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Novell Signs Linux Deal with Australian Government
truthsearch writes to tell us ITWire is reporting that Novell has just signed a deal with the Australian government to become an approved supplier of Open Source software and solutions. This deal, believed to be the first of it's kind, "places Novell on the NSW government panel of preferred open source suppliers. This is the first panel contract of its kind by an Australian jurisdiction that contains provisions specific to open source software, giving government agencies and departments formal access to Linux solutions."
Why don't all governments switch to Linux? Microsoft's Vista release should be the perfect opportunity for government agencies to get out of this vendor lock-in. What programs are government agencies using that can't run on Linux? Open source word processing on linux should be ready for primetime soon, and until then wordperfect is still available. Any non-activeX web app should not be a problem either.
.NET. That would be stupid.
I just hope that any new government created is not made with Microsoft SQL and
Religion for nerds. Stuff that really matters
Also, a little known fact is that NSW used NetWare up until 1999 I believe. That could have had something to do with their decision to allow switching.
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As much as I like to think that my state is a little more important than the others, it's pretty obvious from the title of TFA that the deal has been signed with the New South Wales state government, not the Australian federal government.
New South Wales is a state of Australia.
This is a deal with the New South Wales Government, not the Australian Government, just like it says in TFA.
Novell Certification AND a degree - all in Oz.
See this - http://www.itmasters.com.au/ [itmasters.com.au]
What's On Your Network ??? http://www.open-audit.org/
While this is a good thing the summary overstates things a little. It is, in fact, just one department of one state. A mere chink in the armour.
Orationem pulchram non habens, scribo ista linea in lingua Latina
You had me all excited there, turns out it's only the NSW government, only 1 of the 8 States and Territories, nice but hardly the whole of Australia.
You never catch me alive
The article clearly states that the contract is with the New South Wales State Government. So this covers New South Wales only, not the entire country, as the slashdot title indicates.
Also, just because Novell is now an approved supplier doesn't mean that NSW State Government can't implement non-Novell solutions, or purchase OSS (solutions) from anyone other than Novell. AFAIK, it merely means that some paperwork can be skipped in the procurement process. For instance, I think that when dealing with a non-approved supplier, evidence of comparative offerings from at least 2 other suppliers is also required. At least, that is what it would mean in a Federal Government context.
After Microsoft nearly killed Novell by using brutal, unfair, monopolistic tactics, Novell now has a fighting chance to just survive. Finally, there is some justice.
This is the biggest advantage of Novell. They'll milk their brand name for all its worth -- and they need it too...
I don't know how much the State Government of Victoria wastes on Open Software licencing with MS. For the cost of a CD schools can buy open licences for Windows Server Products, Windows XP, Office.
A primary school I was administering for a while was had open licence copies for Win2K3, WinXp, Office2k3, Exchange 2K3, SQL 2000, ISA server and all that was used was WinXP & Win2k3 Server.
It seems a waste of money, moving to linux could help cut costs on resources and and put it into what should matter in schools. TRAINING!!!
NSW has about 35% of the Australian population. It isn't just 1 of 8 state and territory governments, it is the *biggest* state government.
I am anarch of all I survey.
It's also the only state in negative population growth, and an economic recession :p
Easy to adopt a radical software solution when your ship's sinking anyway
There is value in having a company to blame and hold accountable when things go wrong.
You buy Microsoft, you get to run bill over the coals.. You choose OSS, its your own ass that goes in the furnace.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
Microsoft's .NET - Why you shouldn't use it.
Developers: We can use your help.
Every tech uses the "Microsoft is stupid" excuse when they cannot fix a problem, don't they?? If you are not using MS, then you can't say that, and it becomes "my choice of OS is stupid", which is more your problem, isn't it?
Still, I would love to work in a wholey non-MS shop.
Prediction for end of Universe #42: Fencepost error in Quantum_bogosort.cpp
A year ago Novell seemed to have lost its way with its SuSE initative. The executive who had directed the open source strategy had departed, and much of the rest of the company just didn't get it.
Then they decided to release OpenSuse. OpenSuse is now more popular than Fedora Core. That won back the devs like me who had not been listening. And OpenSuse is polished.
This announcement of itself is not that huge. But when taken with the other things they have been doing I can see that Novell can gain mindshare amongst developers and their traditional corporate base. That bodes well for them.
Only because we fund the other states, to run advertising trying to tempt our businesses to their state.
Given the current state of play NSW will be a National Government in a couple of years.
"Call us when the New age is old enough to drink" Beck
FYI, one of the Western Australian governmental departments are also working on a Novell Project.
The easy part was getting the brain out, but the hard part was getting the brain out.
If you can suggest an Open Source application that cleanly supports an interface with Document Management Systems, such as ODMA, I'd be very interested.
I work in a (non-US) government department, and we're required by law to keep all documents for certain amounts of time ... the exact amount of which depends on the type of document. We also have some legal requierments to protect certain types of documents from some employees. (eg. If two branches of the department are supposed to be providing independent advice on the same topic from different perspectives, we need to be able to demonstrate they haven't been reading each other's work.) This sort of thing is also often very important for law firms.
We do this by educating staff to save documents into a Document Managenent System (we currently use Interwoven's Worksite but aren't locked into it), which requires them to enter some extra metadata about what the document is, and helps to centralise the whole document management thing immensely.
I use OSS at home for my own things all the time, and at home I've gone without Microsoft products at all for at least 2 years, but last time I looked at the main Office tools (OpenOffice, KOffice, AbiWord, etc), I couldn't find any reliable support for ODMA. To be fair, Microsoft Office also has hopeless half-done support for ODMA, but at least it's popular enough that the main Document Management System providers have grudgingly written their own plugins to work with MS Office. ODMA's an open protocol that's already supported by much DMS software, though, and it's unclear to me why it wasn't supported by open source office and related products long ago.
They've done it last year in New Zealand - govt. contract to supply OS/software (SuSE of course) to nz primary and secondary schools.
:o)
So, mainland first, then west island
WRT "a little known fact is that NSW used NetWare up until 1999 I believe" - the NSW Ministry where I am a contractor is *still* using Netware (Groupwise, eDirectory, iPrint, ...) and are (AFAIK) quite happy with it. Any mention of bringing replacing the Novell products with Microsoft ones is met (figuratively) with fingers held up in the sign of the cross!
"What programs are government agencies using that can't run on Linux?"
The NSA key embedded in Windows
A journey of 1000 miles starts with a single step.
Actually Australia has 6 States and 10 Territories.
States
* New South Wales (NSW) (Sydney)
* Victoria (VIC) (Melbourne)
* Queensland (QLD) (Brisbane)
* South Australia (SA) (Adelaide)
* Western Australia (WA) (Perth)
* Tasmania (TAS) (Hobart)
Mainland territories
* Australian Capital Territory (ACT) (Canberra)
* Northern Territory (NT) (Darwin)
* Jervis Bay Territory
External territories
* Ashmore and Cartier Islands
* Norfolk Island
* Christmas Island
* Cocos and Keeling Islands
* Coral Sea Islands Territory
* Heard and McDonald Islands
* Australian Antarctic Territory
"A journey of 1000 miles starts with a single step."
What is that? Some type of chink philosophy?
*** rim shot ***
--
Sorry. The last I knew was 1999. If they're still using it, great!
Free Conference Call -- No Spam, High Quality
It may not help, but it is a great start in many cases to file bugs for feature requests such as this, especially as you can provide use cases as well as specifications. I'd go file at OpenOffice at least, perhaps at KOffice and Abiword too. Also, it could pay off to file bugs for these kind of features at your distros local bug tracker, as the distros themselves have something to win from this and usually does local development that is forwaded upstream. Ubuntu, Novell, Red Hat or Mandriva for instance are all quite big and could use any leverage like this.
Actually, if you collect the info needed (short use case, rationale and specification + links) and place it in an accessible place and let people know, others may help file the bugs, do the drafts and maybe even develop the thing.
It all depends if you can catch the interest of someone with enough knowledge to do it.
Good luck!
Spine World
> There is value in having a company to blame and hold accountable when things go wrong.
:)
:)
Right, and this is presumably why they went with Novell, specifically, rather than simply going with "open source" in general.
> You buy Microsoft, you get to run bill over the coals
Ha ha, you're funny!
> You choose OSS, its your own ass that goes in the furnace.
This is stupid; borderline FUD! If you choose OSS, then it's you OR YOUR VENDOR'S ass that goes in the furnace, depending on whether you have a support contract or not. Once again, more options, not fewer. You can try to support it yourself, or you can pay someone else to do it. If you pay someone else to do it, going with OSS means you're not locked in--if Novell turns out to have problems, switching from Novell to Red Hat (for example) is far easier than switching from MS to anything.
I assure you that people don't usually choose Red Hat over Fedora or Novell over OpenSUSE for technical reasons. They do so purely and simply so that they can have someone to blame! You're right that this is an important issue, but you're an idiot if you think this is a dividing line between OSS and MS. It's the other way around--with MS, you're FORCED to have someone to blame, whether you want to or not; with OSS, it's optional.
It still isn't the Australian Government ...
"Open source word processing on linux should be ready for primetime soon"
Same with linux for the desktop... Sometime soon.... it's been sometime soon for the last 10 years...
at least MS can deliver usable software...
Honestly, you're quite entitled to your opinion, but if you're going to criticize something as less than the other distros, you should really make sure you're up on what you're criticizing.
For example, what's better (real-world examples would be best) in your preferred distro and worse in SUSE?
I work with both SUSE and RHEL daily, and both have their strengths and weaknesses, but either one is quite up to the task of providing sophisticated funtionality and configuration.
The fact is that Novell knows networking. Novell knows reliability. Novell's reputation on those two factors is legendary for a good reason. Historically their stuff works so well that Novell servers have been mistakenly bricked up into a closet and forgotten for --years--. Yes, it can be a little cludgy, a little arcane. Compare them, though, to a company that measures the uptime of their server software only when _not_ connected to the Internet, and I think you'll see why a company with that kind of history is attractive.
Help stamp out iliturcy.
Yeah, but the swans will NEVER win 3 in a row... See you at surfers when you retire :)
You never catch me alive
Thanks for that, and cut out with you northern speak, every one knows it is 'Bestuursysteem'
You never catch me alive
maybe there is hope yet for the country.... :)
zdnet reported it last year in April.
From the article: The NSW Minister for Commerce, John Della Bosca, on Monday announced -- after a six-month tender evaluation process -- 11 companies would be offered positions on the panel. Companies which made the cut included CSC, Dell, Fujitsu, Hewlett-Packard, IBM, Novell, Red Hat, Sol1, Starcom, Sun Microsystems and System Integration Services.
The agreement was subject to "final negotiations", but was not just an agreement to supply one agency, as one comment stated, it makes them an 'approved supplier' for all NSW government agencies, ie: no tender process required to purchase.
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The cameleon would have had a nice time in the Desert.
"Novell has just signed a deal with the Australian Government" and from the article "Novell has signed a deal with the NSW Department of Commerce, being a department of the NSW Government at that.
Contrary to popular belief, Sydney is not the capital city of Australia, and The New South Wales Government is not The Australian Government.
Hope Novell gets a clue from http://www.joelonsoftware.com/printerFriendly/arti cles/fog0000000052.html
Slashdot = Sarcasm
Your attitude seems unnecessarily hostile to that other person. They were IGNORANT, not necessarily unreasoning. (If they were, then your comment doesn't indicate such.)
You have to maintain a positive attitude if you wish to encourage those positive changes. Good luck with that.
The article is about New South Wales, which is only one Australian state. While it's big news that NSW has decided to put Novell on its Approved Vendors list, the summary seemed to imply that the deal was with the federal government. it is NOT.
This is roughly the same as, say the state of New York or Ohio putting Novell on its approved vendors list. News, but not massive news. C'mon, slashdot editors. Learn some geography/politics.
Surfers will sink in to the sand well before I retire ;)
Go the Swanies!
"Call us when the New age is old enough to drink" Beck
Given the current state of play NSW will be a National Government in a couple of years.
You cannot seriously think that. Australia has practically the closest-knit federation in the Anglo-American world (at least), and even closer than the unitrary United Kingdom. (A consequence of us being a single nation.) More likely New Zealand will join us than anyone will leave and/or the states will be abolished, but that doesn't seem to be any more likely now than a hundred years ago.
Your statements are also interesting from the perspective of my experience. I live in Melbourne and always have, and Melbourne is very much "Melbourne!"; Melbourne is Melburnian first, and then Australian. Sydney, which I had the chance to visit a few months ago, however, was indisputably "Australia!" Sydney is Australian first, and then Sydney. For NSW to separate, an entirely new identity of first NSW/Sydney, then Australiasian would need to be constructed, and that seems not even to be an issue at present.
(Victoria and Queensland also subsidise the other states. Victoria at times (I don't know about the present) has subsidised a greater proportion than the bigger NSW. It's the way any Federation works. In fact, its also the way any unitrary state works.)
Look out!
Moderators on crack again... hurrah...
smash.
I run: Windows, OS X, Linux, FreeBSD. Just because you have a hammer, doesn't mean everything is a nail.
This doesn't suprise me a lot but it does please me. I worked for Telstra (the government telco) for many years and their lan/wan network which is unbelievably huge has been running on Novell since the first lan went in. At that time the workstations were running winblows 3.11 but the network was Novell. I don't know if they still are on Novell but I can't imagine them changing considering the complexity of the network. When it first went in Telstra (then called Telecom) was a government commission. The expertise has been around for quite some time. Australia also just changed the copyright laws to allow copying cd's and software, they even threw out dvd zoning. Sounds to me like somebody in the Australian beureacracy has had a gutful of the RIAA, Microsoft and all the other IP exploiters dictating terms. Sometimes the "Yes Minister" system we use here comes out on top ;)
"A cynic is what an idealist calls a realist" - Sir Humphrey Appleby
No i don't honestly think it will happen, that any of the states will split off. After all it seem all but impossible under the constitution. (btw an interesting document fairly accessible language and under 100 pages, I was shocked how simple yet powerful it was when i first read it.) On the other hand removing the state tier of government would also be a fairly impossible thing as well, requiring basically a new constitution altogether as well.
Yes i understand that the point of organizing into to communities/ states/ nations is to give us all a better chance of succeeding. To foster the notion of a "fair go".
As you say it comes down to identity. Sydneysiders are Australian first and Sydenysiders second, and there things that we will attribute to being Australian which maybe more attributes of Sydney culture. Not surprising given how much of Australia's international profile is tied to Sydney. The downside is if those things are disrespected by the nation or the government all to willing to play politics of fear and division then the question will of coarse be asked.
"Do we still want to be a part of this?"
It's then that people start looking at the resource balancing as well and ask is in fair.
"Call us when the New age is old enough to drink" Beck
Rob "CmdrTaco" Malda is a 29-year old white male with a stocky build and a goatee. He responded to my ad to be interviewed for this article wearing only leather pants, leather boots and a leather vest. I could see that both of his nipples were pierced with large-gauge silver rings.
Questioner: I hope you won't be offended if I ask you to prove to me that you're a nullo. Just so that my readers will know that this isn't a fake.
CmdrTaco: Sure, no problem. (stands and unbuckles pants and drops them to his ankles, revealing a smooth, shaven crotch with only a thin scar to show where his genitals once were).
Q: Thank you. That's a remarkable sight.
(laughs and pulls pants back up). Most people think so.
Q: What made you decide to become a nullo?
(pauses). Well, it really wasn't entirely my decision.
Q: Excuse me?
The idea wasn't mine. It was my lover's idea.
Q: Please explain what you mean.
Okay, it's a long story. You have to understand my relationship with Hemos before you'll know what happened.
Q: We have plenty of time. Please go on.
Both of us were into the leather lifestyle when we met through a personal ad. Hemos's ad was very specific: he was looking for someone to completely dominate and modify to his pleasure. In other word, a slave.
The ad intrigued me. I had been in a number of B&D scenes and also some S&M, but I found them unsatisfying because they were all temporary. After the fun was over, everybody went on with life as usual.
I was looking for a complete life change. I wanted to meet someone who would be part of my life forever. Someone who would control me and change me at his whim.
Q: In other words, you're a true masochist.
Oh yes, no doubt about that. I've always been totally passive in my sexual relationships.
Anyway, we met and there was instant chemistry. Hemos is about my age and is a complete loser. Our personalities meshed totally. He's very dominant.
I went back to his place after drinks and had the best sex of my life. That's when I knew I was going to be with Hemos for a long, long time.
Q: What sort of things did you two do?
It was very heavy right away. He restrained me and whipped me for quite awhile. He put clamps on my nipples and a ball gag in my mouth. And he hung a ball bag on my sack with some very heavy weights. That bag really bounced around when Hemos fucked me from behind.
Q: Ouch.
(laughs) Yeah, no kidding. At first I didn't think I could take the pain, but Hemos worked me through it and after awhile I was flying. I was sorry when it was over.
Hemos enjoyed it as much as I did. Afterwards he talked about what kind of a commitment I'd have to make if I wanted to stay with him.
Q: What did he say exactly?
Well, besides agreeing to be his slave in every way, I'd have to be ready to be modified. To have my body modified.
Q: Did he explain what he meant by that?
Not specifically, but I got the general idea. I guessed that something like castration might be part of it.
Q: How did that make you feel?
(laughs) I think it would make any guy a little hesitant.
Q: But it didn't stop you from agreeing to Hemos's terms?
No it didn't. I was totally hooked on this man. I knew that I was willing to pay any price to be with him.
Anyway, a few days later I moved in with Hemos. He gave me the rules right away: I'd have to be naked at all times while we were indoors, except for a leather dog collar that I could never take off. I had to keep my balls shaved. And I had to wear a butt plug except when I needed to take a shit or when we were having sex.
I had to sleep on the floor next to his bed. I ate all my food on the floor, too.
The next day he took me to a piercing parlor where he had my nipples done, and a Prince Albert put into the head of my cock.
Q: Heavy stuff.
Yeah, and it got heavier. He used me as a toilet, pissing in my mouth. I had to
Do you even lift?
These aren't the 'roids you're looking for.