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Oregon Government Supporting Open Source

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the lets-get-em-all-on-the-wagon dept.

amountlad writes "In a pair of articles released today on N4N.org, Oregon continues to lead the way in government open source adoption in the USA. The Oregon State University's Open Source Lab will host a Government Open Source Conference in October. The GOSCON has strong support from within the state government. The State's Department of Administrative Services released a white paper detailing their use of Asterisk for audio conferencing for more than 500 conferences a week. The set-up includes a web-based interface for judges to manage recording the hearings. In doing so the State joins Metro, a Portland area regional government which uses Asterisk along side its Beowulf Cluster."

19 of 124 comments (clear)

  1. Not ALL of Oregon Govt. by murch · · Score: 5, Informative

    Unfortunately, not all government agencies in Oregon are following along. I work for the Oregon Judicial Department, and there's not a drop of open source in use that I know of. It's pretty much all Microsoft, Lotus, and Corel.

    What's even worse is that there's a lot of alternatives in use between counties. For audio recordings in the court, most counties use either FTR or CourtSmart. My court uses Office products, even though the "official" standard is the Corel suite. It makes it difficult at times when working with other counties.

    I think it'd be great if we went with Linux and Open Office, but that'll never happen.

  2. Too bad this is so far down by Marxist+Hacker+42 · · Score: 4, Informative

    Due to the trolls above- but if you're having problems viewing the Coral'd links above, try going directly to http://goscon.org/

    --
    SJW: a person who perceives an injustice, and while correcting it, commits a greater injustice.
  3. Re:Open source + no hardware innovation: reusabili by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    The average computer uses as much as seventeen swimming pools worth of coal to run on any given day.

    No, it doesn't. Not even close. Please, for the love of God, don't pull "facts" out of your [thin air].

    For those of you who aren't complete idiots, a computer uses about 300 Watts. 300 Watts in 24 hours is 7.2 kiloWatt-hours. That's a little less than 17 swimming pools worth of coal in energy.

    *burying face in hands*

  4. Coralized links trouble by amountlad · · Score: 2, Informative

    It turns out that some proxy servers are challenged by the Coralized links in the story. For the direct scoop on GOSCON, go to GOSCON's Website

  5. Re:I wonder... by genericacct · · Score: 5, Informative

    Nope. Intel has a central campus in Oregon, and is home to other major tech companies like Tektronix and Flir. Don't forget OSDL's main HQ is in Oregon. The west coast in general is technology-dense.

  6. Re:I'm a lawyer, and there is a hitch by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative
    "So you can imagine our suprise when we were informed by a lawyer that we would be required to publish our source code for others to use. It was brought to our attention that Linux is copyrighted under something called the GPL, or the Gnu Protective License. Part of this license states that any changes to the kernel are to be made freely available. Unfortunately for us, this meant that the great deal of time and money we spent 'touching up' Linux to work for this investment firm would now be available at no cost to our competitors."
    Always ask your lawyer before you sign the deal. Besides, "making the changes freely available" means giving people the source code if you give them the binaries. You don't have to give the binaries or source to anyone except the investment firm. The GPL also makes it clear that you and the investment firm can separately agree that they will not redistribute the binaries or code.

            "Furthermore, after reviewing this GPL our lawyers advised us that any products compiled with GPL'ed tools - such as gcc - would also have to its source code released. This was simply unacceptable."

    Replace your lawyer--he can't read. The GPL does not require you to license things under the GPL simply because they were compiled with gcc.

    If you don't believe me, read it yourself.
  7. Re:I wonder... by jlapier · · Score: 3, Informative

    As an employee of the state (Oregon Univerity System) I'm guessing it has more to do with budgetary concerns....

  8. Re:Open source + no hardware innovation: reusabili by pcnetworx1 · · Score: 3, Informative
    Perhaps 17 with manufacturing included? Or this man hasn't updated in so long he is running some kind of behemoth big-iron Cray or IBM?

    I don't know where the hell that statistic is from either. My AMD64 3500+, Geforce 4 ti4200, and 2 sticks of PC3200 RAM uses about 200 watts of power. I recommend trying this thing called the kill-a-watt from thinkgeek, it really is nice for finding out how much power stuff uses. I am not going into anymore of a promo-mode besides that today though :)

    Anyway, a hair dryer uses when it is on FYI 1359 watts, a toaster 800 watts, and even a gas dryer uses 500 watts! So don't bitch about desktop computers.

  9. Re:Open source + no hardware innovation: reusabili by merreborn · · Score: 4, Informative

    The average computer uses as much as seventeen swimming pools worth of coal to run on any given day.

    1 ton of coal produces 2,500 kilowatt-hours (kWh) of electricity
    1 pound of coal produces 1.25 kilowatt-hours

    From:
    http://www.teachcoal.org/lessonplans/how_much.html

    It looks like an hour of active computer use should use no more than 200 watt-hours in an hour.

    From:
    http://michaelbluejay.com/electricity/computers.ht ml

    200 X 24 = 4800 = 4.8kwh/day = Under 4 lbs. of coal.

    I think the grandparent post got the words "day" and "year" mixed up. Easy mistake. Half the time I get carded, I tell the bartender I'm 22 days old.

  10. Re:I'm a lawyer, and there is a hitch by bersl2 · · Score: 2, Informative

    I've seen this troll before. It's a prefab.

  11. Re:Open source + no hardware innovation: reusabili by Rorschach1 · · Score: 2, Informative

    Since I'm bored and this is more fun that work, here's some more info:

    24' x 12' x 4.6' pool = 1295 cubic feet
    17 pools = 22015 cubic feet
    Density of broken coal = 52 lbs/cubic foot

    So that's 1144780 lbs of coal in 17 (small) swimming pools. At the aforementioned .81 lbs per kWh, you get 1.4 megawatt hours of electricity. That's enough to run IBM's Blue Gene supercomputer (216 kW) for 272 days.

    Again, this is assuming smallish swimming pools. If we're talking Olympic sized swiming pools, figure 50 times that.

  12. Not even close by cratermoon · · Score: 4, Informative

    How quickly we forget, Oregon schools tried to go open source and got the smackdown by Microsoft's lobbyists. No, this state government is NOT in the lead on the use of open source.

    1. Re:Not even close by GrigorPDX · · Score: 2, Informative

      Lead or no lead (I'm not going to argue that point either way) there are a lot of penguins and *BSD devils quietly humming away in government server rooms throughout the state right next to their Sun, Microsoft, and Novell counterparts.

      Just because Microsoft chooses to "smackdown" (to use your term) doesn't mean that many of us within state government won't be recommending the use of OSS when and where it's technically appropriate and cost-effective. Does this mean OSS will always be used? Of course not. But that also doesn't mean OSS *won't* be used, either.

      Baby steps ... baby steps. :-)

    2. Re:Not even close by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Informative

      Since I work for one of those schools you mentioned... I can confirm that 90 percent of our infrastructure now runs on opensource. In addition we have a steady rollout of Openoffice and Linux is being used in many locations as a desktop os.

  13. Re:I wonder... by GrigorPDX · · Score: 4, Informative

    I'm one of the DAS staff who helped develop this system. While cost was certainly a factor - off-the-shelf commercial alternatives were exorbitantly expensive - we also chose the Asterisk-based architecture for its flexibility and the ease by which we could modify it to suit our needs. While we're only using a minuscule fraction of what Asterisk can do, it is constantly being modified, expanded and enhanced. Check back with us this time next year and I bet we'll have tons more to show off. :-)

  14. Re:I'm a lawyer, and there is a hitch by asabjorn · · Score: 4, Informative
    If the modified software is only used internally in the company, and not in external products, the GPL does not require you to publish your code. Google is an example of a large company which uses GPL products in such a way. But if you decide to sell/redistribute a GPL licensed product or a modification/adaptation of such a product you have to make the source readily available. This is of cause very reasonable since you did not write, like in this case, the linux kernel. But as Red Hat has shown a packaging/distribution of GPLed products which has your unique plavouring can be protected under trademark law from distribution by others, even though the separate components on their own must be distributed according to the GPL. Therefore it is possible to combine a live and vibrant community with commercial considerations. Your knowledge of how to make things work together is often more valuable than you would believe. If you on the other hand make a product on your own which dynamically links towards a GPL-licensed library or framework, you are free to choose any license since your binary does not include any GPLed code. If you on the other hand statically link towards GPL licensed software this will create a binary which includes GPL code and thus the GPL states that all the code must be licensed under the GPL.

    http:www.lsb.orgLinux Standard Base

    is an standard, supported by all major linux distros, which ensures that even proprietary software can be developed using it's components as a framework. When it comes down to compiling with GCC it is just bullshit and FUD that this imposes any license restrictions. As you can surely see on

    http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-faq.html#CanIUseGP LToolsForNF gnu.org

    the copyright on the editors and tools does not cover the code you write. Therefore it is possible to compile even proprietary applications with GCC.
  15. Re:I wonder... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Informative
    I know. I'm from Oregon. Oregon is just a liberal place. And, yes, admit it, Open Source/Free Software is very liberal.
    I'm from Oregon as well, and I don't think just calling it "liberal" is quite correct. There are Oregonians supporting various types of ideals; the main thing they have in common is the fervor with which they support them. So you'll see strong liberals, but you'll also see one of the larger libertarian contingents in the US. (Also note that while Oregon was just barely blue, Portland was 80-90% blue, and the rest of the state not counting Portland was quite red; we have varied political stances here.) You see strong supporters of Windows, Mac, and proprietary software, and strong supporters of Linux and Free Software. There is defintely more Free Software development going on here than most places, though; we're the home of the OSU Open Source lab, as well as freedesktop.org (hosted in the Portland State University machine room), OSDL, and the IBM LTC.

    As far as your suggestion that Free Software is liberal, this is misleading as well. Free Software enables various types of agendas. Liberals like Free Software because it helps the poor and extends the ability to make software to non-businesses. Conservatives like Free Software because it is good for businesses as well. Libertarians like Free Softare because it fights another form of government monopoly (namely "IP"). In short, Free Software is good for everybody, except proprietary software vendors. :)
  16. Open Source In Oregon by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Informative

    I re-posted the CD we created for the Oregon House and Senate as a reminder of why Government use of Open Source Software is so important:

        http://cooper.stevenson.name/open_source_cd/

  17. Re:Open source + no hardware innovation: reusabili by binkzz · · Score: 2, Informative

    Out of pure boredom and a little curiosity, it seems that with complete combustion or fission, you get approximately 8KWh of heat out of 1kg of coal.

    There seem to be about four different kinds of coal (Anthracite Solid and Broken, Bituminous Solid and Broken), and the previous link doesn't specify a type of coal, I'll go with the average of the cleaner burning two Anthracite coals (+-1300kg/m3).

    The GPP doesn't state what kind of swimming pools we're talking about, but a single olympic swimming pool is (50*25*3*1300) 4875000 kg of coal, which is (4875000*8) 39000000 KWh. Assuming the coal doesn't burn completely, but only say 90% to it's potential, that's (39000000/365) 106849 years worth of continuous computing pleasure.

    Assuming the GPP was talking about a backyard swimming pool, it seems they are about 70m3 on average, or 249 years worth of computing pleasure.

    --
    'For we walk by faith, not by sight.' II Corinthians 5:7