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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 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).
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.'
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
The effects that this will cause have to be examined. Some of the comments on this seem to be a little bit too enthusastic.
Telstra is a company of questionable ethics, do you think they are looking at this from the OSS comunity's point of view? No, they are looking to exploit it. They are trying to cut costs, which in the long run is easiest to take care of by reducing how many people you need to maintain the network. If that's their goal, then what's going to happen here is that your software, if you have code that is going to be used their, is going to be exploited to create fewer IT jobs.
Sure, they are supposed to contribute source back in, but what's to stop them if they don't. AFAIK, nobody has ever been forced by law to contribute source back in. Then again, mabey they will.
stuff
They're a pack of lying monopolistic bastards who break the law at every opportunity
I'm no fan of Telstra, but lets step back a bit here. Telstra don't break the law at every opportunity - they're not that stupid/evil. They do bend the rules whenever it suits them - legal law breaking!
Telstra is an amazing business. It has near-monopolistic control over every market it enters (all telecommunications, cable TV, Internet), yet its prices are definately not competitive.
If no-one was ever sacked for buying IBM, then there must be a lot of companies that say, "you can't go wrong buying from Telstra".
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.
I think you need to readjust your perspective.
They're not adopting Linux because it's good or bad for OSS. They're adopting Linux because it's good for them.
And in the end, that's what OSS's goal is: making the best software for whoever wants to use it. That includes companies. Even evil companies. And personally, I think that's just fine.