Australia, China and Snowboard Shops Use Linux

Miscellaneous stories about Linux usage today: the Australian government has allowed (but not required) its agencies to switch to Linux. China is apparently going to go all-Linux for the 2008 Olympic games in Beijing. And business2.com has a story about chain of snowboarding shops (and other businesses) deploying Linux cash registers and desktops.

Comments

In the spirit of MLP

[King of the World]

In New Zealand the first semi-major national chain company has come out with a Linux box. Go to dse.co.nz and search for Mandrake. Until now it was only "mom and pop" (as American's would say) stores, and then you go an empty machine.

2 more years

[e8johan]

Just wait for two more years and some european goventment agencies will probably be dominated by open source software. The countries I'm thinking of are Germany, England, Sweden and Spain. All these contries have initialized open source studies or started with test installations of open source alternatives.

When looking at what software that is used, it looks like KDE has an edge in Europe, specially in Germany and Sweden. But also OpenOffice is actively evaluated.

Re:2 more years

[Kenzai]

Norwegian govt. agencies are already in the process of adopting Linux solutions, after the M$ govt. deal was booted. The University enviroments in Norway are solid in Linux kowledge (Unix too of course) great for recruitment (lets not forget TrollTech). There is a remote education system run on Linux by a facutly (ILS) at the Univ. of Oslo with several schools countrywide participating - at 1/3 of the price that IBM offered an equivalent commercial system based on M$.

I think this article is great and especially China who have already adopted Linux within several govt. agencies. The Olympics are of such importance to them internationally that they would not risk it on a unreliable OS (events like this rely alot on such systems - worked with it at the Winter Olympics in '94). China will make this work and it must really rattle the M$ cage!

My 0.02

Goodbye Sun?

[lpret]

I noticed that in the article one of their "two" user groups were high end programmers/engineers. There was a quote from a Verizon guy saying: "moving 300 programmers at its nationwide IT facilities from expensive Sun and Hewlett-Packard (HWP) workstations to less expensive models running Linux.".
Is this really a viable option? I'm not talking about "can get along with" software, but truly impressive and equal/better than Sun boxes? If so, and if it's only down to software, where does Sun stand in this?

Re:Goodbye Sun?

[rovingeyes]

Maybe it is too soon for anyone to predict the end of sun or for that matter any other OS. Ever heard of legacy systems. Well they are still there becoz most companies don't bother moving or upgrading their systems for only one reason - "they work". An example to prove this is that while at a carrier fair I saw atleast 20 companies asking for COBOL experience. So this means all these companies are using those legacy mainframes.

Have you ever seen an owner of 1970 mustang convertible trade up for the latest model?

Re:Goodbye Sun?

[azimir]

Sun is in a bind.

They're market has partially been dependant upon OS licensing, but truly they are a hardware company.

One solution they have, if they choose to pursue it, is to expand their "Sun Linux" projects to produce much better Linux support for Sun hardware. This would allow Sun to sell more hardware, and have lower overhead of software development by using GNU tools and OSS sources.

It is also a chance for them to sell more support contracts. Just like they've always done.

Wether or not Sun can afford to do this and survive is an exercise in speculation. Many intelligent people have predicted the commodization of the OS and this is just one example of that.

RedHat is mollycoddling Chinese dictators

[SexyKellyOsbourne]

While it's great that the world's most populous nation is adopting open source, there is one problem with it: the leadership of China are some of the most brutal and flagrant abusers of human rights, and companies such are Red Hat are catering to their notion that Taiwan is a "Renegade Province" and somehow belongs to China, when the opposite is true.

Formosa (Taiwan) was never controlled by China, and China only wants to siphon off its strong capitalist economy and end the most basic freedoms in the country to exercise hegemony.

Most notably, RedHat has removed the Taiwanese Flag from RedHat 8.0 to appease China's ruling Communist Party -- this is an insult to the Taiwanese, who value their freedom and independence, and are constantly under the threat of a Chinese communist attack by China, and RedHat is disavowing their very right to exist by removing the flag.

Put [The Taiwanese] National Flag Back!

I would submit for your approval. . .

[kfg]

the hypothesis that being Open Source (tm) is one of the things that can be legitimately considered as one of the parameters to decide whether it's "the right tool for the job"?

Indeed that being Open Source (tm) is a possible *feature* that might be valued?

KFG

Re:I would submit for your approval. . .

[Twirlip of the Mists]

I think, unfortunately, that your hypothesis is wrong in the majority of cases. Whether software comes with source code or not matters to some people, certainly, but not to most. And if it matters at all, it can just as easily be a liability as it can an asset.

Ninety-nine out of a hundred people literally wouldn't know source code if they saw it, so having it is no tangible benefit to them. In fact, it can easily be seen as a liability, because most of the software that is available in source code form is not supported by any vendor. If a company were to adopt a piece of open-source software that was only supported by an individual or a small group, and that individual or group were to stop developing and supporting that software, the company would have no choice but to accept responsibility for supporting the code themselves. (Or to quickly adopt something else.) That's a serious liability to, say, a company that makes point-of-sale systems.

Not every open-source program would be susceptible to such an event. But most of them would, and that-- if anything-- is what non-computer people will associate with the words "open source." "Open source," most often, means flying without a net.

Again, just to emphasize, I'm not talking about facts here. I'm talking about generalities, and the perceptions that are based on those generalities.

What are they running?

[1Oman]

The article fails to mention what P.O.S. software the snowboard shops are running. If any one know a good one let me know. We could use this at a non-profit bookstore I volunteer for.

Preferably it would use a database on a server so we could use the same db with multiple registers and maybe even the a shopping cart on our website.Also it would be cool if it worked with the cuecat for scanning barcodes.

Re:Specific Plan For High-Tech Olympics Constructi

[jsse]

Hate to followup my own thread, but I forgot to quote in the document about the topic, for those who don't care to read them all:

This project covers as follows: study of the information system for the Olympic competition and key technology and mobile communication-aided support based computer-aided Judge system, the Olympic comprehensive information consultative service system, and mass data storage and processing technology and development of LINUX based network office automation software etc.

You can find above here. As you see, they are specifically mentioning LINUX, not just for a choice of business bids. :)

Wierd steganography in the Olympics article?

[tulare]

I was having to highlight over the text to deal with a wierd OS X issue where text randomly disappears (IE, Moz, doesn't matter) when I noticed a bunch of letters in the spaces between some of the words. The text isn't justified in any way that I could see, just left-aligned, so these weren't some kind of spacing tool, so I can't figure this out. I did a view source, and here's a bit chopped out of the article:

system<font color=white>U</font>and other information<font color=white>A</font>systems will be built for<font color=white>U</font>collecting, collating, disseminating<font color=white>E</font>and

Does anyone have any idea what the heck this is all about? One pattern I do seem to be noticing is that the "hidden" letters are all vowels.

Re:Wierd steganography in the Olympics article?

[Yohimbe]

Imagine you were the wire service that provided the article. This is a good way of identifying your text. A copy paste into an editor loses the color tags. Then they've gotta clean it. Its a form of copy protection. Security by inconvenience. (hey, isn't that what MS provides? ... (Obligatory MS baiting, as per Slashdot Rules Paragraph 1.2.b)

Re:Wierd steganography in the Olympics article?

[CurlyG]

Its a form of copy protection. Security by inconvenience.

That's a cool idea...

This is the sequence - anyone recognise it?

UUAUEAIAEUAUEUAAAAIAIUEUUIEIUAUIUUIAEAEEUEAAUEAEAU EEEUEAEUEIEAIEUEUIEIAU

I'd like to implement something like this, but I wonder if there's not a more subtle way to do it...

POS and Enterprise system on Unix/Linux

[DrainBead]

http://www.proiv.com/0025664A00363AEA/pages/4GL/$F ile/4gl.pdf is an interesting PDF on how Nandos Chickenland is moving to Unix/Linux (with the help of 4GLSystems) in their Enterprise Management Systems. While Linux is becomming more and more mainstream (even my technophobic Dad asked me about "that new thingy giving Microsoft headaches"), IMHO the future of a similar market penetration for Linux as M$ has (at least in the desktop market) is still far off. And perhaps it would be better if it never arrived?!?

Zumiez runs Evolution over Outlook as well...

[SystemOfTheAnimal]

My friend Kevin's dad owns Zumiez (which is the chain the article mentioned) and some of my friends are responsible for installing the Linux boxes they mentioned. In addition to the Linux cash registers, they also installed Evolution for the store managers to use. This was a conscious choice over Outlook.
So put your money where your mouth is and support Zumiez- they're a great company.

Re:Zumiez runs Evolution over Outlook as well...

[Anonymous Coward]

Here's a quote from Kevin's dad's IT guy, Rory Hudson.

"While Linux is good enough for our retail stores, I have no plans to replace the desktops at corporate headquarters with Linux. I've evaluated Linux for the desktop there, but isn't a good reason for me to switch off Windows right now." "When we make a decision to switch software vendors, we have to look at the needs of the user, and right now, Linux desktops aren't viable for us," "We are quite satisfied with the Microsoft software we have right now, so there's really no reason for us to make the switch."

Your friend Kevin's dad is being ill-served by guys like Rory Hudson. Instead of implementing a cohesive and comprehensive enterprise POS solution which includes x terminals and a proven, front to back, POS solution, he's just putting bandaids all over the place. Go to Google and type in something like 'Linux POS'. You and Kevin and Kevin's dad can find all he needs to save reinventing the wheel in Linux POS and Kevin's dad can really begin saving money and tightening up his operation.

Re:Important to remember

[Pointy_Hair]

What I was trying to say was, just because it's free, and open source, it does not mean it's going to be the panacea to the world's problems, IT or otherwise.

I agree. However you made remarks in your earlier post to the effect that Linux is a bust when it comes to a mass market desktop - which I think is what is attracting the flames. A year ago I would have fully agreed with those generalizations. I set up a couple of Linux desktops and they were just too much of a hassle to configure for my uses. Even a standard office-type workstation required a lot of hinking around with package dependencies and so on. Server apps were tight and - surprise - that's what most mainstream uses were all about. Bottom line there are two things that make an O/S successful to the masses:

1. The Killer App, otherwise known as a useful office suite.
2. Automated configuration. When you want to install the latest doodad it shouldn't require editing .conf files and creating scripts. Click on install and answer the dialogs when they pop up then sit back and enjoy your new stuff.

That being said, I just tried it again after reading some really positive press (namely WalMart selling $200 home systems with Linux). I downloaded and burned the Redhat 8.0 CDs and what a remarkable change! If it weren't for the fact that I would have to buy a $70 license to hit my Exchange server with Ximian, I could actually load this on my work laptop and be able to get my job done (in a shop married to M$). For home, this distribution works nearly perfectly. The biggest hassle was re-sizing the single Windows partition to accomodate another O/S and discovering the crappy webcam that was on my store bought system was trumping the soundcard. Aside from that, the "out-of-the-box" install was a breeze. All the office apps work well and will read/write M$ formats. Package manager makes software setup almost painless (as long as a binary package exists for what you want).

One or two more iterations with Redhat and the like and widespread acceptance is on the way.