A Linux Users Group for Professionals?

ir0b0t asks: "I'm a lawyer in a solo divorce practice in Missoula, Montana. I have migrated my office to OpenOffice, Firefox, Thunderbird and Sunbird but want to do more Open Source, yet I have issues that come up nearly every day. The problems I encounter are often unique to running a small law practice. Coders sometimes give me blank looks when I describe what I need. Other lawyers tend to automatically use proprietary solutions and show little interest in Open Source alternatives. I want to eventually use only Open Source code in my office. I am willing to do my homework. Are there others like me out there? Is there a Linux Users Group or other online forum for professionals like me who want more Open Source solutions for our work? Thanks."

Comments

Not everything can be solved by open source

[Alpha27]

Depending on what you do, and what software you need, you can't migrate everything to open source, and that's a fact you have to accept, only if you haven't accepted it yet. I only mention it that way, because you did not.

The main issues include:

- a standard application that "everyone" uses, in the industry you are in, is not supported on Linux. ie: mortgage brokers who use a particular set of programs to create and process applications.

- some industry applications require proprietary software to run. ie: Realtors who use the online MLS listing who need IE to access the website.

- a bigger issue is learning curve. If I know an application really well, and I'm effective in what I do with it, why should I have to learn a new application?

- some open source applications can't do all the features as the proprietary application I use. this is a fact in a number of cases. What are you going to do, add the features to the open source version until they are all in there? Unfortunately, that's not always a feasible approach.

The good news is, there are open source solution for common things, like web browsing, email, group tasks, filesharing and printing, many of the common tasks you can do in an office.

The easiest transitions you can make is usually on the server side (web server, email, filesharing), the stuff that's pretty transparent to users. Then you can migrate users on the client side, slowly, and with applications where they can gain an advantage on. Transitioning to open source, for the sake of open source is not a reason to do it. As long as you provide enough reason, and suitable solutions, you will have a good chance with users switching.

Re:Not everything can be solved by open source

[Master of Transhuman]

"you can't migrate everything to open source"

Well, yes, you can.

The issue is whether a given operation can AFFORD to do so on their own.

The answer is to get together with others, form an industry OSS group, then get some developers who work in that industry interested in doing the work.

By the way, let's be clear:

"Realtors who use the online MLS listing who need IE to access the website."

No, they DON'T need IE - they need a browser that does EXACTLY the same thing as IE vis-a-vis that site. Not the same thing at all.

And in that particular case, it probably wouldn't be hard to get the folks at Mozilla to find out exactly what that thing is and provide it - unless of course it's ActiveX - then you need some utility that allows ActiveX to run elsewhere than on IE. The ActiveX plugin available for Firefox is supposedly buggy - well, somebody at Mozilla needs to make it UN-buggy!

Another option is to use IE either on WINE or a VM to access that site - then use OSS to process the data in every other respect.

As Charles Bronson said in "The Mechanic": "There are alternatives to everything..."

Any "standard application" can be reverse- or re-engineered in OSS form, or surrounded by and run in an OSS environment, or otherwise taken out of the picture. You just have to have some imagination and the willingness to invest the effort.

It's not easy - I'm looking at some crappy Oracle Forms these days I wish could be made to go away - they're insanely complicated and undocumentable. It would be quicker to re-engineer them - IF I had some clear documentation as to how they work in the first place.

It's crappy design, not proprietary or OSS software, that causes all the problems in IT.

Money talks...

[oliverthered]

There are are a lot of OSS apps out there that may be usefull to your business but be missing a key feature. Why not offer up bounty to get the features that you would like to see implemented, you could even get together with some other law firms and be able to offer a reasonable bounty to get the software you would like (I'm sure a few K won't hurt a law firms wallets too much (-:)