mistake here.

This is my whole point, really: W3C standards are absolutely irrelevant to us. They're just pieces of paper as far as I'm concerned. What's relevant to my company is our existing base of web applications. If Mozilla (or whatever) can't run those applications well enough that the users don't notice a difference, then Mozilla won't find a home here.

Why get religious about standards? They're important only to the extent that they improve things. Releasing a browser that's 100% compliant with the specification of the standard but that can't do the job of the incumbent browser doesn't help anybody. The Mozilla team should have spent more time implementing compatibility with IE-- or at least an IE compatibility mode that can be turned on and off in the ``advanced'' pane of the preferences dialog-- and less time implementing features that nobody needs. How much time was spent implementing the ``skinnable'' interface? How much time was spent on the mail and news readers? The browser doesn't have a goddamn ``home'' button on the toolbar, but it reads news, and look at all these kewl skinz, d00d!

What a waste. What an unbelievable waste of time and effort. Is it any wonder that IE is the more popular browser? For all their faults, Microsoft implemented features that developers and users actually wanted, while the Mozilla coalition gave us kewl skinz.

If you want to talk about mistakes, I think we can start right there.

Re:TCO

[SurfsUp]

Why get religious about standards?

For the same reason we get religious about freedom of speech. But you wouldn't understand that. I refer back to my advice that your co-workers need to dust off their resumes, there are more enlightened places to work.

Re:TCO

[foobar104]

Always beware of a man who acts in the name of ``enlightenment'' or ``principle.'' He's either conning you, or deluding himself. Any person who acts contrary to his own self-interest-- particularly where business is concerned-- is either a liar, a fool, or a saint. Calculating the odds is left as an exercise for the reader.

If you would rather work for an ``enlightened'' company than a successful and profitable one, then by all means, get out. If you're a decent employee, I will happily consider re-hiring you in six months when you find that you can't put your kids through college working on your highly principled, highly enlightened, not-for-profit, eco-friendly, neo-collectivist software kibbutz.

Re:TCO

[SurfsUp]

If you would rather work for an ``enlightened'' company than a successful and profitable one, then by all means, get out. If you're a decent employee, I will happily consider re-hiring you in six months when you find that you can't put your kids through college working on your highly principled, highly enlightened, not-for-profit, eco-friendly, neo-collectivist software kibbutz.

Indeed, I am now sure that you are nothing more than a Microsoft astroturfer, since you are simply spouting from the Microsoft 'how to FUD' playbook.

I stand by 'dust off your resume' for your coworkers.

Re:TCO

[foobar104]

God, does nobody understand what ``FUD'' means? If I were slinging FUD, I'd mention the case from several months ago in which Apple had to remove various bits of code from the Darwin project because one of the contributors was under 18. Because he was a minor, he was legally unable to waive his copyright and other rights in submitting code to Apple. Apple had no choice but to reject his submissions-- actually backing out checked-in code, if I remember correctly-- because, in a few years when that kid hits majority, there would be nothing stopping him from suing Apple on a copyright or other IP rights infringement claim. And he'd win, too. Apple would have been using his code without his permission, since, as a minor, he was legally unable to give permission to them, no matter what he may have said or done.

Then there's the case of Tilly, from just this past spring. He did some work on some pretty important Perl modules while working for an employer with whom he had an inventions contract. In that case, Tilly had no right to waive the rights to his work, because they were never his to begin with. His employer owned the rights to everything he had done during his employment, which included some fairly well-known open source work.

The lesson from both of these instances is the same: you can't give away what you don't own. Because there's nobody out there double-checking the validity of programmer's claims when they GPL their code, there's no safety net at all to ensure that this sort of thing isn't happening every day. So, basically, unless somebody took the trouble to do a background check, there are no guarantees that any of that so-called ``free'' software is anything of the sort. Consider the odds-- of all the open source programmers in the world, how many of them are under 18, or are under contract to an employer? All that code-- or, rather, all your rights to use that code-- could disappear tomorrow, if the wind were to shift just a little bit. Is that something you're willing to bet your business on?

For me, the answer is yes. My company has a number of Linux file and application servers inside our firewalls, and everything outside is running one flavor or another of BSD. Once you get all the bugs worked out, you just can't beat the cost-effectiveness of Linux or BSD servers.

But on the desktop, the stuff just doesn't work. So we're a Windows shop all the way. At home, I value my time more than my money, so I only own Macs.

Still think I'm a turfer?

There's enough fear, uncertainty, and doubt surrounding ``free'' software as it is. I don't need to press the point, and I sure as hell don't get paid to do so.

I would happily take a job as an Apple astroturfer, however. I'd take that job in a heartbeat.

Open Source = Proprietary

[Mitchell Mebane]

Contracts will be awarded on a value for money basis. Well, seing as most OSS is free-as-in-beer, they should get a much better value for money by seitching to Linux. Then, they would be able to lower taxes, cause they wouldn't have to pay tribute to MS! I think I'll go move to England...

Re:Open Source = Proprietary

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, most of these "policies" aren't about open source software at all, but rather about whether they can get good software for free. I guess there'd be a lot of policy reversals if Microsoft and other vendors started giving away their software (instead making money from support, like the open source vendors).

awesome!

[cswiii]

First it's a loosening of their marijuana laws, and now an endorsement for open-sourced software.

Who ever thought the stodgy old British government would be this... progressive?

Re:awesome!

[Jeppe Salvesen]

Labour party, you know. Not the bloody Tories.

Re:awesome!

[agdv]

First it's a loosening of their marijuana laws, and now an endorsement for open-sourced software.

Maybe they're related?

No, can't be. They would have to be on crack, not pot.

(let the flame fest begin!)

Re:awesome!

[Daniel Dvorkin]

Tony Blair is a progressive, you know. Oh, he's a slick politico, of course, but he's managed to reach the top without completely selling his soul, which is an impressive achievement. And now that Jack Straw has been demoted, the UK government in general is a lot less scary and a lot more likeable.

I remember when Blair, Clinton, and Schroeder seemed like the leaders of a real, lasting change in governance of the Western world. Of course, Crown Prince George's handlers managed to derail the process in the US, and it's hard to tell how German politics are going at the moment, but at least the UK is still going strong.

Re:awesome!

[Graspee_Leemoor]

" Tony Blair is a progressive, you know."

Is he interlaced too ?

graspee

Re:awesome!

[Anonymous Coward]

I remember when Blair, Clinton, and Schroeder seemed like the leaders of a real, lasting change in governance of the Western world.

Anything good that came out of Clinton's 8 years in the Oval Office was surely a mistake.

Of course, thanks to the beauty of the way government can effect the economy in the long term, almost every President takes the blame (or credit) for the policy of the President(s) before him, and very few can actually manage to do anything that has an economic impact during their own term(s).

Re:awesome!

[David Gerard]

Blunkett is bloody scary, though. RIPA? Removing double jeopardy? ("We'll keep dragging you back into court until you give in.")

Re:awesome!

[Anonymous Coward]

So, he was reaping the benefits of Bush Snr's groundwork in his first term. How about his second term?

Re:awesome!

[gosand]

First it's a loosening of their marijuana laws, and now an endorsement for open-sourced software.

Did you ever consider they are related? After all, aren't all OSS users dirty pot-smoking hippies?

Re:awesome!

[Martin S.]

Blunkett is bloody scary

Though I'm starting to see a pattern.

Blunket talks tough on crime and makes draconian suggestion.
Massive outburst and public commotion.
Blunket backs down.
Tony says don't worry.

Public Perception: Blunket is tough on crime, whilst actually being pretty liberal. i.e. dope.

Um, actually I like his style :)

Re:awesome!

[dusanv]

Clinton signed the DMCA. Very progressive indeed.

D.

Re:awesome!

[Anonymous Coward]

No, just the ones who advocate GNU OSS.

Re:awesome!

[Anonymous Coward]

No, he was reaping the benefits of Reagan's groundwork in his first term, and Bush Sr.'s in his second term. Bush Jr. got stuck with Clinton's mess.

Re:awesome!

[Anonymous Coward]

"Who ever thought the stodgy old British government would be this... progressive?"

They'll be getting free health care next! It's almost as if they come up with these ideas themselves.

Re:awesome!

[csteinle]

Actually, Blunkett seems to do a bait and switch all the time. Propose something totally outrageous, then back down and "compromise" to what you actually wanted in the first place AND get to look reasonable and willing to meet people's concerns.

This government has lost all credability when it come to image - you're never quite sure if it's real or spin.

Re:awesome!

[Anonymous Coward]

"And now that Jack Straw has been demoted, the UK government in general is a lot less scary and a lot more likeable."

He's quite a nice guy actually, he just looks like the "demon headmaster". Anyway, Jack Straw is now the foreign secretary, so he scares foreign countries on our behalf ;)

David Blunkett (the blind guy) replaced Straw at the Home Office, he's one charming character, let's take a look at his work over the last month :-

'Snoop' plans raise privacy fears
Blunkett backs ID card plan
Blunkett reforms 'threaten justice' (i.e. the end of trial by jury and double double jeopardy")
And some old stuff.

Re:awesome!

[Anonymous Coward]

"Um, actually I like his style :)"

I don't, its bloody dangerous to be playing politics with such fundamental liberties that have exited in this country for centuries, and no, "freedom" wasn't suddenly created in 1779, the patent was just filed then.

Re:awesome!

[Anonymous Coward]

Progressive my @rse!

It's hardly surprising businessmen like Tony's government, they're cheaper than the last lot.
We don't have a constitution to turn to and their proposed assaults on our civil liberties are a disgrace.

Re:awesome!

[Anonymous Coward]

... and you feel any of the other parties has any credability either?

IMHO, right now, all politics is about "spin", regardless of party.

Re:awesome!

[mpe]

Tony Blair is a progressive, you know. Oh, he's a slick politico, of course, but he's managed to reach the top without completely selling his soul, which is an impressive achievement.

He has had plenty of critisism even from within his own party for following Bush. Indeed sections of the press call him "Bush's Poodle".

Re:awesome!

[hachete]

Blair is a lawyer. Lawyers do not have feelings. He's admitted knowing nothing about "technical issues". He'd be scum of the earth except he wasn't a patents lawyer. He doesn't change things, he just asks a focus group. "What do you want today? Open software? Well,you shall have it...."

How this got out, I'll never know - unless it's the Civil Service trying to up the ante in their on-going skirmish with MS over paying less for their software.

Re:awesome!

[csteinle]

No, I don't. But "New" Labour seem to have been the ones who started the focus on image above all else.

Re:awesome!

[hesiod]

> you're never quite sure if it's real or spin. .... It's spin ....

darn typo

[Alien54]

defualt = default

of course

doh!

Re:darn typo

[Anonymous Coward]

that's ok. there's no need to correct yourself. Just look through CmdrTaco's postings and you'll see that were pretty much used to spalling errors.

Guess the clue stick hit the right head.

[Soko]

"# UK Government will only use products for interoperability that support open standards and specifications in all future IT developments.

Here it is, people - the best reason to use OSS software. It follows Open Standards, without the need for things that "enhance" or "differentiate" it from the rest. Stright from the RFC to your OS. It means that "proprietary lock-in" won't be a problem, should you decide to switch vendors.

Sun didn't get this with Java, and if history repeats itself, some business hack at Microsoft will try to sew up market share by leveraging what even MS is saying is an Open Standard.

I sound like a broken record here, but Open Standards should have the weight of Law in IT. If you extened a Standard, you should either open the code for the extention or have it clearly labelled as a proprietary extention.

Until this happens, I'll be treading very carefully through the OS mine field.

(GAHHHH!!! a Minesweeper reference!!! I'm DOOMED!)

Soko

ph33rf of London in Redmond

[supabeast!]

"UK Government will seek to avoid lock-in to proprietary IT products and services"

At the moment this sentence hit the web, Microsoft began accepting resumes for fifty lobbyists with bad teeth and old-world accents.

Re:ph33rf of London in Redmond

[anthonyclark]

May I just say, on behalf of many many brits who scratch their heads in bewilderment at the US stereotype of bad teeth...

FUCK YOU

that's better...

Re:ph33rf of London in Redmond

[alext]

Hmmm... apparently us Brits have the best dental health in Europe, y'know (well, yeah, I am a bit surprised too, given that it's not a completely free service these days). Not sure where the USA would fit, but it's hard to believe that below-average Joe can pony up for regular visits.

And don't start me on the mind-numbingly tedious Mike Myers - not worthy to lick the great Peter Wyngarde's boots... just see Peter in action.

Anyone else notice...

[Dark Paladin]

Most of these governments looking at OSS software are non-United States governments?

I'm wondering how much of this is "OSS is good eatin'!", and how much is "Holy shit, do we really want software from another government running all our shit? I mean, if war breaks out between France and the US, and they don't allow Windows exports, that would be catastrophic!"

Re:Anyone else notice...

[Anonymous Coward]

Most of these governments looking at OSS software are non-United States governments?

Wow, two whole governments. Most impressive.

Re:Anyone else notice...

[Anonymous Coward]

Most of these governments looking at OSS software are non-United States governments?

Bound to happen, since most governments in the world are non-United States governments.

Do the math!

Re:Anyone else notice...

[markmoss]

I mean, if war breaks out between France and the US, and they don't allow Windows exports, that would be catastrophic!

Nah, the French would surrender before they even got Linux downloaded, let alone noticed how much better it is. 8-)

Re:Anyone else notice...

[Anonymous Coward]

Most of these governments looking at OSS software are non-United States governments?


There is some amount of good reasoning behind it besides simply the idea that war might break out and they couldn't get copies of Windows any more (they'd just pirate it anyway). Generally, it makes economic sense not to send a great amount of your country's money to a business in another country. There're also things like native language / culture localization (ie get certain symbols as icons and you convey a completely unintended meaning), which tend to weigh quite heavily in decisions by Asian countries (especially China) to go with OSS and/or native developers. I'm sure there are a few people in the UK that believe their language is being further bastardized by the amount of software being developed in the US and exported to the UK ;)

Re:Anyone else notice...

[Anonymous Coward]

``...if war breaks out between France and the US, and they don't allow Windows exports, that would be catastrophic!''

To who?

I'd think the French would find it refreshing to not be dominated by yet another American export. Given their loathing of foreign words (especially American English) creeping into their daily language, they surely must hate having to look at a software from an American megacorporation on a daily basis.

And does Microsoft do a large enough percentage of their business done with French customers? So what if France eventually weans itself from Microsoft's products. Worried that the Dow Jones will take a dive as a result? Has it now gotten to ``What's good for Microsoft is good for the United States?''. Jeez, I hope not.

Re:Anyone else notice...

[ThereIsNoSporkNeo]

Why, in a war, would the US stop Windows exports? Wouldn't they step them up?

"EVERYBODY DOWN! They're dropping another load of Windows ME!"
"Someone take that thing down!"
"I can't Sir! My targeting system has blue screened. Something about a page fault in VXD-123-US-WINS"

Re:Anyone else notice...

[TKinias]

I mean, if war breaks out between France and the US, and they don't allow Windows exports, that would be catastrophic!

Nah, the French would surrender before they even got Linux downloaded, let alone noticed how much better it is. 8-)

Old gags do die hard, don't they?

One might be inclined to note that:

1. Frenchies-surrendering jokes stopped being funny sometime before I was born;
2. One of the most popular Linux distributions, Mandrake, is in fact French; and
3. No, I'm not French. I just like novelty in my humor.

--TK

Re:Anyone else notice...

[mpe]

I'm sure there are a few people in the UK that believe their language is being further bastardized by the amount of software being developed in the US and exported to the UK ;)

Especially when the so called "British English" version of MS Windows is peppered with "Websterized" spellings, examples using US paper sizes (Amricans moan when the boot is on the other foot with the likes of SuSE) and various other Americanizms.

Re:Anyone else notice...

[palad1]

In france, most public offices use OS/2.

Re:Anyone else notice...

[Snoopy77]

In fact all governments other than the US governments looking at OSS are non-US governments. Hope we all have this straight now.

As for the do we really want software from another government. If MS stopped exporting to a country then wouldn't the country simply start/encourage MS software piracy if it wanted to use MS software so bad. I'm sure the French would anyway.

Re:Anyone else notice...

[Requiem]

If war were to break out between the Americans and the French, I think the French would have more to worry about than whether or not they can get a copy of Windows.

Re:Anyone else notice...

[markmoss]

Yea it's old, but I couldn't resist. And it does seem like two people with mod points found it funny. But one "Insightful" point, WTF??? And I don't even need the karma.

Re:Anyone else notice...

[SpaceJunkie]

Oh man - Mod this up for funny please....

Anyone here remember the star-trek spoof where they upload windows to a borg cube?

Re:Anyone else notice...

[rweir]

[I've been waiting my whole life for a post life this]
Uh, I've often noticed that, in general, most Governments are non-United States governments.

another benifit

[Jonny Ringo]

They would be able to take a longer tea time.

Jolly Good.

The UK govt seems to be on the right track...

[C.U.T.M.]

They won't be locked in by restrictive licenses that they've poured massive amounts of money into only to want to keep using the product because "that's what they've always been using" or some company promises them that they will "focus more on security". Do I smell competition? The U.S. govt should look into doing the same thing.

OSS in the UK government.

[Anonymous Coward]

Hi Folks,

This revelation would seem to be at least something of a nail in the coffin of Microsoft selling software to HM Government. I think that here in the UK there is a gradual awakening (both in national and regional government) that there *is* something better than MS's products.

In reality certain departments of the governments both in the UK and around the world have been using OSS for ages - what the UK likes to do once a critical point has been reached is to 'formalise' everything on paper. This is just the formalisation. In truth this won't open the floodgates to a lot of departments 'Switching'. It'll just make it easier for IT managers to take the perceived 'riskier option' of choosing OSS above MS.

Encouraging to see. Here's hoping some other governments start to see sense and do the same.

X.

Re:OSS in the UK government.

[Skyshadow]

While I applaud this change by the UK government, I think it might be a little early to engage the orchestra for the dance on Bill G's grave.

Personally, as much as I enjoy seeing the very successful beaten by scrappy newcomes, I don't really want to see MS or any other vendors go away -- I want to see them compete against OSS. I want to see them forced to compete on the merits of their product, not just on who has the state locked in with proprietary file formats. I want to see strong competition because that is the mother of innovation. Competition, then, accelerates the advancement of the state of the art.

That's what I want to see.

Re:OSS in the UK government.

[Zeinfeld]

This revelation would seem to be at least something of a nail in the coffin of Microsoft selling software to HM Government. I think that here in the UK there is a gradual awakening (both in national and regional government) that there *is* something better than MS's products.

It means no such thing. The policy does not mandate use of Open Source, it merely states that it should be considered. The actual decision is left to the department which can take into account the 'total cost of ownership'.

If a department has already purchased a Microsoft application it will have no difficulty justifying upgrades or additional licenses under this policy.

It isn't even a matter of the cost of retraining. The plain fact of the matter is that the average user of a computer would rather have their fingernails ripped out with pliers rather than learn something new. It isn't only Mac users who can refuse to change from their preferred platform. There are people who absolutely refused to move from JCL.

If a government department is paying its workers 30% less than they can get in the private sector it is a really bad idea for management to go telling them they have to stop using the computer system they are familliar with and use something different.

The significant passage in the policy document was the part where it states that code developed under public grants should by default be open source.

TROLLS CAN SPELL!!!

[Anonymous Coward]

'nuff said

Uh oh.

[Dthoma]

Nowhere in that policy did I see them mentioning that they were going to go through the code to make sure that it hasn't been tampered with or changed in some bad way. That's as ridiculous as if I just download some source code from a dodgy website and run it without examining it first. If the government just picks up any old code and uses it, then all sorts of stuff could happen.

GOVERNMENT: "We are now using GPL'd software for our banking systems."
1337 H4X0R: "LOL! They don't even know I've h4x0r3d it so I can steal everyone's card numbers! LOL!!11!!"

Of course, if you think I'm just being excessively paranoid, ignore me.

Re:Uh oh.

[Anonymous Coward]

Nah, I don't think you're being too paranoid. I imagine they'll hire a team to look through the code for them, at least after the first or second times, and figure that they're still saving a bundle.

Re:Uh oh.

[zebs]

Who's to say Mr Proprietary vendor isn't doing the same?

Re:Uh oh.

[ThereIsNoSporkNeo]

Somehow I can't see this situation:

GOVERNMENT: "We are now using GPL'd software for our banking systems.
BILL GATES: "LOL! They don't even know I've h4x0r3d it so I can steal everyone's card numbers! LOL!!!!"

Bill Gates doesn't want your credit card numbers. He would probably lose money by taking the time to max out your credit card.

Re:Uh oh.

[plugger]

If that worries you, I suggest you get a system with the proposed Palladium chip.

This is more about keeping options open than improving security, although in my opinion it will tend to do both

Re:Uh oh.

[WowTIP]

No, me neither. Why would Bill Gates h4x0r GPL'd software when his Windows series reaches a far greater number of users? Another great thing for him is that nobody would even know he h4x0r3d Windows if he did.

I am not sure if Bill does any h4x0r1ng anymore tho?

Re:Uh oh.

[Anonymous Coward]

With all the dodgy accounting about to catch up with Microsoft, Bill will need to get the cash to keep Melinda in the style shes acoustomed too somehow.

Re:Uh oh.

[Xugumad]

They already have people checking source code. Apparently the official line is that for critical systems, if they can't check the code, it doesn't get used!

Best Part

[Fascist Christ]

My favorite line, from the policy:

...removing the reliance on individual IT suppliers

This portion of the policy alone, if used by everyone, could really hurt M$ and finally bring fair competition to the common desktop pc.

Re:Best Part

[seanyboy]

I think this is the core of it. The (UK) Government has been stung several times over the last few years by proprietry systems. ICL and Microsoft come to mind most readily.

Of course, there's a lot of people who work on Government systems who'll be disappointed by the announcement. It looks like the days and advantages of being the only XL57Z-6000 (or whatever) Series programmer in the UK will be coming to an end.

Amen.

[Skyshadow]

Amen to that. I've been successful in convincing my managers to go with an OSS (often the only ones adhering to open standards 100%) solution several times using this arguement.

The big advantage of this is that you don't need to get technical to explain it and there's no reasonable-sounding counterarguement the sales droids from whatever vendor can use to counter you. It's simple: "Boss, if we start using their product, we'll be locked in. After we've put enough work into it they'll hold our own data hostage and will be free to charge us whatever they want. Now, with this product, we can move to another package at any time because they use an approved, published standard."

My hope is that once enough businesses realize the sense of this arguement, commercial software will be forced to adhere to standards to compete. And after all, healthy competition is really what OSS is all about, isn't it?

bottom of article

[Graspee_Leemoor]

I would like to be the first person to draw your attention to the bottom of the report, where they state that it can be downloaded in msword, pdf or rtf formats, and say something funny about it.

Only I can't think of anything funny to say. Make up your own joke, maybe even post it here so the rest of us can appreciate it.

graspee

Re:bottom of article

[Anonymous Coward]

Not only that, but as the Reg pointed out, the link is broken. Try it, you will be offered an .asp object for download.

Re:bottom of article

[damien_kane]

One would probably need to be logged into .NET through Passport so a small fee can be charged to your PayPal account when you download the .doc/.pdf/.rtf file. Good enough? Didn't think so...

Governments and OSS

[Lumpy]

It blows my mind that it has taken governments until the 21's century to understand this. The UK being the first to realize it in a beginning way.

You want examples? Sure :-) I'll use US centric ones.. The US Govt, Fed level develops census and data gathering software, probably written in Fortran as it was the popular thing to do. They wrote software that would gather important data on census, basic voter info (voter registration) employee payroll/hours/tracking/etc/ resource management ... etc...

why the hell wasn't all of that software open-sourced so that the state and city governments could have used it? even if not as-is they could have modified it... thus eliminating re-inventing the wheel tens-of-thousands of times all across the country. all that money wasted just to feed some programmer's egos?

Open Source should be the number one requirement for any government software.... GIS is the current love of governments... my local municapality bought a GIS system ( completely ignored GRASS with the basis that free can't be useful software) that cannot import state level data-sets because the state bought a GIS system that is also closed. so now we have to waste more money and man-hours to convert that data.

Any govt that installs a policy that everything MUST BE open source will move ahead faster than any other in data manipulation and gathering. There is no doubt about it, and there is nothing the closed source companies can or will do to combat such capabilities.

Computer science is still in the stone ages because we force ourseoves to reinvent everything every day.

Re:Governments and OSS

[Azghoul]

Sorry Lump, GRASS is crap. Productivity on modern GIS systems is light years ahead. (of course, that's particularly true if you listen to the marketing guys :-))

Now, what you really want to do is push all GIS companies to be able to import/export GML, now that would be nice. Of course at this point, MIF and E00 take care of the vast majority... it's not pretty, but GIS is still a pretty new industry.

Re:Governments and OSS

[ocie]

It blows my mind that it has taken governments until the 21's century to understand this.

Right. I would have thought that governments would have figured this out in the 17th or maybe 18th century.

Re:Governments and OSS

[Mignon]

Computer science is still in the stone ages because we force ourseoves to reinvent everything every day.

If you're talking about the early days of computer science, I think you mean "stoner ages", as in the '60s.

Re:Governments and OSS

[CoolVibe]

Now, what you really want to do is push all GIS companies to be able to import/export GML, now that would be nice.

Well, since I am currently involved in the building of a GIS solution (that could possibly end up under an open source license in the future), could you provide links? I'm interested.

Re:Governments and OSS

[tagishsimon]

Picking up on your why the hell wasn't all of that software open-sourced so that the state and city governments could have used it, the UK can point to a (first?) example of this - a GPL'd content management system for local government:

http://www.aplaws.org.uk/

Re:Governments and OSS

[tagishsimon]

Sorry. Still asleep. Try:

http://www.aplaws.org.uk

GPL is an ideal license for goverments

[axxackall]

Goverments are non-profit organizations. For goverments it is more important keep IP right as it is than to make money on it. GPL is the the strongest type of OSS licenses to protect the code from stealing. Therefore GPL is the best license type for goverments.

Re:GPL is an ideal license for goverments

[DesScorp]

Ummmmmm....No. The only situation in which the GPL would be the ideal license for a goverment is one where that government has no enemies, and no threats. Sorry, I just finished looking around, and didn't find any of those. All goverments have a legitimate right (and indeed, even a responisbility) to keep some information secret for national security purposes, as well as for other threats, such as criminal actions (the mob hacking into a government server, for instance). That's my big problem with using the GPL in government systems. For some agencies, such as the department of defense, and the department of justice, we need a license that would allow innovations in security, without the obligation to make it public. If say, the Navy develops a version of BSD that's super-secure, and adds some features specifically for use on warships, how eager do you think they're going to be to publish the source code? I've never bought the arguement that Security through Obscurity is dead. Sorry, that doesn't make sense. I don't care how smart or talented you are. The less you know about a system to start out with, the harder it's going to be to crack it. MS isn't really a closed system. Windows code has been distributed to various business partners (which has no doubt been obtained by theives, via industrial espionage), and I'm pretty sure really good hackers have found ways to reverse-engineer Windows all along. If the very distribution of install disks is restricted to selected personnel, security becomes that much better. So, while I like the idea of MORE openess in code use, and the adherence to standards, I cannot agree with the blanket adoption of the GPL for government use. For some govermnet use, sure, but not across the board. That rules out Linux in the DOD. NSA has been developing Secure Linux, but it has, and will likely remain, an experiment. What I think is likely to happen is that the U.S. govermnet will probably develop a non-GPL'd Unix at some point, for use in secure situations.I see Linux in a lot of other government agencies though, especially local government.

Re:GPL is an ideal license for goverments

[Anonymous Coward]

You're so wrong about GPL. The sources don't have to be released to the public unless you are going to distribute (sell) your GPL derived software.

- Voice of Ambience -

Re:GPL is an ideal license for goverments

[Anonymous Coward]

I see it from the other angle:

You have to release the sources to the same party as you distribute the GPLized package.

That means the secret Navy lab would have to keep the sources of the all GPL software they installed on each warship and plane. That is a potential leak, especially if warships and planes are sold to other countries.

As for non-military govt applications, I agree that GPL should work fine.

Re:Guess the clue stick hit the right head.

[Anonymous Coward]

I sound like a broken record here, but Open Standards should have the weight of Law in IT. If you extened a Standard, you should either open the code for the extention or have it clearly labelled as a proprietary extention.

Either the standard itself or the standards body which maintains it usually determines the rules governing extensions to a standard. For instance, a standard may specifically allow extensions, but only if the implementation either states that it uses an extension or does not use the name of the standard in reference to the implementation. On the flip side of the coin we find another two sides: either you can not extend the standard at all (if you use the standard as the reference for your implementation you may not extend it), or you can extend it all you like without limitation.

Personally, I think it's best that this is left to the people creating/maintaining the standards, so long as the stated limitations of the standard are followed and/or enforcable. If the creator of something states 'anyone can use this however they like', then that should be the case, there shouldn't be an international standards police saying 'no, you cant write extensions because that has become the standard implementation', unless, of course, the creator(s) submitted it to those standards police knowing that it was a possibility.

Re:Could it be...

[Anonymous Coward]

An fp? No, not this time. And shouldn't it be "a fp"?

Re:wait a second.....royal.gov.uk runs IIS :((

[ashutoshmehra]

Buddy, looks like M$ has had their share of fame too. royal.gov.uk is no longer run on Linux. Check this this out.

Burn all Government Interoperability Frameworks!

[Anonymous Coward]

Switch to the Peoples' Nonproprietary Government!

surely e-GIF isn't open source.

[seanyboy]

"The UK's response to this action to date has been through mandating open standards and specifications in its e-Government Interoperability Framework (e-GIF) ..."

I wonder what Unisys has to say about that.

UK government in U-Turn shock

[nigel_atkinson]

Well, I am shocked. I attended a talk by the venerable Mr Stallman to the Department for International Development on free software a few weeks ago and the reaction from the audience of civil servants and educational IT planners was decidedly flat.
(It may have been because he kicked his shoes off at the door, got very defensive while answering some fairly innocuous questions and beelined for the sandwiches at the end.)
The reaction reenforced the response my company received while attempting to pitch an open source based solution to the NHS (health service), which was (paraphrasing): "Well we have got all of this lovely free* software from Microsoft and we would rather use a solution based on that, thanks".

Maybe license 6.0 has some government officials thinking.

* The NHS paid Micro$oft a great deal of money in March for a bulk licensing deal.

Re:UK government in U-Turn shock

[swordfish666]

They (The perfect well functioning NSH) have been in talks with M$ since fall 2000. Then in the fall of 2001 they announced "Light Bulb" a project started by M$ to convert the whole of the NHS (PCT's, GP etc) to .NET and Web Services. My company was a small player in the deal and they (the people who pay me) commited everything to .NET back in Nov 2001. But the NHS decided to hold off funding any new projects until 2003 inckuding Light Bulb. Actually they had sticker shock from the ammount of the business proposal they got from M$. Now M$ has pulled out, we have no big companies to leeach off of and we are too far commited to .NET. So, the UK gov is just fucking about to please the EU. It's a crock of shit!! The light buld deal now involves IBM. And what does IBM use? Java not .NET. Cheers I am an American living in the UK and I am only here until the job market in Boston picks up.

Re:UK government in U-Turn shock

[SpaceJunkie]

I really hope "The perfect well functioning NHS"(Spelling correction fixed) was levelling sarcasm. They couldnt organise a pissup in a brewery. They are the most useless incompetant madical agency in the world. And we all pay for them - I dont resent using taxpayers money for health care- I resent the Zero ROI we get for it. I cannot even register with a damn doctor withing reasonable range of my flat because they are all overbooked - I cannot arrange appointments for weeks, and even then I get very little time, a quick and non-exhaustive diagnosis and shoved out of the door. Sorry for my rant - but dont even get me started on Uk public services. They are the biggest load of rubbish ever. I am in the process of going private through my company's benefit plan(it still comes off my salary) just simply because the NHS is useless. Try bricklaying with dead fish and you will get better results than attempting to use British medical facilities. If I ever have anything serious - I will get myself flown somewhere else for treatment.

Re:UK government in U-Turn shock

[swordfish666]

And how!!!

I can only assume from your total understanding of the piss-poor ROI in the UK that you are either a) an American, b)You have lived in the States, c)youe ar one of the few Brits that gets pissed off at being forced to pay for bad service.

"They couldnt organise a pissup in a brewery." hhahahahahahahahhahahahahahahahahahahahaha

It's so true!!! If anything EVER happens to me while I am living here, I'll be on the first flight back to Boston.

As for the UK on OSS, it'll never happen. The NHS's plan is to have all desktops upgraded to Win2K by the end of 2004! Currently we are developing for Win95/98 because that's what the PCT's and GP are running!! Win95!!

Re:UK government in U-Turn shock

[SpaceJunkie]

I am English, have never lived in the states - I am just one of the brits who gets pissed off for paying for bad service... Not just health either the trains, education - the whole deal is a real rub the wrong way....

What the NHS need to do is have a system that just works - securely and stably - be it OSS or MS. They need it to be installed professionaly(out of house) and ready to run. They also need to fire 80% of the beurocrats and make the computer system handle mosty of that workload and present it in a way that nurses - the most technophobic community I know of(they make Silver surfers look like technophiles in comparison) having worked with them - can understand. BTW - I really cant stand the idea of my private medical data on any MS OS - given that it makes it widely available for anyone with basic hacking skills(like anyone from age 10 upwards).

I wonder if MS is going to give them a donation...

[theLOUDroom]

Remember all the stories about Peru and possible law mandating open source? The debate
and then MS coming in with $550,000 in software to try and make sure a certain law doesn't happen?
I wonder how MS is going to try and get this changed. It's going to cost a lot more money to buy off the UK.
Place you bets...will it be:

• FUD
• 'Donations' of software
• Targeting competing OSS projects via patents
• Lobbying (Note that for a period of time MS' lobbying power, in the US, was second only to that of Enron. Actually, accoring to this they made it to #1)
• "Embrace and Extend"
• Criminal uses of their monopoly status
  

Have I left anything out?

redundant?

[Anonymous Coward]

[joke about the GIF acronym]

-1, We Beat You To It

Contracts and value per money

[intermodal]

"Contracts will be awarded on a value for money basis. "

This is somewhat contradictory in a sense.

Some math:

Windows + $ = contract

Linux + ? = contract

Windows value/$=x

Linux/0 = windows error

linux + commercial distribution = contract

linux + consultant = contract

Linux + inhouse IT = Windows usefulness in most gov't applications

linux value per money > windows value per money

Never heard of Quake

[theLOUDroom]

You've obviously never heard of quake then.
Quake was realeased with a backdoor in it (accidentally). Yeah John Romero doesn't want to root my box, but at some point it was found and then started to become expoited.
It's a hell of a lot easier to check source code for backdoors than it is to check binary only code like windows.
So much FUD, so little time.

Re:wait a second.....royal.gov.uk runs IIS :((

[1000StonedMonkeys]

This is what I think of people who write M$.

Ian and Duncan Smith both counter

[Anonymous Coward]

Have you not heard? Ian and Duncan have announced a female chairwomen for the Conservative party. Hows that for progressive, eh? eh?

Re:Ian and Duncan Smith both counter

[Jeppe Salvesen]

Blimey! And the hardline right in the Netherlands was lead by a gay man, until some animal-friendly vegan shot 'im dead.. What's this world coming to, then?

Re:Ian and Duncan Smith both counter

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah... and she's that right-wing, along with the rest of his new crew, they make Hitler look moderate.

It's not very often one gets to see a political party self-destruct, they're going the way of the Whigs and the grand old Liberal party who impaled themselve a century ago.

Re:Ian and Duncan Smith both counter

[hplasm]

Missing Mummy Thatcher perhaps?

Re:I wonder if MS is going to give them a donation

[Anonymous Coward]

Right now, at least, there's no software patents in the UK.

Of course, with lobbyists, that could change...

We need an "irony checker"

[TheConfusedOne]

From the initiative:
The UK's response to this action to date has been through mandating open standards and specifications in its e-Government Interoperability Framework (e-GIF) and allowing market driven products to support these.

Ahh, GIF, the poster child for patent encumberment.

Re:We need an "irony checker"

[Random Hamster]

Is this a bizarre joke, a non-sequiteur or are you functionally illiterate?

Us Brit's love Open Source

[xA40D]

Given that us Brits have the habit of making technological leaps forward - and then handing the specs to someone else to embrace and extend and finaly profit from - I suppose it could be said that we invented Open Source.

I had an interview at a UK university a couple of years back. My final interview was with the Professor who was academic head of the IT services department. During this interview he told me that virtually every technology in the computing industry had it roots in the UK. I challenged him on this with a couple of "but what about" questions. Each time he countered with names, dates, and places.

Now, just imagine how much the US Economy would be worth if we'd locked these ideas away with OTT patent laws.

So it's about time we got back to doing things our way rather than trying to do everything the same as the US. Now, about those "fat-cat" salaries...

Re:Us Brit's love Open Source

[Anonymous Coward]

During this interview he told me that virtually every technology in the computing industry had it roots in the UK.

The Russians would make the same claim.

And the Spanish, and the French, and probably even the Czechs.

I work in UK Government and this won't make a diff

[McCall]

I work for a large local council, and this policy won't make a difference to be quite honest....

Its not policies like these that hold Linux back from running the UK government's servers, its the staff. Very few governments actually hire staff to work on Linux, and the attitude towards Linux is like its some crack-ball OS. You have to remember that staff turn over in UK governments is very low, and many of the staff are not in IT because they love IT, they are there because its a stable job with half decent pay and couldn't care less about Linux or OSS.

If it wasn't for myself campaining to use Linux for our Internet servers they would have been replaced very recently with Microsoft ones that would no doubt have been left unsecure and unreliable. This was going to happen for no reason other than some badly written ASP code didn't work on Chili!Soft and Apache.

The government where I work as a IT team of about 60 people, we have 4 people who are UNIX System Administrators, I myself am the only person who is a dedicated Linux System Administrator, the rest are Microsoft based Administrators. Now imagine being the only voice saying "Use Linux, its free, stable and reliable" to the managers - believe me you don't get heard.

Another problem is the fact that many projects have no involvement from the UNIX team at all, so even if there is a better piece of OSS, they won't know about it, and the MS Administrators who are involved with the project won't look for it.

I know the benefits of OSS and can tell all the staff that we don't need another Windows/Solaris server until I am blue in the face, but when high-level managers demand to use a product they have heard of, this puts pressure on the IT managers to introduce that software. You don't get the average UK council worker snooping around Linux software I can tell you! 90% of the software they want to use runs under Windows.

A conference for governments that I recently went to that was teaching the benefits of OSS and Linux only had around 8 people on it, I am also sure that this is representative of the councils that are actually going to take notice of this policy.

These are just a few reasons why all in all - it won't make a difference, there are many more. It does really frustrate me knowing that a very large amount of my taxes gets spent on software that could be obtained for free, or next to nothing.

Hate hitting the wrong button, lets try this again

[Jord]

The three steps you described above are extraordinarily easy in software available for Linux. Having used MS Office and Linux Office applications I can tell you that any competent secretary will take a very short amount of time to make the switch.

While it is true that the majority of people who use computers are not experts or advanced users, most of the people who use a computer in an office enviroment will be able to make the switch with little to no help.

BTW Most office software for Linux reads MS documents just fine. And I routinely print documents in PDF format directly from my office applications.

I suggest reviewing OpenOffice and trying out some of the software. You can even download them for windows I believe.

Sig lines are for wimps with a sense of humor

Re:Hate hitting the wrong button, lets try this ag

[foobar104]

Okay, sorry I jumped the gun on you. But even in your revised post, you still didn't give any specifics.

I'm not going to set up a Linux PC just so I can evaluate OpenOffice. I imagine that's probably the typical position that corporate IT folks will take as well. That's why I asked specific questions; I was expecting (rather, hoping for) specific answers.

'full rights' = GPL?

[Chris Croome]

I wonder if this reference to obtaining 'full rights' would be satisfied by paying for software licenses to be changed from commercial ones to the GPL and/or another Free license? If so that would be interesting.

UK Government will consider obtaining full rights to bespoke software code or customisations of COTS (Commercial Off The Shelf) software it procures wherever this achieves best value for money.

(quot from the UK government via The Register)

Re:Hate hitting the wrong button, lets try this ag

[Jord]

Each person's impression of a piece of software is different. So me telling you how I would do something with the software does nothing for you since my way of thinking/doing things may not make any sense to you at all. (Especially since I am a programmer and you are a manager, totally different mindset).

My suggestion to you was and is download OpenOffice for your windows machine and let your secretary play with it. Let her determine for herself how hard it is. That is the best way to make an informed decision as to the viability of linux based or Open Source software is for you and your company.

Taking my word or my examples (or anyone else's for that matter) as gospel would be foolhardy at best.

Re:Hate hitting the wrong button, lets try this ag

[swillden]

I'm not going to set up a Linux PC just so I can evaluate OpenOffice.

So run the Windows version.

Re:I work in UK Government and this won't make a d

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, change is going to be slow and OSS advocates have to remember that not all bases are covered by OSS - no useful print production software, for instance.

But there will be change - if only because some auditor is eventually going to priase the one authority that moves to OSS and saves money.

But yes - Linux is seen as a crack ball OS. Have you seen a picture of Alan Cox lately?

Re:Guess the clue stick hit the right head.

[Anonymous Coward]

It follows Open Standards, without the need for things that "enhance" or "differentiate" it from the rest.

Software that even Stalin and the Central Committee could be pleased with.

Mediocre shit, in other words.

Re:I wonder if MS is going to give them a donation

[overshoot]

Have I left anything out?

• All of the above

Why would anyone actually use closed source 'ware

[t_allardyce]

Its a good thing i don't do much programming, because if there was anyway i could possibly exploit a closed source project with a backdoor or Trojan i would.

Every time I download a closed-source program i think about this, im sure im not the only asshole who would do it.

It surprises me that any company/organisation that mattered would _ever_ let software into their systems that had not had its source checked. You wouldn't let just anyone walk in and access your system, but by using closed source software (that includes Windows) you are.

In short im as worried as i would be if the nuclear launch codes were '1234' which is effectivelly what they are if they're being stored on a Windows IIS

For all you know, Bill Gates has implemented any kind of Trojan into his products.

Im sure governments only use internally designed software for things that really matter such as the nuclear launch systems, but in reallity every system is important right down to the cleaning-staff's pay-roll which could be used (as it is in the movies) to get terrorists their id's to get into the building.

(im gonna get modded down as someone whos just written the biggest peice of crap ever)

A Criminal Waste

[voidzero]

Pardon me if I don't pop the champagne corks. Recalling some of their computer projects' greatest hits:

• £30 million: Ministry of Defence (MoD) projects. £21 million to replace teleprinter systems: stopped working, GEC Plessey, and £8.7 million for managing pay and pensions: cost overrun by 217% in one year, Royal Navy. Source, 1998-99.
• £77 million: Immigration service - document management system to expedite asylum claims: 18 months late, failed to scale and subsequently scrapped. Siemens, Summer 1998
• £1.6 billion: Benefit fraud prevention: scrapped due to "arguments, glitches and miscommunication": ICL: £180 million, Post Office: £1051 million, and Department of Social Security (as was): £427 million, May 1999
• £13 million: Passport Agency system which promptly crashed and caused holiday bedlam. Siemens, June 1999.
• Department for Education & Employment (DfEE) - system to "manage the issuing of Student Loans has succumbed to the traditional teething troubles of new software, causing delays in sending out cheques to students." July 1999.
• Inland Revenue lost five million tax records: closed the files, thus"writing off any tax/rebates." A failure in EDS and Andersen Consulting systems to communicate, July 2000.
• Inland Revenue online self-assessment system reduced to "staff printing off Internet-submitted forms and then inputting them manually into another computer": the extent of the profligacy is "commercially sensitive," which is a tactic commonly used in the government's Private Finance Initiative (PFI) and public private partnership (PPP) schemes. Microsoft, July 2000.
• £118 million: Probation Service infrastructure - "poor specification of expected outputs, weaknesses in service monitoring and inadequate control of purchases": 70% over budget. Bull Information Systems, April 2001.
• £300 million: MoD pay, pension and HR services - failure to merge these systems for the fighting forces. A complete disaster." EDS, November 2001.
• National Air Traffic Control System, Swanwick - six year delay, cost almost doubled: £623m versus £350m.
  Various software problems, still ongoing:
  Flight disruption,
  poorly designed display software,
  capacity reduced by half. IBM, 2002.
• £319 million: Libra, a scheme to link magistrates' courts with other organisations, such as the police, customs and the Crown Prosecution Service - "If the core case-working part of the project is abandoned, Fujitsu will still get more than half of the contract's value because for supplying new PCs and Microsoft Office to support the Libra system." The cost had risen from £183 million. Fujitsu, April 2002
• Finally, the punishment meted out to these suppliers for lack of computer expertise is minimal, cases in point being Siemens with a £60,000 fine over the Passport Agency and Andersen Consulting over the £170 million National Insurance Recording System II system fiasco, with a £3.9 million fine.

Re:A Criminal Waste

[voidzero]

Contracts will be awarded on a value for money basis.

Per my previous post above, I'll believe it when I see it.

OSS != Free Software

[peter446]

Open Source Software (OSS) is software whose source code is openly published, is often developed by voluntary efforts and is usually available at no charge under a licence defined by the Open Source Initiative which prevents it from being redistributed under a more restrictive licence

So they are describing the GPL licence but calling it "Open". Hope they don't meet Richard Stallman on a dark night.

Re:I work in UK Government and this won't make a d

[peterpi]

A conference for governments that I recently went to that was teaching the benefits of OSS and Linux only had around 8 people on it

And I bet they were already advocates before the meeting! ;)

Dead Man Walking

[Anonymous Coward]

It is official; Netcraft confirms: *BSD is dying

One more crippling bombshell hit the already beleaguered *BSD community when IDC confirmed that *BSD market share has dropped yet again, now down to less than a fraction of 1 percent of all servers. Coming on the heels of a recent Netcraft survey which plainly states that *BSD has lost more market share, this news serves to reinforce what we've known all along. *BSD is collapsing in complete disarray, as fittingly exemplified by failing dead last in the recent Sys Admin comprehensive networking test.

You don't need to be a Kreskin to predict *BSD's future. The hand writing is on the wall: *BSD faces a bleak future. In fact there won't be any future at all for *BSD because *BSD is dying. Things are looking very bad for *BSD. As many of us are already aware, *BSD continues to lose market share. Red ink flows like a river of blood.

FreeBSD is the most endangered of them all, having lost 93% of its core developers. The sudden and unpleasant departures of long time FreeBSD developers Jordan Hubbard and Mike Smith only serve to underscore the point more clearly. There can no longer be any doubt: FreeBSD is dying.

Let's keep to the facts and look at the numbers.

OpenBSD leader Theo states that there are 7000 users of OpenBSD. How many users of NetBSD are there? Let's see. The number of OpenBSD versus NetBSD posts on Usenet is roughly in ratio of 5 to 1. Therefore there are about 7000/5 = 1400 NetBSD users. BSD/OS posts on Usenet are about half of the volume of NetBSD posts. Therefore there are about 700 users of BSD/OS. A recent article put FreeBSD at about 80 percent of the *BSD market. Therefore there are (7000+1400+700)*4 = 36400 FreeBSD users. This is consistent with the number of FreeBSD Usenet posts.

Due to the troubles of Walnut Creek, abysmal sales and so on, FreeBSD went out of business and was taken over by BSDI who sold another troubled OS. Now BSDI is also dead, its corpse turned over to yet another charnel house.

All major surveys show that *BSD has steadily declined in market share. *BSD is very sick and its long term survival prospects are very dim. If *BSD is to survive at all it will be among OS dilettante dabblers. *BSD continues to decay. Nothing short of a miracle could save it at this point in time. For all practical purposes, *BSD is dead.

Fact: *BSD is dying

Licence

[RatFink100]

Licence is the English spelling as opposed to the American spelling. Which spelling should the UK Government use?

Re:Guess the clue stick hit the right head.

[Mark Hood]

Here it is, people - the best reason to use OSS software. It follows Open Standards, without the need for things that "enhance" or "differentiate" it from the rest. Stright from the RFC to your OS. It means that "proprietary lock-in" won't be a problem, should you decide to switch vendors.

Err, no. You're confusing open standards with open source.

What makes OSS software automatically follow Open Standards? I can write something that uses a 'proprietary standard' which has never been an RFC, and release the source under an OSS license. Of course, I can't stop you figuring out how the 'proprietary standard' works, but I can probably still patent it... Is that open source? Yes. Is it an open standard? Probably not (although your point that you can't get locked in to a vendor is true, as anyone can modify my code).

And there's no reason why proprietary, closed source software can't use RFCs - or do all those closed source email apps not follow RFC822? (OK, I know a lot of them don't follow it too well, but bear with me here :) Nothing's stopping me replacing Outlook with Eudora to handle my internet email, so I'm not locked in here, because the STANDARD is open, not the SOURCE.

I agree entirely with you about requiring open standards, but don't assume that using OSS applications will automatically give you that. Though as I say above, it's hard to lock up a standard when everyone can use your code to read it :)

Mark

Re:Us Brit's[sic] love Open Source

[UncleFluffy]

During this interview he told me that virtually every technology in the computing industry had it roots in the UK.

> The Russians would make the same claim.

> And the Spanish, and the French, and probably even the Czechs.

Hmm, please extend my knowledge of computing history. This is what I know so far:

UK
==

floating point arithmetic hardware
virtual memory
mechanical computers
transistorised computers
commercial production of computers
pipelining
programming
stored-program machines
tlbs
raster-scan displays
public key encryption
assemblers
temporary registers
branch prediction
packet-switched networks
http://
caches

Russia
======

superscalar machines

USA
===

fixed-function / hard-programmed valve machines
modern RISC
Windows :P
TCP/IP
microprocessors
compilers

I'm serious, btw, not trolling. I keep seeing these debates about "who did what" and every online resource tells a different story. Some are (selectively) incomplete, some are just plain wrong. Anyone who can add to / correct / clarify this list (with references), please do.

Re:I work in UK Government and this won't make a d

[maroberts]

But yes - Linux is seen as a crack ball OS. Have you seen a picture of Alan Cox lately?

I'm tempted to say that I will know Linux has become the mainstream OS when I see a picture of Alan Cox in a suit without his beard.

Re:Why would anyone actually use closed source 'wa

[meadowsp]

So you can't program (i.e. check the source yourself for backdoors), but you still trust open source more than closed source. How do you work that one out?

e-envoy runs Apache on Solaris

[mapnjd]

No-one's pointed this out, but the e-envoy site runs Apache on Solaris 8 (it's an E450).

We host a few of the government websites (including e-envoy) and some are Solaris, some Lose2K and some are Linux (e.g. Office of the Deputy Prime Minisiter and Department for Transport).

We use Win2K for 3rd party authoured sites that require it, Linux for low/medium traffic sites and Solaris (sparc) for pretty much everything else, because (apart from recompiling Apache, PHP and OpenSSH, BIND with every security hole, and Sun's god-awful patch management) TCO is pretty low and we get good hardware support.

However, half of the technical staff run Linux on the desktop, and it's going to be a rough ride for Sun over the next 2 years.

These are my views and not those of my employer's etc. Blah-blah.

Re:I work in UK Government and this won't make a d

[erikkemperman]

It does really frustrate me knowing that a very large amount of my taxes gets spent on software that could be obtained for free, or next to nothing.

Yep, it's like /dev/null for taxstreams. If only a critical mass of taxpayers/voters realized that...

Re:I work in UK Government and this won't make a d

[lurvdrum]

Most of what you say is mirrored in my environment. However, there is every chance that the EU will make use of OSS based software *mandatory*, so even the most die-hard stick-my-head-in-the-sand Windows affiliate will have to get a clue in the end. I gave up trying to get OSS stuff installed through the front door some time ago; now I concentrate on using Linux/*nix servers whereever I can, and repeatedly hammer on about browser-based apps / open document formats whereever possible. It's a long haul, but with any luck in a few years time when the current cycle of Windows-exclusive applications has come to the end-of-life we just *might* have a chance of realising the cost savings of a non-Windows environment. For the moment, we have no choice.

Re:Why would anyone actually use closed source 'wa

[t_allardyce]

well yes i can (badly) but you're right i wouldnt bother to check even the smallest program. Which is why i said "companies/organisations that matter" such as a government, who could do this. Since most organisations have safety inspectors to check anything from plane engines to cooking surfaces it would seem logical that they want to check code.

Re:I wonder if MS is going to give them a donation

[Peter Harris]

I doubt they see it as a threat yet. But assuming they did:

FUD - everyone's heard it already. It's getting old.

Donations of software - thanks for the 100,000 free copies of your product A, Mr Gates. Now we can afford to get the free replacement for your product B working.

Patents - US software patents are irrelevant in the UK, and the threat of misusing them in that way just pushes the UK further from allowing US-style patents to be adopted.

Lobbying - Possibly. How effective it can be without large sums of money in brown paper bags, I don't know.

Embrace and extend - What, make new versions of MS software stop working with open standards? They'll just NEVER BUY the new software. Point gun at foot, take aim, pull trigger.

Criminal uses of monopoly status - Heh heh. That would make my day. The EU is already watching MS very carefully, and not likely to wuss out like the US DOJ. Attempting to use monopoly powers to interfere with competitive tendering in a member state? Oh yes, smart move.

Of course, it's a bit of a red herring judging the success of an open-source-related thing based on how much it will hurt Microsoft. The answer is nearly always "not at all, but so what?".

TCO=FUD or how much do you value freedom?

[jotaeleemeese]

This is getting tiring. You want to be locked up with one vendor? Being a goverment? Taking that decision only based in TCO???

You would not get my vote then.

Re:TCO=FUD or how much do you value freedom?

[foobar104]

Vote? What vote? This is a company, not a cub scout troop. TCO is the only legitimate reason to choose one type of technology over another. If you believe that you can do business by standing on your principles and using Linux just because it's ``free'' (whatever that means), then you're in for an unpleasant surprise.

And as for FUD, as I've said before, FUD stands for fear, uncertainty, and doubt. I'm not talking about any of those things. I'm stating cold, hard facts: it costs more to re-train your staff to use Linux than it does to keep them on Windows, because the training costs associated with keeping them on Windows is zero. Your staff already knows how to use Windows, because they're already using it. It's simple math, not FUD.

Re:TCO=FUD or how much do you value freedom?

[Anonymous Coward]

Migrations from Win98 to XP zero training???
Migrations from NT4 to XP zero training???
Sorry but that has not been my experience. For the
same amount of effort, my users have learned KDE.

Talk about jumps of logic....

[jotaeleemeese]

If transition is so fsking simple, all those "Learn Windows for Idiots in 24 minutes" should be a figment of my retard imagination.

Good thing we are not talking about ...

[jotaeleemeese]

... windows and office retraining costs neither.

You need software auditors.

[jotaeleemeese]

If you allow OSS in your company or institution, then you need to audit it.

But I would consider the salary of a team of OSS auditors a necessary investment, specialy talking about goverments: the audit is done only once and then the product is made available to all the branches of goverment once it is declared clean.

It is also important to remeber that many oss projects have a comercial enterprise selling services nad I am sure, they will be willing to certify a version of the software as fit for public use.

These companies then may be accountable, unlike others that wash their hands invoking EULAs.

Re:Why would anyone actually use closed source 'wa

[meadowsp]

Surely you're joking. Can you imagine the cost in employing someone to check the entire source code of, say, Linux, OpenOffice, X, KDE, Mozilla before they, as a company, use it?

Oh and also dis-assembling and checking the code of the compiler, because of course that could have back doors in it.

May seem logical to you, bud, but I can't see it happening.

Re:Why would anyone actually use closed source 'wa

[t_allardyce]

Surely you're joking. Can you imagine the cost in employing someone to check an entire plane for an airline, say, a 747?, several times a year? There must be thousends of systems and parts to check to make sure they havent erroded, cracked, warn out, broken or been tampered with.

Oh and also assessing the security protocals and structures for the airports because that could have back-door.... oh, wait, it does..

May seem logical to you, bud, but I can't see companies wasting money on safety, security or reliability happening.

Re:Why would anyone actually use closed source 'wa

[meadowsp]

Very witty and also completely comparing apples to oranges.