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Oregon Government Supporting Open Source
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."
One of the great things about open source is that it offers a way for business and non-business organizations and individuals to leverage the power of existing equipment for very little additional expense (to wit, additional peripherals or upgrades necessary to run the software) rather than investing the money into a solution they're just going to have to throw away shortly down the road.
With the increasing price of oil, I can't help wondering what the face of computing is going to look like five or ten years down the line. The average computer uses as much as seventeen swimming pools worth of coal to run on any given day. Much of this is spent on wasteful peripherals we could do without, such as fancy 3D graphics cards or optical mice, but even more is being spent on processing power well beyond the needs of the average user.
Inefficiencies in microcomponent fabrication mean that a great deal of the electricity that goes into your computer is given off as heat. Techniques such as reversible or quantum computing hold much promise in the future for putting more energy into computation but today it is up to the consumer to safeguard the environment.
In a way, the argument is the same as with vehicles -- most people don't need a SUV or a top-of-the-line system but many choose to get them to compensate for inadequacies or because of marketing -- but with computers at least it is impossible to argue you are "safer" for having a faster system. Indeed, you are more likely to run viruses or worms without realizing it because you don't notice the hit in operating performance.
I've noticed that, between the advances in open source and the levelling off of true innovation in hardware design, I've been holding on to computer equipment longer and longer these days. Oh sure, I have to fix a power supply here and a fan there, but besides slack engineering standards from software companies there is little reason to keep up with the hardware treadmill... and at least one compelling reason not to.
Try not. Do or do not, there is no try.
-- Dr. Spock, stardate 2822-3.
Oregon! Yeah!
Next up: Iowa! Yes!
Mod down people who tell people how to mod in their sigs
I happen to know that Microsoft has a rather large contract with the State Govt. Offices most if not all of my state's Office computers. A few years back I used to work for a Tech company that had a contract to service the computers for the state. They were all running WIN 2K and 98. If one state starts to move to Open Source soon more should follow. Decreasing MSFT's domination in the maket. Nice thing though, both systems should still need to be services on occasion so there's always going to be tech support work. :)
Generation Trance: What generation are you?
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.
No. As far as I can see, OSU's program is just run by enthusiastic faculty. The state government is interested because of constant budget shortfalls.
After all, I am strangely colored.
Uh, I think you're off by a few orders of magnitude there. Care to post some supporting evidence to that silly statement?
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.
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*
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
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.
"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.
The average computer uses as much as seventeen swimming pools worth of coal to run on any given day.
I'd like to see the math behind that point please. Show all your work, and include just how much tonage a swimming pool is. I don't know what the conversion ration of tons of coal to kilowatts is- so include that as well. You might also want to compare it to the hydropower and wind power we enjoy out here on the left coast.
I do know that the computer I use most of the time can run on it's 900mah battery for up to 2 hours straight without a recharge while playing full motion video.
SJW: a person who perceives an injustice, and while correcting it, commits a greater injustice.
Looking at the list, I was thinking, education is first step. Not many managers know about linux (even if they knew, they may be sacred of using some unknown OS). These kind of seminars should help them. Instead of charging money for these, why not linux vendors(like RedHat, Novell and others) offer these things for free.
As an employee of the state (Oregon Univerity System) I'm guessing it has more to do with budgetary concerns....
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.
The average computer uses as much as seventeen swimming pools worth of coal to run on any given day.
l
t ml
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.htm
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.h
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.
I've seen this troll before. It's a prefab.
Seeing as how Oregon is so close to the hydroelectic power nearby, perhaps the grandparent post is confusing oil with water? :)
This rating is Unfair ( ) ( ) Fair (*) Funny
Sigh... If only. Modding would be so much more fun.
Why do people post such retarded comments about how bad Linux is and how joe six pack can't use it? Joe six pack can't even use Windows...
We play the game with the bravery of being out of range
Their system of measurment suggests so too...
This rating is Unfair ( ) ( ) Fair (*) Funny
Sigh... If only. Modding would be so much more fun.
Since I'm bored and this is more fun that work, here's some more info:
.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.
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
Again, this is assuming smallish swimming pools. If we're talking Olympic sized swiming pools, figure 50 times that.
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.
Not that I agree with Mister Seventeen Swimming Pools of Coal, but, er...does your hair dryer or toaster boast 60+ days of uptime?
I suspect it's our general culture (at least here in the Valley) of being kind of leftist. Look at our political history of passing laws for public health care (The Oregon Plan), doctor assisted suicide (which the feds, I believe, overruled), and other related "freedom to do whatever" type things. The desert dwellers (Eastern Oregon) don't usually agree with us, but there aren't enough of them to overrule us on most things. When you have something that's so obviously a cost saver, they don't even bother to fight it.
The Spoon
Updated 6/28/2011
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. :-)
I know. I'm from Oregon. Oregon is just a liberal place. And, yes, admit it, Open Source/Free Software is very liberal.
There's a lot of Open Source activity here in Oregon, anyway, without the government. For example... what's that guy from Finland? You know, the guy who founded some big Open Source project? Whatever his name is, he lives here.
Then again... Washington and Oregon are both on the west coast (and blue states). So if you mean, by proximity, "on the west coast", you're right.
Before you walk a mile in someone's shoes, you should insult them so you know how they are and what they're doing.
As cost to run a Government go up, and people refuse to pay more taxes, alternate cheaper ways will hbave to happen.
My advice, on your time, think about what Open sourse products could replace the ones you have. Then set up a test enviroment in your home.
Once you confirm, to the best you can, that it does work write a paper then sit on it. The very next time someone in managment complains abouit cost, tell them:
"I can write you up a document on products that do they same work, but for less money."
Then tune the document to fit that scenerio.
Then email it to that person. If you can, schedule a meeting to discuss the work this wil be doing, and invite his boss, and other managers.
Then do a 3-8 minute overview, do not tell them it is free. The reason for that is they know NO software is free. This is true, you have the associated costs for installation, training, maintainance.
Address those costs. The costs that the agency is spending on current items is a matter of public record so you will know what price point you will need to break.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
Finally! I was beginning to worry that our proximity to Mordor^H^H^H^H^H^H Redmond was going to completely screw over any chances of Open Source spreading around here. I mean, I knew about OSU's heavy support and involvement in OSS, but that's completely different from getting the government to back it. Actually, one of the local school districts has a policy banning the use of Linux in any way at school. Not well enforced, thank God, but it has been enforced in the past.
Maybe this will also lead to loosening up on other Microsoft bindings, too. Nearly all colleges in the state, for example, do only Microsoft certification. Apparently, there is only one college that does non-MS certification. Let's hope that changes soon!
Remember, open source is free as in speech, not free as in bear.
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 onhttp://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.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.
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/
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