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EU Publishes Open Source Migration Guidelines
Skunil writes "The IDA Open Source Migration Guidelines provide practical and detailed recommendations on how to migrate to Open Source Software (OSS)-based office applications, calendaring, e-mail and other standard applications. These guidelines have been designed to help public administrators decide whether a migration to OSS should be undertaken and describe, in broad technical terms, how such a migration could be carried out. They are based on practical experience of a limited number of publicly available case studies, and cover a wide range of management and technical concerns."
1. Use deodorant 2. Brush teeth 3. ??? 4. Profit!
I nearly had to migrate to Sri Lanka, to be with fellow paedophile Arthur C. Clarke, when the pigs got hold of my erotic child filth.
I hope I cum before they get old
Boot cdrom format load linux
Ted and David made their way into the lab where the animal experiments were conducted. A cute, fuzzy penguin had caught their eye...
The evil duo quickly subdued the little lab penguin. They strapped the now helpless animal's head to the sex table with hot leather. David had the urge, and removed his pants, which were now bulging. After slipping off his briefs, David tightly fastened the leather straps and was ready to begin.......
David began to "grease up". Shoving endless amounts of Vaseline and baby oil all around the penguin's ass, he slid his purple head firmly into the penguin's tight asshole. Even though the penguin was slightly unconscious, screams of pain were constantly being emitted. Ted reached for the chain whip and smacked the penguin's soft nose until its face was soaked with blood. Now, with the penguins head drooped over the edge of the table, David continued his sex hunt. His now tingling cock was pushed deeper and deeper through the thick layers of skin which covered the bowel tract. Five, six, seven, then finally all eight and 3/4 inches were plunged deep within the animal's love canal.
David's manhood tingled with every slight movement of the now half alive penguin. He began rhythmically sliding in and out, moaning with pleasure on every thrust. David worked himself into a hot orgasm. The blood, now coming steadily out of the penguin's ass with every thrust of David's pelvis, could be heard dripping on the floor. David's rate increased and with a final push, he spurted creamy white love gel far up into the penguin's bleeding ass.
The blood and cum mixed together on the floor, which had now accumulated a large puddle. Unknown to David, the semen had acted as a powerful enema for the penguin and out ushered the contents of its intestine. The stool was loose and soft. It fell to the ground with a soft thud and broke into small pieces. The obnoxious smell caught David's attention, and no sooner had he fallen to the ground and began licking the large puddle of blood, sperm, and stool. Exited at David's enthusiasm, Ted dropped to his knees and also began to slurp the foul mixture.
After cleaning the floor with their tongues, David and Ted checked on the battered lab penguin. It was barely able to hold its head up, as it had lost control of most of its motor functions. Feeling no pity for this sexually mistreated animal, they unstrapped it and tossed it across the room, only to make a loud and deep thud against the wall. Its blood soaked fur left spatters of red stains everywhere it touched. Its bodily fluids freely surged across the tiled floor.
Then with a look of extreme satisfaction, both David and Ted lit up some smokes, gathered their belongings and quietly left the hospital ground.
What does Snoop Dogg use to whiten his teeth?
Blee-otch!
the state should use open source its my money they use to buy MS poop
------
mmmm round and soft...
Anyone else find the humor in the spreadsheet being an XLS file? I figure if the target audience is a group of people who use MS products, then they'll have no problem opening that XLS file.
I'd feel better about these "how to transition your project to open source" guidelines if the first step weren't
Okay, okay, just kidding.
You cannot apply a technological solution to a sociological problem. (Edwards' Law)
JUST DO IT!
Step one... stop bending over
Step two... remove Microsoft "probe"
*FREEDOM*
SCO: 800-726-8649
Verisign: 800-361-8319, 888-642-9675
Diebold: 800-433-VOTE (8683)
Jeez .... that's the last time I eat dinner while reading Slashdot ...
I'm for open-source migration and all.. but the EU?!
Who the heck wants management advice from the European Union??
That's like asking Microsoft for tips on anti-trust legislation!
what teh fuck you sick mother fucking bastard! ughh you make me sick
------
mmmm round and soft...
Clickie
Now if only they were talking in the terms of Free Software instead of merely Open Source I would be sure that they are indeed motivated by our freedom and not only technical superiority of GNU. But I am sure that it is only a matter of time until the Freedom ideals are widely recognised in EU parlament. This is a step in the right direction. There are other steps which must follow.
Sincerely,
Pan Tarhei Hosé, PhD.
"Homo sum et cogito ergo odi profanum vulgus et libido."
RTFM
Who gives a FUCK about the EU (aka Fourth Reich)?
Abortion is advocated only by persons who have themselves been born.
--Ronald Reagan
Install Linux, Problem Solved
OSS advocates should also advocate to businesses that are just starting up and households that are just purchasing their first PC.
It would make more sense to start fresh with free software rather than to switch after paying for proprietary software.
However, it looks to me that any useful part of this article is buried in beauraucrateese, yes it's a word. However, it's a start, I just worry about whether it's in the right direction. The Linux community as a whole should make sure that the direction is "free" software and not simply "open-source" software. For this, the FreeBSD license is the best. I know that I'll be using it for anything and everything I can in the future.
Peter M. Dodge,
Chief Executive Officer,
LiquidFire Studios
Platinum Linux - www.
I'd really suggest you download the pdf before commenting. It's really quite a piece of work. In fact it looks like it might be the most comprehensive guide yet written on how to migrate to opensource. This is good stuff.
Armed with this and of course google and you'd be way ahead of the curve in planning or evaluating a migration to opensource.
Kudos to the authors.
If you wanna get rich, you know that payback is a bitch
I can't get the damn lid of this ketchup bottle.
Here is the short form for deciding whether migration to OSS is appropriate:
1. Are you OK with a foreign company having complete control of your data?
Answers:
Yes -- Continue using MS products.
No -- Switch.
That's "Mr. Soulless Automaton" to you, Bub.
One is an Adobe-generated PDF file; the other is an Excel spreadsheet. "Here's how to do it, but, remember, you and your business will lose access to all this cool information if you transition."
Oops.
You'd think he'd name the protagonists Bill and Darl.
Windows ..... Linux, OpenBSD, FreeBSD,etc.
MS Office ....... OpenOffice, ????
Outlook, OulookExpress ...... ????
you get the idea.
Unless you know what the OSS version's name is, you wouldn't know what to replace it with.
I don't know what all the OSS replacements are, if there are any, or what functionality they have (haven't). This would greatly help someone trying to migrate. Otherwise, I'm afraid, they'll just throw up their hands, and say,"I don't know where to start."
There is no spoon or sig.
11.6.2. Personal databases held centrally or locally
Ad hoc personal databases are not well supported in OSS. There is no direct equivalent to Access, nor is one being developed. Several of the groupware packages do offer some capability in this area using a variety of OSS SQL databases as a back-end. In some cases (such as NullLogic) ordinary users can only use pre-defined queries. Some offer the ability to define forms that can be used to store and access data.
Is there someone who could either rebut this statement, or would want to work on a replacement? Yes, Access sucks and is the bane of any data-warehousing project... but it's utility is the reason there are so many small but completely critical .mdb files out there.
Make sure everyone's vote counts: Verified Voting
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I.____________________\__/__()__\___\___________I
R/_____________________\___Cmdr_)\__)___________R
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Important Stuff: Please try to keep posts on topic. Try to reply to other people's comments instead of starting new threads. Read other people's messages before posting your own to avoid simply duplicating what has already been said. Use a clear subject that describes what your message is about. Offtopic, Inflammatory, Inappropriate, Illegal, or Offensive comments might be moderated. (You can read everything, even moderated posts, by adjusting your threshold on the User Preferences Page) Problems regarding accounts or comment posting should be sent to CowboyNeal.Important Stuff: Please try to keep posts on topic. Try to reply to other people's comments instead of starting new threads. Read other people's messages before posting your own to avoid simply duplicating what has already been said. Use a clear subject that describes what your message is about. Offtopic, Inflammatory, Inappropriate, Illegal, or Offensive comments might be moderated. (You can read everything, even moderated posts, by adjusting your threshold on the User Preferences Page) Problems regarding accounts or comment posting should be sent to CowboyNeal.Important Stuff: Please try to keep posts on topic. Try to reply to other people's comments instead of starting new threads. Read other people's messages before posting your own to avoid simply duplicating what has already been said. Use a clear subject that describes what your message is about. Offtopic, Inflammatory, Inappropriate, Illegal, or Offensive comments might be moderated. (You can read everything, even moderated posts, by adjusting your threshold on the User Preferences Page) Problems regarding accounts or comment posting should be sent to CowboyNeal.Important Stuff: Please try to keep posts on topic. Try to reply to other people's comments instead of starting new threads. Read other people's messry to keep posts on topic. Try to reply to other people's comments instead of starting new threads. Read other people's messages before posting your own to avoid simply duplicating what has already been said. Use a clear subject that describes what your message is about. Offtopic, Inflammatory, Inappropriate, Illegal, or Offensive comments might be moderated. (You can read everything, even moderated posts, by adjusting your threshold on the User Preferences Page) Problems regarding accounts or comment posting should be sent to CowboyNeal.Important Stuff: Please try to keep posts on topic. Try to reply to other people's comments instead of starting new threads. Read other people's messages before posting your own to avoid simply duplicating what has already been said. Use a clear subject that describes what
Avoid.
Open Office had no problem with the spreadsheet and PDF's are easily read under Linux.
Ok, i feel better now. I got so caught up in following the links, I didn't even look at the first thing on the page. Yes, I feel really stupid right now.
There is no spoon or sig.
Don't you think step two should precede, rather than follow, step one? I mean, ouch...
1984 was supposed to be a warning, not an instruction manual.
before bashing it?
First of all, it is for EU agencies. Using this material to back up your decisions might be the difference between a promotion and getting fired if you work for such an organization. This is important for the audience it was written for.
Also, if you are into migrations to OSS, you might find some useful information, regardless of its target audience.
Anyway, the FASB is as bureaucratic as the EU and their publications are much more boring, but as a CPA I hang on every word they publish and so should anyone working in the accounting field, throughout the world. This is not about inspiring people, it is about setting standards, which is not as entertaining as the former but is just as important.
Personally, I think it is great for ANY institution to write on this subject, especially when it has a degree of objectivity on the subject. Many of the "case studies" that this was based on have never been published, so this adds additional observational information on the subject, at the very least.
Sdelat' Ameriku velikoy Snova!
who cares, this is the EU here, a dictatorship, who cares what it has to say
Comment: Yes I realise the username 'fuckfuck101' makes me sound intelligent, no you cannot buy it from me.
About how much hassle you'll have to go through getting the open source license server manager daemons properly configured after calling in your product activation!
[Sorry, couldn't resist.]
"Provided by the management for your protection."
The first dozen pages of the document that I read tell how to make such a switch. So here's the second short form:
Do you want to be branded a political failure in the switch?
If you chose 2, switch gradually, one system at a time, starting with the least-critical systems and the systems farthest away from direct interaction with users. Once you get to the users, switch their interfaces one piece at a time, starting by introducing Free Software that runs within the existing proprietary framework (examples include Mozilla and OpenOffice.org products for Windows OS).
Will I retire or break 10K?
Here's a possible example:
If you look at the details of MS Bulletin ms03-045 you see the patch has problems with third party apps in the languages:
Six of the eight authoring countries are on the troubled patch list.
Perhaps Isreal is not the only country they pissed off once too often.
Does it have a graphical schema designer and graphical data interaction tools? Any Access replacement should have at least those.
Will I retire or break 10K?
Freedon, eh, pad're? To do as you wish?? Even if that WISH is to overpay for proprietary, monopolistic software? THAT much freedom is what you have in mind? Hehe .... ya little Stalinist pr*ck I didn't think so.
I'd love to see David and Ted trying to fuck the Devil's asshole...
The grandparent was an old post, the product of a massive Troll Tuesday distributed crapflood some years ago. However, the original participants then were Hemos and CmdrTaco [IIRC] and the victim was a rabbit.
Lost the link to the original and have been looking for it ever since, thanks for reposting it.
Use ISO 8601 dates [YYYY-MM-DD]
...when Software Patents become a reality?
STOP MISUSING APOSTROPHES, YOU MORONS!!!
I think the most important section of that whole document is 7.3, which I lovingly think of as the "condom section" - common sense steps to protecting yourself when you're in a relationship with a beast. Face it - for whatever reasons, many IT managers are loathe to leave the Microsoft cradle and make the jump to OSS. But 7.3 is practical common-sense advice about how not to dig a bigger hole than one you're in.
[snip 147 pages]
Comments?
Does everything include nothing?
The excel tool looks pretty cool so i opened it up under openoffice and tried the following values:
Intenal desktop: 20
Home desktop: 1
users: 20
Sites: 1
Years of propriety upgrade: 3
Cost of propietory works out to be: 48,364 for the fist year.
Cost of FOSS (1st yr): 40,462
Now the shocking big:
Total cost of migration for the first year:
4,095,925 (thats 4 million euros!!) for 20 computers! [hardware:10,925; Software: 2480000, People:160500]
wait a minute.. was this funded by microsoft??
We should be seeing a lot of books like that soon. Munich was the first step.
In fact, I would expect it to be in an MS format since the document (I assume) is about _how_ to migrate from MS to Open Source. Putting it in some Open Source format would be ironic, because, then how could those using MS possibly read it and thereby learn how to migrate?
Irony occurs when the conveyed meaning is contrary to expectation or the literal meaning.
but isnt europe trying to ban innovation? ;P
I think this contradicts itself
well of course there are always different factions...
bah whatever.
I just hope the thirst for OSS overcomes proprietary lust.
and describe, in broad technical terms, how such a migration could be carried out. T
1. Format C:
2. Install freeware OS
3. Fart in the general direction of Redmond , WA
Article X: The powers not delegated... by the Constitution...are reserved...to the people
The record is clear on one thing: no operating system has ever come back from the grave. Efforts to resuscitate *BSD are one step away from spiritualists wishing to communicate with the dead. As the situation grows more desperate for the adherents of this doomed OS, the sorrow takes hold. An unremitting gloom hangs like a death shroud over a once hopeful *BSD community. The hope is gone; a mournful nostalgia has settled in. Now is the end time for *BSD.
"just like a penguin in bondage, boy"
- Frank Zappa circa 1983
this is in response to your .sig
use firbird with the mozex extension.
Yeah, coz I mean it wouldn't have been ironic if it was released in GnuSpread or something would it?
If not converting institutions to oss, this document will save them money. What do you think will happen when you tell the MS salesman: "Ohh, but we have a central guideline that says we can migrate in this case." prices drops like IT stocks!
While on the face of it the report looks good, deeper reading reveals some serious flaws, besides the fact that the spreadsheet is in XLS format.
First of all, the report is factually incorrect in several areas. Netproject list the City of Turku as a case study, but the City of Turku turned out to be a turkey - they only used OSS as a driver for microsoft to lower rices, which they did, and Turku is now a well publicised MS case study. Not very clever to use that as advertisement for an OSS migration. The one thing PA officials do is check out case studies. It get numerous facts wrong about some of the software packages, and on the whole looks more like parroting of populist stances (exim is better and faster then postfix, for example) then real-life testing. At the very least, they should back these type of statements up with facts.
Secondly, this is so full of OSS politics, it is not even funny anymore. Take for example this little gem: "Of the session managers KDE's is the more mature but Gnome is catching up fast. Gnome is being supported by Sun Microsystems and members of the Gnome Foundation. netproject considers that it has a better architecture and believes it has a better future.". That initself should be the subject of a fine little flamewar..... Also, there are, again, no facts to support the supposition of a "better" architecture. Also, SUSE, for example, get very little to no airtime in the document, and the document is simply wrong about some of the issues discussed around SUSE. for example, the YAST discussion is plain wrong, and some highly popular prducst, such as openexchange, get no mention whatsoever. Granted, some components of SLOX are closed source, but that doesn't stop the authors from mentioning and even recommending other closed source products.
Finally, and perhaps the worst flaw of all, is the fact that despite its size, it is simply a (badly researched) list of products. This is not a HOWTO migrate, this is a list of "if you migrate, use these tools". There is no methodology, no method, not *system* to migrate. This is organisational masturbation, a big "look how l33t we are" kind of thing.
I can spend some more time ranting about this, but will be to no avail. It is published, and undoubtedly, many fools will brandish this as the final word in ridding the world of the closed source software scourge. To all our detriment......
People who think they know everything are a great annoyance to those of us who do.
It appears that you may just have slashdotted the EU. The link just sends a server error :)
Cute.
Where have your banknotes been?!
Of course it "fits [my] definition of free [software]" (link added) since The Open Source Definition by Eric Raymond is nothing else but just a rewrite of Free Software Guidelines from Debian GNU/Linux Social Contract written by Bruce Perens himself in the first place. That is not an issue though.
What I find somehow disturbing is the very fact that while I can fully understand that back then mentioning freedom and liberty ideals was inconvenient for Eric Raymond in his business negotiations and that he wanted to focus on technical merits while temporarily ignoring the ethical implications until large corporations start actually using the "new" (i.e. new for the corporations mentioned above) open source software and then going back to calling it "free software" again as soon as it gets the required momentum. Fair enough.
But I find it absolutely unacceptable to ignore political, ethical and social issues -- to ignore the freedom itself -- in the context of political decisions of the European Union. Please keep in mind that saying "open source" instead of "free software" had only one purpose -- to temporarily ignore the very fact that GNU is all about freedom in the first place, the techincal superiority being only a nice side effect.
Once again, in the business context I can understand Raymond but bastardising his idea to talk about GNU in the explicitly political environment is clearly against both movements, traditional Free Software as well as the new Open Source, since after all Open Source is Free Software minus the politics -- that's the whole point.
Give me Eric Raymond and Open Source Initiative for talking about business any day, but if we are talking about politics then give me Richard Stallman and Free Software Foundation because this is the political movement.
Of course we all know it is much more complicated than that, since we understand that not mentioning GNU in the name of the OS and calling it simply Linux is done exactly because that way the whole system can be called "open source" without the need to ever publically talk about GNU and free software ideals at all, but we have to remember that the politicians might not always realize that.
Sincerely,
Pan Tarhei Hosé, PhD.
"Homo sum et cogito ergo odi profanum vulgus et libido."
microsoft software is not free? damn it, kazaa lied to me again...
All employees will be sent to the RMS Political Re-education camp.
No, there are no toilets, and they will have to provide their own food for the duration.
Prisoners^H^H^H Trainees will not released^H^H^H certified until they can:
a) recite the entire contents of the "Cathedral & the Bazaar" from memory
b) chant in unison "death to the capitalist running dogs of Richmond!"c) consistently spell Micro$oft correctly
d) correctly indentify all relevent acronyms and software dependencies of our glorious OS
Upon completion, all sucessful devotees^H^H^H comrades^H^H^H candidates will be issued with the collected thoughts of RMS, which they must keep close to their hearts.
Long live our glorious Leader^H^H^H Operating System!
need a free COBOL editor for Windows?
This guide is mostly a compendium to help users of Microsoft products in migrating to free and open source software equivalents that they might not be familiar with.
In other words, if you've already decided to migrate and don't know much about where you're going, then this will help you. That seems to be insufficient. You need to know more about your destination (and where you're starting from) before you activate a migration.
Such a document is educational, but is not the only set of information that someone needs.
What's needed is an objective survey of organizations that have made a migration, including details of the work mix, what glitches they had to overcome, hidden training costs of moving, extra savings they hadn't anticipated from the move, etc.
Motivation for considering a migration is remarkable because it isn't trumpeted loudly by a particular company that stands to profit if you migrate. Competing organizations that have made a successful migration have little incentive to alert you to any advantages they might have gained from making such a migration. In fact, they can profit by keeping you in the dark if they have obtained a migration advantage.
Just how objective are the big IT consulting firms stand in such evaluations? A recent Gartner recommendation seems to resemble a long list of Why Not To migrate. And certainly there are genuine pitfalls. But IT consulting firms are not foolproof in their evaluations and recommendations nor are they immune to influence.
What's needed are more publicly available documents of case studies of migrations that have happened:I'm thinking of case studies like Ernie Ball, but including other businesses, too.
"Provided by the management for your protection."
http://www.gnome-db.org/
a n t_sql.png
Gnome Database project
mergeant: Front-end for database administrators and database application developers.
Screenshots of Mergeant
http://www.gnome-db.org/screenshots.php
http://www.gnome-db.org/images/screenshots/merge
"Thank you. Please come again."
- Obligatory Simpsons Reference
Has been a management-level decision at every business I've worked at.