Slashdot Mirror
UK Gov't Considers Expanding Open Source Use
IonPanel writes "BBC have a story about the use of open source software at the heart of British government policy. The UK government is now running trials at both government and local level, citing the world-wide effort of a community of programmers fixing bugs and free upgrades as the reason. And all this despite the good friendship between Bill Gates and Tony Blair. There will be quite a few worried faces at Microsoft over the next few months ... Lets hope it's another Munich!" The experiments -- a joint effort with IBM, run by the Office of the E-envoy -- will "cover a range of departments, from the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister to the e-envoy's office itself."
The real reason is probably simple: Money
Not money as in saving by using open source, but saving money as in getting Microsoft and other vendors to drop their pants, because open source is considered, and acknowledged as a competitor.
Regards,
--
*Art
Exactly the point. What does this testing actually accomplish? The existing projects aren't getting funded; the existing open-source software are still going to be used as usual; the testing derives very little solid evidence of superiority; and the entire thing is just that the government might or might not open-source some of their software projects.
Which doesn't make sense to me. What does being taxpayers have to do with open source?
Note this.
I am betting a case of beer that the BLIAR will once again suck up to Bill and open his election campaign at the MSFT UK headquaters near Reading as he did in the last elections.
I am betting ten cases of beer that this will not get anywhere. You do not expect anything but MSFT to go around in a country where the prime minister prefers to open his campaing at MSFT headquarters instead of any members of the FTSE 100 list.
Baker's Law: Misery no longer loves company. Nowadays it insists on it
http://www.sigsegv.cx/
I wish our government would try it also.
They are currently doing the budget negotiations, they could find a huge saving post in OS...
120 chars is not enough!
[grin] I just can't see ole "two jabs" using Linux. I can't see him using anything more complicated than a notebook and pencil, to be honest ... Concepts like 'desktop metaphor' were not meant for the JP's of the world (pun intended :-)
Simon.
Physicists get Hadrons!
Tony Blair may be pro-Microsoft but each department has its own budget and makes its own IT decisions. I've seen invitations to tender that specifically require programs to be COM based which makes it a MS easy win. Others require that the supplier have reference sites in the Government already (easy for EDS and Accenture) while others look for a fit with existing Linux/Apache skills. Tony Blair loves Microsoft but open source is alive and well in the UK public services.
1000s Warcraft Gold while you sleep
While "we" are all making fun of mr. Stallman, his original idea (to create a user base for Free Software as to ultimately create a legal platform and status for it) is finally seeing the first tiny steps towards a result; recognition by governments is a good first. This should also (partially) explain his hammering on the GNU brand, as to promote the ideas behind the project on moments as these. You never know what they'll pick up in new legislation just because they've heard of it and find some kind of sense in it.
Now of course this post seems like an open invitation to start another pro-/ anti-RMS GNU vs. BSD bash riot on Slashdot, but I honestly believe that most of that has been said before (duh!). All I wanted to do is put this single point of credit towards mr. Stallman, independent of any other credits he should or should not deserve in your eyes. (Let's see if this keeps you from throwing some old mud on Slashdot...)
"We can confirm that Debian does *not* ship the version with the trojan horse. Our version predates it." [CA-2002-28]
I came across this story yesterday because it was linked from the front page of news.bbc.co.uk... that's pretty mainstream press coverage...
Anyway, given that I live in the UK, I'm certainly hope this works out like Munich...
open source software is good for it stability and probably has good security model(i am not sure, but i do use linux sometime but my linuxbox's monitor is dead R.I.P. bah. I have to buy new one monitor boo.) I am not good at insight of what i am trying to point it out though. Anyhoo.
This could be a major boon for tech manual writers - you know governments - like everything documented (well - supposed to anyway).
Tons of OSS stuff is severely lacking in the documentation department - if enough governments take it up then it could create a nice tech manual industry.
Personally I keep hoping that open source usage will eventually increase to the point that people stop the continuous rewriting of essentially equivalent pieces of software that happens all the time right now. In my current job we aren't even allowed to look at what other groups on the same floor are doing...
Just imagine how much further the software profession could advance if more people would build on each other's work instead of reimplementing everything themselves. I'm not suggesting that open source would solve the NIH syndrome ("not invented here") people so often exhibit, but at least more widespread open source availability would tip the balance towards more and easier reuse.
This is good. Even if they don't go open source, if more and more people see it as an option more will use it. Also, MS and others could drop their prices if Free Software becomes competitive enough.
Not a sentence!
Is this the best face they could find to put in an article dealing with Open Source adoptation?
And all this despite the good friendship between Bill Gates and Tony Blair
They fell out long ago. Tony expected Bill to provide UK schools with free software back in '97, but it didn't happen. Then he went along to M$ HQ in the UK during the last election, thinking it would be a good photo opportunity, and instead M$ used him to launch the latest Windows XP.
I think Bliar finally got used to the way businesses like M$ work...
- Lower class people like secretaries and clerks use computers
- Some of the people who have something to do with them, like Mr. Gates, apparently have lots of money and should be kept onside.
I imagine if the thinks about it at all, he now thinks that computers are a matter for the civil service. The person who matters is Gordon Brown at the Treasury, a man who famously used to phone journalists up at 10pm because of something interesting he had worked out from a spreadsheet. And his approach could be summarised very briefly as:- Will this work?
- Will this save money?
- Will this affect UK jobs?
The people to convince about FOSS are in the Treasury, and as they tend to be the smartest people in the UK government, there may be some chance of making it work.Panurge has posted for the last time. Thanks for the positive moderations.
I can see it coming. "Linux has GNUs", "ready to launch in under 45 minutes", blah, blah.
...Yes now governments have realised that programmers will write code for the simple price of umemployment benefits.
The government's statement is here.
Contrary to the thumbsucking BBC think-piece pointed to, this is not just about Microsoft (although it concerns them, obviously). The UK government has had its fingers burned badly in the last few years over huge IT projects that have gone wrong - the Home Office passports debacle, thanks to Siemens, was just one of them, but there have been others involving EDS and Accenture, all using proprietry software, all costing buckets of cash and all having severe problems with overruns. This has as much to do with trying to avoid those messes than the BBC's "Beast of Redmond" bogey monster.
Some more good news is that the government statement included this comment:
At the same time OGC announced its latest deal on pricing arrangements for Software with IBM. This will offer enhanced discounts across the public sector with additional savings where Linux products are specified.
This was brought up when South Korea announced its Open Source initiative due to MS having too much market control.
I can believe that countries would let MS know they are looking at alternatives inorder to get a better deal, but citing "avoiding MS market dominance" or stating that the Open Source model results in more secure and stable code is NOT going to win them points with MS.
No, if I was starting a project just to get MS to lower their prices, I would state that PRICE and only PRICE was what was driving me to look at alternatives. I wouldn't mention reasons that might piss MS off and hurt negotiations. Plus, I would look pretty bad in the public eye if I had claimed other significant reasons for using alternatives and then just caved in because MS lowered their price (what if we were hit by a worm after dumping the project for MS AFTER stating that Open Source is more secure?).
Here's a revolutionary idea . . . maybe UK and SK are really looking into OSS for the reasons they gave because, though the system isn't great, it is not messed up enough to be totally blind to the advantages of OSS?
Sdelat' Ameriku velikoy Snova!
So far I am not impressed.
I'm not unimpressed witht the software; the difficulty is in getting a handle on what the software can and can't do and confidence that what it can't do will be fixed.
When you're buying commercial software you get some or all of
- a visit from a salesman
- product brochures
- a demonstration from an expert in the product
- documentation
- comprehensive on line help
- a road map or new features release plan
- clarity as to what you do and don't get in the support contract
and so on.With this open source offering we appear to be getting few or none of the above: "here's the URL for the demo system, go and play with it". Um yes. Thanks. Not, I fear, a basis on which a public authority can spend lots of tax payers' money on a service for tax payers.
Whilst it seems entirely possible that the open source offering is well designed to meet our needs it also seems entirely possible that it will be unable to demonstrate this to an acceptable risk profile so we'll have to buy something else. The competitors, as usual, include paying for a managed service elsewhere or buying commercial software.
"Another Munich" has a certain undertone in British public life: there ain't ant of us hoping for such a thing - a day of infamy to coin a phrase. But that's another issue...
I used to have quite a senior job as an adviser to a British cabinet minister in this administration and, unfortunately, he was completely computer illiterate (although a very good and sincere man - there is life beyond computing, folks). My attempts to promote FOSS alternatives to our superglued use of MS got nowhere. What was clear was Britain was in love with American capitalism and American capitalism == Bill Gates.
Even those who saw MS software for the rubbish it was (and it is crap) thought the alternative was Mac. Very sad.
Blair opened his election campaign with a speech at a school. So piss off trot (or maybe you are a Tory - difficult to tell the difference especially both you are now saying we should have left Saddam continue to murder his people.) Scum
a visit from a salesman
An Armani suit, greased back hair and a big grin are definate indicators of software quality.
product brochures
Tell me does a three colour or two colour brochure provide a easy metric on bug counts?
a demonstration from an expert in the product
Ahh, someone who knows how to avoid showing you them thar bugs.
documentation
Well, you and me both know how much documentation there is for NIRS and boy is that a quality product.
Oh this is too easy...
threadeds blog
This is not simply an issue of Money, as many have suggested here, as govermental office in the UK get substantial discounts on MS products (although obviously not as cheap as gettng them free). One of the real reasons for looking to open source products is the issue of control. If the tools of goverment are so complex and opaque that the goverment rely on an outside, foreign source, who really runs the country? In theory at least with an open source solution the Goverment could cut ties with the original developers and get another group to develop. ALso the goverment could employ its own developers to ensure the software is not full of "spyware" - in the original meaning of the word in this case!
Here in the UK the goverment is seriously looking into the introduction of ID cards. The infrastructure for this would be run on computers. I for one would be very concerned if a very large, very powerful, foreign (albeit allied) company was given the tender to install such a system. He who controls the information, controls the world....
-- "Can't sleep, clowns will eat me!"
OS for rent
by Dildo
I haven't really ever found a dir that is called home
I never stick around quite long enough to make it
I apologize that once again I run as root
But it's not as if I mind
that my apps are constantly breaking
It's just a thought, only a thought...
But if my OS is for rent and I can't even buy
Well I deserve nothing more than I get
Cos nothing I have is truly mine
I've always thought
that I would love to program everything in C
To travel the web alone
and read the EULA more simply
I have no idea what's happened to that dream
Cos there's really nothing left here to stop me
It's just a thought, only a thought
But if my OS is for rent and I can't even buy
Well I deserve nothing more than I get
Cos nothing I have is truly mine
While I need installshield and It won't let me down
While I am so afraid to fail so I won't even try
Well how can I say I'm alive?
If my OS is for rent...
When you're buying commercial software you get some or all of....
;-)
Go to the URL, find the name and email of the primary author of the software and send him an email. In your email, explain the situation and invite him for a consultation. Offer to pay airfare and expenses and, perhaps, a small consulting fee for the day. Your total expense for this will be insignificant compared to the procurement costs for commercial software.
What you will find is that the person who shows up is an absolute expert in the software (he wrote it), will be happy to work for you as a consultant making your improvements and bugfixes (guaranteed to be competent, since he wrote it) and will probably leave you on that day with a fully operational and configured system at your location, for the cost of his visit.
If you would prefer power-point presentations from a salesman who probably has never really used the software that he is selling outside of presentation environments to be followed by incredibly high licensing costs, delays and lock-in consultants at outrageous prices that cannot even modify the software that you bought, take the proprietary course that you mentioned.
But I sincerely hope, for your sake, that you will give my suggestion a "go around".
The reason that it can be true that 1+1 > 2 is that very peculiar nonzero value of the + operator
Gee, I wonder how many frequent flier miles Steve Ballmer's been getting lately? Earlier this month we've been hearing South Korea shifting from MS-based products to Free Software, and now the UK Government is considering expanding the use of Free Software. Heh.
Qu'on me donne six lignes écrites de la main du plus honnête homme, j'y trouverai de quoi le faire pendre.
World Domination! ;-)
I take it you are a troll...
Well my dear if you'd seen some of the UK Government IT systems you would know how raw a deal it is to have some grubby group of "let's throw something together" merchants let loose when buying IT systems.
Civil servant, dayjob: oh, you're definitely on a roll.
Any company who sells more than it can deliever will soon be out of business : Hmm "Secure Computing" does that ring any bells?
threadeds blog
What about continuity?
... etc ... etc..
You will never have to worry about companies going belly-up, stopping support for your product, getting purchased, changing corporate strategies, not responding to your requests, not fixing bugs, forcing you into an expensive upgrade cycle, forcing the use of certain expensive consultants, lying,
We are talking about Open Source. There is no company. There is no end-of-life for the product. There is no legal team watching customers. There is no Marketing team coming up with creative lies for the customers. The source is available for any competent engineer to work with. In house programmers or hired consultants can even fix bugs, on the spot, and roll those fixes out in hours at your location.
The real question is "Where is the continuity in proprietary software?" This question becomes especially relevant when the company runs into problems, changes it's strategy or ends the life of your product.
Open Source products never die . Continuity is the greatest strength of Open-Source. So long as there is one company using it, there are guaranteed to be people improving and supporting it (perhaps hired by that company).
How do you know your independent consultant is still in the business next year?
The question is irrelevant. Having the author working as a consultant for you, while ideal (and impossible in a proprietary model), is certainly not neccessary. Anyone with a CS degree should be able to handle the task just fine.
"Remember, the source is out there."
What Bliar says goes. He has appointed flunkies to senior civil service posts in each and every department, even the security services are now throwing out New Liebor propaganda, so his will is made so.
If you're going to make some argument about UK politics at least do and try to keep up with the recent (last few years) developments.
threadeds blog
And guarantees that data will be stored in an accessible format.
And guarantees that certain members of our society, and certain non-profit organisations are not being excluded from interaction WITH our society by the use of proprietary machinations.
In truth, anything BUT open source/free software is IMMORAL for a public body to use.
Also, Microsoft designed some sites for the UK Gov, these would only function with Internet Explorer. I think this is rather embarrasing for a government site, such sites should be accessible by all UK citizens.
With open source they get a less techologically biased solution (complying with open standards is more popular in the Open Source community).
This comes about a year (I think) after a publication by the UK Government to make Free/Open Source Software a consideration in government project decisions, and to give it equal (or better) opportunities.
However, I know one case of UK Government contracting where someone was told that their contract application was perfect, except that they "didn't use the word Microsoft"! Since that happened in the only case I've been involved with, I'm willing to bet it happens a lot more often.
I would *LOVE* to quote that policy document to the government, and make them explain themselves given the above situation (or make the department explain itself). Unfortunately, it would jeopardise other projects between said department and the third party, so I can't.
If anyone is hoping to see the UK government actually IMPLEMENT what it talks about, you would be well advised to contact any local representatives/departments you are involved with, and make sure they understand the implications of decisions higher up ASAP.
It's dangerous to start thinking that as long as the source code exists, anyone (with a CS degree) can just take it up, fix it and start maintaining it. In less than a decade the languages and architectures change so much that a newly graduated person will have difficulties in dealing with ancient code.
Just remember all those Y2K projects? Sure we had the source code for critical projects but the code was in Cobol or some other antiquated language. We suddenly found out that we need loads and load of people who know Cobol, but the people who had the skills to deal with it were already gone. A lifespan measured in decades is particularly typical for governmental projects. You see how silly your argument is? The availability of the source code is good but doesn't save you.
This question becomes especially relevant when the company runs into problems, changes it's strategy or ends the life of your product.
If did you homework when writing the contract you have nothing to fear. The company will be obliged to help you over the transition period. As far as the end-of-life products go, that's just natural. I've never quite understood the obsession the open source has with maintaining obsolete code. From time to time it's good to end an old product line and write another one from scratch to meet the challenges of today not the past.
BOO! TERRO
Perhaps now they have leaned their lesson.
However, just how successful is rehabilitation?
It is my sincere belief that this issue will eventually lead all Governments to move to Open Source for all systems. It is only a matter of time.
Do not give control of government to a corporation. And for the sake of your people, let them see and inspect the systems that run their lives... These memes are powerful and pure. They cannot be disputed.
And in order to keep getting those commisions in the future, they've better not to hide blatant problems with the product (of course they don't have to advertise them either) or lie in your face about the support.
You've obviously never observed a UK Government Contract. They are generally disasters, and incrediably expensive ones as well, and guess what Eric: the self same companies keep being given the contracts!
threadeds blog
This is all nice and everything however I don't think for one second it will cut down the amount of red tape the british public has to go through to get anything out of the goverment/local councils
Rus
Cheap UK and US VPS
Poster has demonstrated lack of desire to discuss. Poster is / was Microsoft consultant. Post is intentional FUD. Examine responses to verify, then MOD DOWN.
It's a shame that as one part of the government expands its OSS use, another part Implements the DMCA
Either TIM WARD = ERIC ASS RAYMOND *or* Tim and Eric are working together. Please examine evidence by wandering through the thread, starting with the original *obvious TROLL post* by Tim.
What is that GNU Icon? Looks like a guy with red shoes and a blue cape, with some kind of helmet on, with a bent beak on the helmet. And he is holding his cape back with his left hand, and holding his nuts with his right hand.
I have stared at this for over a year expecting the true shape to reveal itself to me eventually, but I can not see anything but what I described.
Anyone care to expound on this strange icon?
so if I where an admin there, I'd do the trasition in several steps, slowly under a longer period of time (like 1-2 years...but it all depends on what level the users are on..):
then, when they start asking "why are we still running & paying for M$ windows?, when everything we do is available on the free/open enviorment linux (linux/gnu) platform, for a fraction of the cost."... then I would say, it's a supreme situation to dring forth that linux install...
think of the +plus side, of it; time will only make the linux kernel and distros better, and give you plenty of oppertunity to plan & execute the whole trasition very/more effectlly.
PS. Don't forget, that M$ had lots of time getting their users used to using apps only for their platform, that after a while users can't/couldn't see past running anything else than windows, as the software they know & love is only win32.... so it makes sense to first "un-program" them from that restriction...
I don't claim I know more than I know, and if you know you know more than I know, then by all means, let me know.
Actually, in my experience, Open Source documentation is often better than documentation for proprietary software - at least in content.
Generally, the documentaiton for proprietary software is written by tech-writers who have a less than perfect understanding of what the developers have done. However, they do have a particular skill for wordsmithing and polish. So the documentation often ends up looking better.
On the other hand, Open Source documentation is generally a living thing, starting with the original docs written by the authors and eventually weaving in information collected in support message boards, live FAQs, etc..
As Open Source software matures, the documentation becomes startlingly good, having been contributed and distilled from the user base and the group of authors and supporting individuals and companies. In the maturing portion of the lifecycle of Open-Source, there are often those with tech-writing talents that jump in to help as well.
So, of course, a new, small team project has ugly, yet powerfully relevant documentation (often with bad grammar and badly organized), or perhaps none at all. But mature Open Source projects have absolutely incredible documentation, generally on a level that proprietary documentation cannot touch.
And don't forget, the penultimate documentation is the source code (which isn't even published by proprietary software vendors).
It is your personal duty to fight for what is right on a daily basis. Ignoring injustice is identical to approving
ERIC ASS RAYMOND = TIM WARD, or works with him. Examine thread and come to your own conclusion
I was interested to see one of the pilot projects will be with London Borough of Newham Council (area of East London, quite low income generally, inner city). This council has been getting involved in some really interesting wired community projects already.
Wireless connectivity on the Winslade Estate
Carpenter's Estate online - Carpenter Connect
Tim Ward = Eric Ass Raymond or works with him. This thread is FUD. Examine thread and come to your own conclusion, then mod these postings (and associated accounts) down.
No need to wait for open source solutions - soon there'll be enough software patents to prevent any rewriting of any pieces of software ;)
The software - open or closed - does not maintain itself. The mere existence of the source code is as good as nothing if there is no-one who understands it.
If no one is using it, it probably isn't very good and you should find another option. One would think that this would be obvious, both for commercial software and for Open Source software.
It's dangerous to start thinking that as long as the source code exists, anyone (with a CS degree) can just take it up, fix it and start maintaining it. In less than a decade the languages and architectures change so much that a newly graduated person will have difficulties in dealing with ancient code.
No, I don't think so. I think it is much more dangerous to allow your government to lock itself into a relationship with a vendor that will never release the source code. The government will never have control over those systems and the people being governed will never have the right to inspect and audit how those systems work.
Any competent engineer coming out of University today could very easily deal with twenty year old code. In fact, they could probably write scripts (or find conversion utilities) that would allow them to bring it up-to-current, converting source code and whatnot. But in a case like this, one would think that any system that the government is considering would have enough of an interest level (certainly after it is put into practice) such that it will be supported continuously. But if it is not, at least we are safe in the knowledge that the code is not lost and CAN be updated at any time without lawsuits and Indiana-Jones style find-the-source-code adventures.
Just remember all those Y2K projects? Sure we had the source code for critical projects but the code was in Cobol or some other antiquated language. We suddenly found out that we need loads and load of people who know Cobol, but the people who had the skills to deal with it were already gone. A lifespan measured in decades is particularly typical for governmental projects. You see how silly your argument is? The availability of the source code is good but doesn't save you.
This is funny, because you are actually making MY argument for Me. Y2K is a great example. There was certainly an IT spending boost, but so far as I am aware, all of the real problems encountered were encountered with systems that came from out-of-business vendors and/or vendors that couldn't locate source for decommissioned products. The other major problem was in-house projects that had been in the attic for twenty years and often just trying to figure out how to do a build or install the build. Had these projects been open-source, there would have been a virtual guarantee that a small community would have formed around those projects to update them (you being one of the members), saving money, time and in many cases, just making it possible.
Getting and using the Cobol programmers? That was just a matter of money (consultants), and quite a temporary problem. I know of many instances of 'C' or ''VB' programmers grabbing COBOL books and jumping in the fray.
If did you homework when writing the contract you have nothing to fear. The company will be obliged to help you over the transition period.
When a company goes out of business, your belief that they will honor their contracts with you may help you sleep at night, but those beliefs are not going to pay the costs or motivate the people at the company that is going out of business to do such a thing. Your comment is silly. You know what happens when a company goes out of business? THEY STOP HONORING ALL CONTRACTS BECAUSE THE COMPANY IS DEAD.
As far as the end-of-life products go, that's just natural. I've never quite understood the obsession the open source has with maintaining obsolete code. From time to time it's good to end an old product line and write another one from scratch to meet the challenges of today not the past.
It is your personal duty to fight for what is right on a daily basis. Ignoring injustice is identical to approving
No, educating themselves is not an option, because they already have a dayjob and designing a governmental datacenter requires a corporate level experience and skills - not some grubby group of "let's throw something together" open source linux hippies.
That is some pretty disturbing, uninformed, mindless, insulting and bantering language, Tim, err.. I mean, Eric. Did you come up with this yourself, or is this some common preconception that passes between you and your co-workers before you jump online and, uhh... ironically, start chatting on the biggest "linux hippie geek" website in the known universe. Why are you here?
I think it's pretty obvious. If you don't like us, don't be here. If you have to be here, even if you don't like us, then either you have some really serious problems or you aren't here because you want to be. Obviously if you are here even when you don't want to be, it must mean you are here for a reason. There is an objective. What is your objective, Eric?
Is it working? Have you convinced us that using Open Source in government is a bad idea? Or simply that it is a bad idea to listen to you... In fact...
NO CARRIER
It is your personal duty to fight for what is right on a daily basis. Ignoring injustice is identical to approving
And in order to keep getting those commisions in the future, they've better not to hide blatant problems with the product (of course they don't have to advertise them either) or lie in your face about the support.
You obviously never met an Oracle salesperson, particularly back when they were a small company. Salespeople know one thing for certain: Once they get you to buy, you will stay with them for a long time, because admitting to your superiors that you made a purchasing mistake puts you in the hotseat.
Indeed. And the parent poster complained that he had not received proper proposals from the open source companies. That simply means that RedHat, SuSE, Mandrake or whomever simply failed in their marketing.
The parent poster (you) complained that no one showed up with 3 color brochures. It says nothing about RedHat, SuSE or Mandrake. It says that he knows nothing about procuring software. This of course would make since, since by your definition and his admission, he is only an ameteur (He admitted that he does this voluntarily and by your definition that makes him an amateur).
What makes you a professional in some field? You do it for a living. If the OSS developers do not code for money, they're amateurs by definition. For instance, Alan Cox was an OSS pro a few years ago when he was still on RedHat's payroll. On the other hand the likes of Donald Becker or Linus Torvalds are not pros since they do not code OSS for a living.
This is an incredibly ignorant (and may I say it? Amateur) attempt at wordsmithing. It may be true that one of the dictionairy definitions of professional is one who earns his/her living in the field in question. However, the use of amateur and professional in common culture invokes the definition of competency rather than sustenance. Attempting to take a dictionairy definition to categorize a thing that will be interpreted with the extremely incompatible common cultural definition is a very *ameteur attempt* at a wordsmithed insult, even if you are being paid to do it.
As far as these individuals that you mention are concerned, even your own convoluted logic falls apart because these individuals do indeed draw salaries from the technology industry.
It is your personal duty to fight for what is right on a daily basis. Ignoring injustice is identical to approving
Blair can't have his finger in all the pies.
Not even in Presidential systems the President has so much power as to mandata absolutely everything, in a system like the UK's there ministers and senior civili servants with ideas of their own, in spite of being appointed by Blair.
Also it would be terribly bad for a PM to find leaked news about ordering his ministers and the civil service to use his "friend"'s products in place of looking for alternatives that better serve the British people.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
OpenOffice can substitute Word+Excel+Powerpoint. But there is no groupware application in OpenOffice.
Mozilla Browser typically substitutes IE. Mozilla Mail can get all email and some contact management functions from Outlook. But Mozilla Calendar is far from being capable to substitute Outlooks's Tasks and Meetings, first of all as Mozilla Calendar is a personal not-networked application. Besides, no any equivalent of Public Folders in Mozilla.
I understand that it is not Mozilla's or OpenOffice's fault - it's all about lazy calendar server programmers. Just kidding. Seriously - there is no any well working open-source calendar server around yet. I guess without calendaring server there will be a lack of calendar clients - exactly what we observe now.
Of course the lack of calendaring clients from open-source has been already compensated by available web-based calendaring applications. But, I am sorry, that doesn't work, unless it's integrated with webmail, and as for today, there is no any opensource suit combined BOTH well-implemented: mail and calendar.
All said above is about open-source on win32. But Linux can add a little to it: Evolution doesn't work with any open source calendaring server - again, as there is no such.
Less is more !
I wonder when there will time when Richard Stallman will fly to England with a full package of proposals to relax GPL, b/c London decided that GPL is too restrictive for their purposes.
Less is more !
What you want is a software company that also provides consultancy.
Let me tell you what happens with that: the software company the software and sell it to you, then comes the consultancy part (that where you get the brochures, training, and the system set for you, all this followed by maintenance and hand holding. No warranites though, read your licenses).
Here you have an intrinsec conflict of interest, this company will do the upmost to keey you locked with them. I know of companies that when they train you will not teach you all the tricks (reason: that bites in their consultancu side of the business).
There are companies (most, all) that let you down with perfectly working systems whnt the price of the consultancy and suppot of your application is uneconomical. In other words, the consultancy work you need becomes irreperably attached to your provider's interest on their own software. Your needs may or may not be important, but they are not their main concern.
With OSS applications you find the software you need, make sure you have all the code, and then ask bids form consultants to customize that software.
OSS demands more work on the side of the "client", specially during the analysis and design phases of a given project, but once the solution is in place then you are free to hire the best consultants, change the code, do the support yourself or whatever is best for you and your organization.
If you have found OSS software that almost fits your needs, then ask the developpers for case examples of successful uses of their software and then try to hire the respective consultants.
It does not work all the time (maybe the implementators of a solution are employess of a company that is not into consultancy) but to rennounce to the freedom and costs savings that OSS provides just for lack of brochures and slime ball salesmen is most regretable.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
how much more do you need?
Oh, there seems to be a bug in this program, I'll take a quick look in the source code and see what it's doing. Oh, I only have the binary.
There are places where the networks are not touching,and there are places where they are-Boeing's Lori Gunter
If you really read my posts you would have come to a conclusion that I am not a native English speaker. Tim clearly is. I certainly agree with Tim on most points he makes and I personally find open source badly marketed, overhyped and handicapped by the zealous advocacy.
This thread is actually a good example of the last point. It's rather amusing to see how paranoid you can get when someone challenges your little dogma of how the open source is revolutionary, makes the world a better place and probably cures cancer too. You're probably the guy who stalks Sir Haxalot thinking that you're doing a great service to the people on /. by pointing out that someone's a troll. I mean, come on. How pathetic can you get? Trolls, unlike the bulk of /. articles and grouper posters, are sometimes informative and most of the time at least amusing. It is the reason I personally read /. at -1. Going about posting claims about who is a troll and who is not is just lame.
BOO! TERRO
I really can't reply to this, and I can't even give any hints as to why not, and I'm not going to respond to any guesses.
Heeere's Councillor Tim Ward!
"Vice-Chair of Environment Scrutiny Committee, Strategic IT Scrutiny Committee"
If someone doesn't want to use GPLed software, that's their loss.
Qu'on me donne six lignes écrites de la main du plus honnête homme, j'y trouverai de quoi le faire pendre.
When politicians tell me they could simultaneously cut taxes and increase spending on health or transport or whatever - by reducing wasteful and sloppy practices - I believe them. It's when they tell me they will do that I begin to doubt their honesty.
Hardly *anyone* there uses computers at all - they need it more than Newham.
creation science book
The court may have let Microsoft off without punishment, but the DOJ case still managed to reveal some of the truth about Microsoft, and its leaders. As a result, anyone who cares about the future of their business knows better than to trust Microsoft.
As the evidence in the DOJ case showed, if you are dependent on Microsoft software, then Microsoft will use that fact to push you around:
> Gates informed those Microsoft executives most closely involved in the negotiations with Apple that the discussions "have not been going well at all." One of the several reasons for this, Gates wrote, was that "Apple let us down on the browser by making Netscape the standard install." Gates then reported that he had already called Apple's CEO (who at the time was Gil Amelio) to ask "how we should announce the cancellation of Mac Office..."
> [Microsoft executive in charge of Mac Office, Ben Waldman:] Sounds like we give them the HTML control for nothing except making IE the "standard browser for Apple?" I think they should be doing this anyway. Though the language of the agreement uses the word "encourage," I think that the spirit is that Apple should be using it everywhere and if they don't do it, then we can use Office as a club.
> Eric Engstrom, a Microsoft executive with responsibility for multimedia development, wrote to his superiors that one of Microsoft's goals was getting "Intel to stop helping Sun create Java Multimedia APIs, especially ones that run well (ie native implementations) on Windows." Engstrom proposed achieving this goal by offering Intel the following deal: Microsoft would incorporate into the Windows API set any multimedia interfaces that Intel agreed to not help Sun incorporate into the Java class libraries.
If a government values the freedom of its citizens, that government can't allow itself to become vulnerable to such pressure tactics.
And that's why governments should only use Open Source software. And even when they don't, the last company that governments should be doing busines with is Microsoft.
Lets hope it's another Munich!
For some reason, that line really creeps me out.
I know, I know... off-topic.
When all you have is an axe, everything looks like a grindstone.
> What does being taxpayers have to do with open source?
In order to protect our freedom in a democracy, the people need to be able to find out what their government is doing.
In other words, the government is not allowed to keep secrets from its citizens -- all government activity must be open and reviewable by the public.
It makes no difference when government activity is performed by software -- it must still be open to the public.
When government procedures are encoded into Open Source software, the public can still review those procedures, by auditing the source code.
But when government procedures take place in closed source software, those procedures _cannot_ be reviewed by the public. And secret procedures are an open door to all kinds of corruption. In the long run, government use of closed source software is a threat to our freedom.
I think I understand your comments. That said, as I understand it, what's happening in general with the moves to sneak FOSS into most organizations is that you get vendors in the form of consultancy teams, usually from groups like IBM. This is what happened with Munich, where SuSE and IBM put together a "package" which was made up primarily of IBM hardware and SuSE F/OSS.
Ultimately, part of the process of investigating IT strategies has to bear in mind that not everything will come up with a tendering process. Sometimes it's in the interests of the IT department to push possible solutions. That's relatively pro-active, and I can see how the FOSS lobby needs to address that issue.
You are not alone. This is not normal. None of this is normal.
A website, built by me for a member of parliament comprising a bizarre mix of Frontpage and PHP.