2008 Olympics Aiming For Open Source

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."

Comments

Re:I for one

[sumday]

Even if it was the winter olympics being held in beijing in 2008, your post would still be retarded.

Great...

[Universal Nerd]

I find it obvious that they have absolutely no intention of changing from legacy MS-centric software to free software (be it what it may). Free software has oficially become a bargaining chip for corporations that want to bring down the cost of Microsoft solutions.

I think it's a bad move to REALLY throw the yoke on Microsoft. The IOC being savy business men they are, smell MS's fears in the air and they threaten Microsoft's costs down - just like AOL did with them a little while ago:

AOL: LOL! M$, lower your prices or we'll use Mozilla, it'z 1337! ROFLMO!!!!1
Microsoft: O RLY? Here!
AOL: w00t. U teh r0x0rZ!!!
Microsoft: WTF?

Re:Great...

[grcumb]

"We're putting together an architecture that's quite big for a short period, but that's how it works. We have around 10,000 desktops, 500 laptops, 400 Unix servers, plus another 450 Windows servers."

That's kind of interesting, because the linked story offers the following numbers:

The IT behind the Olympics is a massive operation involving some 1,200 IT team members, including 800 volunteers, who run 450 Intel-based servers and Unix boxes, 4,700 PCs and 700 printers.

Anyway, that leads me to the point I want to make:

I've been promoting FOSS on Linux professionally since 1998, but this kind of muddiness always makes me question the wisdom of change. Not from a quality or philosphical standpoint, mind you, but from the perspective of protecting the clients from themselves.

See, here we are at the end of 2005, and the IOC is thinking about moving to FOSS and Linux by 2008. If they intend to move all 10,500 PCs and the functionality of ~900 servers to from proprietary software FOSS and run a 24-7 terrorist-proof operation with global reach, hooking into countless other data systems... They are, not to put too fine a point on it, terminally stupid. Any system-wide change this large should be the result of very careful study. Note especially the part where it says the IT system has approximately 2 volunteers for every single paid staff member. Try to imagine what the training would be like if the software isn't spot-on in its interface design.

BUT... if they're looking at re-working a few key systems in order to improve their robustness and lower their costs, then I would say that they've made an inspired choice that shows perceptiveness and leadership. 8^)

And that's the problem with much tech industry 'journalism' these days. We are given almost no useful details. I long for the days when a journalist's response to an ignorant readership was to educate them rather than to gloss over details.