Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

Small-Town Open Source Adoption

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the growing-up-linux dept.

An anonymous reader writes "ZDNet has a piece on the adoption of open source software by Steamboat Springs, CO. The small resort town has integrated OSS into all aspects of productivity and e-governance. Kent Morrison, the IS Manager for the town, discusses what made them switch and how it has gone." From the article: "What about Linux on the desktop--is this an option for your organization? Morrison: We've discussed it. With Linux's ability to emulate Windows improving every year, we see that as a possibility. We would build a Linux image for the majority of users, but for the 20 percent of users that run Windows-only applications we would keep them on the same platform. We would try to make a Linux desktop look like our Windows environment (the organization currently runs Windows 2000 but will start rolling out XP this year) as we don't want to retrain our users. We don't have a time frame for installing Linux yet, though."

2 of 134 comments (clear)

  1. Re:OMFG!!!! Small Town Switched To Linux!!! by Frumious+Wombat · · Score: 2, Funny

    Yes, but could you find those OS/2 servers in a small town in Colorado? I bet the town is trolling for Cheap Sysadmins, who will move there for the skiing/mountain-biking, etc. They're not trying to bargain Microsoft down; they're trying to bargain *You* down. "Sure, we only pay $8000/yr, and half of that is in Beaver-pelts, but just check out the skiing!"

    --
    the more accurate the calculations became, the more the concepts tended to vanish into thin air. R. S. Mulliken
  2. why bother? by Hosiah · · Score: 2, Funny
    "HERE at last is my new, improved Linux! It looks like Windows! It sounds like Windows! It feels like Windows! It tastes like Windows! It gets rid of the confusing command line and compiler just like Windows! It does without all that tiresome security nonsense just like Windows! We're releasing it through a commercial company so it'll cost as much as Windows! It even crashes and gets infected with malware just like Windows! Look, I even made the failure screen blue with white text!!!"

    "Great! So tell me about all the benefits of switching from Windows to Linux again?"

    "............"

    What a bunch of hypocrites. Microsoft is rotten through and through, UNTIL you start releasing your own operating system, and then Windows allofasudden becomes the shining perfect pinacle of excellence to be exactly cloned byte for byte. So, in effect, your ONLY real problem with Microsoft was simply that it wasn't YOUR COMPANY. Well, people who think that are just as damned as Bill Gates, with the extra measure of being even WORSE, since Bill never envied anybody else.