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Los Angeles to Consider Open Source Software

Posted by Zonk on from the penguins-in-the-valley dept.

lientz writes "According to an article at FederalComputerWeek, the city of Los Angeles is considering using Open Source software as a cost cutting measure. From the article: "...city officials could save $5.2 million by switching to OpenOffice... rather than purchasing a Microsoft Office product at $200 per license for 26,000 desktops. The savings would go to a special fund to hire more employees for the police department, a major focus for city officials right now, he added.""

6 of 324 comments (clear)

  1. Macros by tyleroar · · Score: 5, Interesting
    Gordon Haff, a senior analyst and IT adviser at Illuminata, said business value should be the main concern in transitioning to an open-source environment. "The decision-making for the state or local or federal government could be essentially the same as for a corporation," Haff said. "Does it save money when all the costs [are] taken into account? And that includes conversion costs, retraining costs, perhaps costs of getting and writing or converting software that doesn't run on an open-source platform."

    That's a very good point. OpenOffice is great and all, but what if they have lots of macros written for the Office suite? Once OpenOffice has implemented compatibility with macros, there will be no reason to not switch. The other thing that occurred to me, is why do they feel like they have to upgrade? Why can't they stick with the version they have?
    --
    Portland, North Dakota Puppies
  2. Smaller communities would benefit most from OSS by TykeClone · · Score: 4, Interesting
    I'm on the city council of a (very) small town, and because of that I'm on a mailing list for an Iowa municipal issues magaizine. This month they had an article in it about reducing Microsoft licensing costs - by using the state purchasing power. No mention of Open Office or any other competitors.

    In Iowa, there are a few population centers, a few "larger towns", and many towns with low enough populations that they can run the entire municipal government with two or three employees. These are the kinds of places that don't have the built-in MS infrastructure and could migrate to OpenOffice fairly easily. Larger communities may have the infrastructure in place the makes it more difficult to migrate away from Microsoft.

    Seeing headlines that LA is thinking about going open source is interesting, but there might be thousands of other communities in the country that could see a proportionally greater benefit from that software than LA would - but they'd never make the news.

    --
    A fine is a tax you pay for doing wrong and a tax is a fine you pay for doing all right.
  3. Pilot Program by nurb432 · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Lets hope this spreads among other states too.

    We are tax payers, everyone write a NICE letter to their local representatives..

    Forget the simple "replace Microsoft.. they suck" angle, this sort of move saves money..

    --
    ---- Booth was a patriot ----
  4. Re:Typical tactic by bkzitalsux · · Score: 3, Interesting

    This story ws covered on NPR last week (at least in the LA area). The reporter explained to the clueless what OSS was and the benefit of putting more cops on the street with the money saved. She then moved on talk about the "TCO" of going OSS, as if the status quo had none. Evidently coached (or brainwashed or funded) by MS or the reseller for the city.

    I'd be amazed if LA were to switch. Pleased, but amazed.

  5. Re:OpenOffice Access by ptlis · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Er... Open Office Base perhaps? Included in the OO.o 2 preview releases it seems to be an Access-like front-end for a real RDMS, none of the built-in access bullshit which dies if there are greater than 5 concurrent connections to it.

    --
    There's mischief and malarkies but no queers or yids or darkies within this bastard's carnival, this vicious cabaret.
  6. Re:And a fine tactic it is. by behindspace · · Score: 3, Interesting

    I agree, OO.o was the best thing I ever migrated to. Everyong I know was acting like "you can't do that, you'll come crawling back to M$FT" I switched about 8 months ago, and have since converted my office, my friend who runs a computer shop (he now fully endorses OSS, and OO.o, Firefox, and Thunderbird come with all of his new computers, unless a customer wants to have M$Orafice and pay the $200+). The town of North Hampton NH is looking into the migration as well, same with the town of Methuen MA. sure, both these cities combined aren't even the size of a city block in LA, but still, it begins to prove the point that F/OSS does prove to be a powerful competitor to M$...