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Telstra To Put Linux On Desktop
StArSkY writes "The Australian has an article today outlining how Telstra, Australia's largest Telco, is switching to Linux and open source on the desktop. Their pilot has been quite successful, and improved stability has been noticed. On trial are Star Office, Gnome, Mozilla and Wyse. Spending AUD$1.5 Billion a year on IT, means Telstra using Open Source is a massive boost to Open Source developers and support professionals. Not mentioned in the Article is that Telstra also just Dumped IBM Global Services, and will be running IT in-house again! Telstra will be hiring Linux-savvy people I think..."
They're a pack of lying monopolistic bastards who break the law at every opportunity, employ deceptive advertising practices and screw every other telecom company in the country sideways. They're still half government owned, so we get the worst of both worlds in that respect.
Regarding their use of Linux, "even the Devil may cite Scripture for his purpose".
deus does not exist but if he does
They plan to cut IT costs in half, but are still keeping some servers running NT and Solaris. Plus there is the cost of hardware, bandwidth, etc. So how much of the $750 million do they plan to spend on OSS?
-a
(anonymous to stop karma whoring)
Who knows, maybe the money they save can be put towards letting people connect to their 'broadband' service, which they kindly cap at 3gb/month? Or maybe educating our communications minister?
While it's nice to hear that Telstra are switching to Linux, this hardly makes them a good company - they're still monopolistic and evil, as I'm sure any Australian who's tried to get decent broadband will tell you.
Yet another important step for linux.
Linux needs to rule the locked down computer stylings of the corporate desktop before it will have any chance of shaking up the home desktop market.
I remember the days when apples were easy and dos* was hard. The only reason my mum got a x86 was because that is what she used at work. These days Windows is easy and Linux is hard, but things are changing real quick.
Oppertunities like this are a great way for new users to be exposed to Linux. Lets just hope the exposure that telstra gives its employees is good one.
Never know, one of these days my mum may go out and buy one of these new 'linux' computers like the one that she uses at work.
Nice thought, but if they're planning on cutting IT costs in half, thats not ALL going to be MS licencing costs.
If they do cut $750 million from their IT budget alot of that is going to come in the form for Australian IT workers (be they working for Telstra or IBM).
In 10 years, people who aren't computer geeks still won't give a damn what operating system is running on their computer.
Mod this asshats post down asap, its not a verbatim copy, its been edited. (hint ESR comment is NOT in the original article).
It'll be something that's open and free and plays well with others.
Maybe a HURD kernel? Maybe BSD? Maybe a Windows Kernel that leverages on others work instead of trying to destroy it.
This isn't about linux per se, its about software freedom.
Thats freedom for little guys and freedom for behemoths like Telstra.
If not for MS's licensing 6.0 this would have happened several years later, that decision dramatically reduced complacency and intertia in corporate IS departments.
'There is a Light that never goes out.'
Because HP are dropping the tried and tested PA-RISC architecture in favor of the itanic, which is expensive, not fully compatible, untested, under performing, and seems already to have shown problems due to overly aggressive clocking.
Contrast this with Sun, who are continuing to develop the Sparc architecture, the new UltraSparc processors will provide full backwards compatibility with even the first generation of sparc processors, and the new versions of the Solaris OS also provides backwards compatibilty, even with SunOS 4.x, which was pre-solaris and in many ways a totally different system.
http://spamdecoy.net - free throwaway anonymous email - avoid spam!
Just when the whole world seems to be going mad (SCO, RIAA, ...), and one day you look at news: yet another major Linux *desktop* win, the postponement of the EU patent vote, more news about the Asian Linux development project... it almost seems like things will be going up again! Horrors of the summer are behind us, and the autumn brings on a new light!
Incidentally, it seems that most of the bad news seem to be coming from US, while the rest of the world is moving forward. Now what was the old world/new world again...
Save your wrists today - switch to Dvorak
I you read the article you will see this is not a big deal. The purchase of WYSE terminals is dumb and wasteful since these very systems they are replacing will run just as well as thin clinets. They are keeping a pile of NT servers and are thinking of adding more W3K servers plus a hug number of existign MS desktops. Lots on fire and little heat. But it says "Linux" at least. They might save some money but will likeky not and then just will bag on Linux when the project fails.
Move along nothing to see here.
As you can see I don't care about my karma.
Usually it depends on what your company decided to pay for.
At my former work Siemens got a contract to support the IT and everything was hell for 3 months, then it got a bit better but still didn't work right.
Anyway the point is - it all depends on the contract and what the company decided they wanted to pay for - the problem usually is that alot of the stuff that IS usually does isn't included in the contract.
I have worked with IBM and IGS on some occations and only have positive impressions from that - then again maybe I was just lucky.
I never knew Sun was in the Open Source business with their J2EE server!
Or maybe they mean that in when Telstra writes their .net apps they will do that in the blind, not able to see their own code, local_echo=off?
Or they will release the source of any J2EE online billing application they write.
Or maybe the article's author is just using one too many buzz words...
This isnt good news for Open Source, and Linux in particular. Telstra are a money grubbing company thats only looking at this because it will cost a lot less. That $1.5Mill will not go to open source, It will go to Telstra's Coffers, as Money saved being spent on windows. Most likely Telstra will try and [un]train their employees in Linux, rather than spend money. But then again, on the other hand it is an example of a Telecommunications company switching to linux for a large base of users, and might inspire other companies to consider doing it as well. (All though that being said, at the end of the day it's only going to come down to the cost, rather than a ingrained sense of compassion or nobility. [Like that exists anymore...])
#!/bin/csh cat $0
That being said, we can be glad that they are switching to Linux, because a) it demonstrates that there are sound economic reasons to make the switch (because there's no way in hell Telstra would do it for any other reason), b) they will either employ Linux hackers or pay desktop Linux companies to customise the solution for them, c) a very big company has decided to break the Office file format monopoly, and d) maybe they will be more inclined to support Linux for their customers now that they are running it en masse.
Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from a rigged demo
--Andy Finkel (J. Klass?)
it means that free software can compete purely based on "value for money", which is far better news than if someone choose free software based on ideology.
"Create fewer IT jobs" is also good, if it means more efficient methods to produce the same goods and services with fewer people. It is called productivity increase, and free software has a great potential for that. Increasing productivity is the only thing that can make a society richer. It is sometimes resented by workers in fields that experience less demand, but that is a temporary effect until the job market has adjusted to the new situation.
One of the reason I release my software freely is that I hope it will be "exploited" as you call it. I just don't want to find myself in a situation where I have to compete with non-free versions of my own software, which is why I protect it with the GPL. As long as people keep their changes to themselves, that is find But if they share them, they have to share them freely.
In this thread, many people have pointed out how evil Telstra is (I won't repeat). They are yet another greedy, monopolistic telco. Some people point out these things but then mention they don't know how to feel about the telco because now they are supporting open source.
Let's make one thing clear: the software an organization uses doesn't make them good or bad in a moral or ethical sense.
In otherwords, all you people who are wondering how you should feel about Telstra should just continue hating them. If Microsoft switched to 100% open source software, I would not forget all the shit they've pulled. I would still argue that everything that can be done to make them go away or pay for their crimes should be done. That goes for this telco too (assuming they are as bad as some people say).
We can certainly use the fact they've switched to open source to our advantage, citing it as a success story and so on. However, that does not mean all those affected should go off and pat them on the back. If they were a nasty telco running Windows, they'll be just as nasty of a telco running Linux--and with more money in their pocket to continue doing nasty things.
Think about it.
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A big chunk of those IBM GSA people are living in Australia. Employed by an American behemoth, but spending their wages in Aus.
Yay me!