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2008 Olympics Aiming For Open Source

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

An anonymous reader writes "The IOC is considering switching its IT infrastructure to an open source platform for the 2008 Beijng Games, according to an article on silicon.com. The Olympic IT program director says the move will save money on licences but warned that support costs for open source in China could yet derail the plans. There are also some photos of the Olympics IT operation."

1 of 100 comments (clear)

  1. Working as a Olympic Volunteer by paul.schulz · · Score: 4, Informative

    In the Sydney 2000 Olympics I worked as a volunteer in
    the Sports Results section in Adelaide, South Australia.
    We had 6 of the football (soccer) matches and one final.

    Our small team had to:
    - Print the start lists of players when they came through
        at beginning of the matches
    - (Watch the game.. a perk)
    - Print the results of all the matches played around
        Austalia at the end.

    The printouts (100's) were then run out to the various
    people who needed them around the venue. eg. Game Results,
    Media, Olympic Family (VIP's)

    It was a low tech result, but it relied on IBM software
    for the print jobs, and was centrally managed/controlled
    on their network. Everything went through Sydney.

    I don't know what would have happened if the network
    had failed, other than we also had been given a Fax machine
    as a backup.

    It was a good experience, and FLOSS should be able to bring
    somethign to the table...

    W