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."

Comments

simple as 1,2,3

[OffTheLip]

Boot cdrom format load linux

Spreadsheet in XLS

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Re:Spreadsheet in XLS

[beacher]

Other links in the pdf -
1. The OSS Fact Sheet
2. The Report on OSS usage
3. The Report on market structure and issues related to public procurement
All three of the above documents can be found here in other formats as well as PDF.
-B

Re:Spreadsheet in XLS

[jpetts]

Anyone else find the humor in the spreadsheet being an XLS file?

Oh, what a wasted opportunity! You could have said it was ironic, end been the very first person ever on Slashdot to have correctly made that assertion!

Eeeeek

[devphil]

I'd feel better about these "how to transition your project to open source" guidelines if the first step weren't

1. If you don't already have one, get an account on sourceforge.net.

Okay, okay, just kidding.

Step one...

[dankdirk77]

Step one... stop bending over

Step two... remove Microsoft "probe"

*FREEDOM*

Re:Step one...

[Trinition]

On the contrary:

Step 1. Give me open source alternatives I can wean myself into one at a time on my current platform (Windows XP).

Step 2. Now that all of my apps are open source, give me an open source operating system alternative where I can run them all.

For example, I'm now running OpenOffice.org instead of Microsoft Office. Well, almost. I still use Microsoft Outlook because I can't find a competitive PIM client (not e-mail client) for Windows. I had hopes for Evolution, but last I checked, it's *nix only.

If you really want to know how to get people to switch to open source, stop thinking people want to uproot their whole history and experience in one fell swoop. Its very disruptive and uncomfortable.

If you rip that "probe" out too quickly, it will hurt!

Finally a step in the right direction

[Pan T. Hose]

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.

Not just for migration...

[line.at.infinity]

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.

Wow great guide

[bogie]

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.

Short form

[ENOENT]

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.

I didn't see ..

[MisanthropicProggram]

any reference to a list of applications that could be substituted for the proprietary stuff. I would like to see something like:

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."

Opportunity knocks

[rsborg]

This is a pretty comprehensive study(tho one imagines that it could get out of date pretty quickly). One thought that came up was, what about the areas in the article where OSS comes up short? For example, from the article:

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.

Re:Opportunity knocks

[am 2k]

SQLite is an open source (even public domain!) personal SQL-capable database. It lacks some features (like types other than strings and some SQL commands), but it's very useful for embedded databases.

Re:Opportunity knocks

[Yarn]

Openoffice 1.1 has a rudimentary DB interface. It needs work, but a graphical query design (similar to access's) is there already. The backend can be any odbc or jdbc database, as far as I can tell.

Re:Opportunity knocks

[whereiswaldo]

Not me, amigo, but as a consultant, I can't count on my two hands the number of times I've had to either warehouse data from, or (worse) interface with an existing Access database.

Funny, when I was in college, I was told over and over again that MS Access was a solution to be touted to customers. While we were taught Oracle, Access was great for small businesses and non-profit organizations.
Now that I know better not to use Access, I can think of a bunch of alternatives that I would rather use. Access is not a multi-user-friendly system.

Error in instructions

[rhombic]

Don't you think step two should precede, rather than follow, step one? I mean, ouch...

Re:Error in instructions

[PetiePooo]

Don't you think step two should precede, rather than follow, step one? I mean, ouch...

Now that's just deeply disturbing!

Why don' t you at lease scan through it,

[Idou]

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.

The second short form

[yerricde]

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?

1. Yes
2. No

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).

Funny, but I disagree.

[ingenuus]

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.