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Birmingham Drops Open Source Initiative
eldavojohn writes "Birmingham, England put a stop to a half million pound project to put Linux and open source applications on library access PCs across the city. From the article, 'The council planned to roll out Linux software and applications on 1,500 desktops in libraries across the city, but in the end went no further than a 200-desktop project. Several industry watchers have voiced their concerns about the project, particularly around the number of PCs rolled out. Birmingham's expenditure averaged over 2,500 pounds per PC.' Why did they stop after 200 PCs? Because they claimed with Windows, the project would have been 100,000 pounds cheaper. One may wonder if they paid for initial training of their workforce making the first 200 more expensive than the rest but the article does not say whether or not this occurred."
£333/desktop if they had rolled out the full number of desktops.
Its not surprising that they spent a lot of money to achieve seemingly nothing - Birmingham City Council BOASTS all over the place that they are "the biggest employer in the West Midlands". Probably cos it takes 10 muppets to do the same job that 1 competent employee should be expected to do.
SURELY NOT!!!!!
It depends, really. It depends if you have to retrain staff to use the new systems, if you need to hire extra support personnel, if you need to buy hardware that works with Linux... all sorts of things could affect the overall cost, not just the license cost.
By summer it was all gone...now shesmovedon. --
Agreed. It's probably a bad idea to switch to Linux without knowing how to:
Install it
Customize it
Deploy it
Support it
In the past I've said many times that Linux has problems making inroads on the desktop because it's hard for endusers to use. In this particular case, though, it's a matter of IT staff expecting it to be easy and not bothering to familiarize themselves with Linux enough to competently deploy it.
Linux should "just work" for Joe Six-pack, but IT staff need to know it as well as they know Windows if they're going to use it. Where I work we don't use Linux because we don't have sufficient knowledge of the OS and don't have the time or money to get good training. If and when we can learn it well enough, we might start using it.
120 characters for a sig? That's bloody useless.
To me it seems that the biggest cost with Windows is not the upfront cost per seat, it's probably the cost of maintanance and data lost due to viruses and spyware, but hey, what do I know....
"It is our choices, Harry, that show what we truly are, far more than our abilities." -- Prof. Dumbledore
Ignorance is a very big problem with Linux, which results in unsuccessful deployment and failure. It's not an easy job for making people to switch from one environment to another. Building similar GUI is not a resolution. Most computer users do not know what they use. And people should increase their knowledge if they want to use computer. Using windows is like learning driving on one car. Though you need to learn standards, you need to know what horn is and used for, instead of learning it like 'you push that place and it emit sound'.
We have to put Linux awareness on computer education. Else people would behave Linux as Windows and once they fail they would blame that on Linux. Administrators of Windows think that they know everything due to their computer training and once they encounter something different, they think its broken 'even though they did everything right'. Users thing applications 'do not work', or 'does not do something' because they can't see their familiar GUI in front of them. They don't even check other places, or don't even know where to look at it.
Technical personnel can't report bug reports, can't realize what causes the problem. They mostly get used to 'reinstall' or 'restart' to fix stuff never in need to knowing cause of previous problems.
And even worse, since they don't know deep working of some basic stuff, they design current systems platform specific. They don't use standards but rather using platform specific tools or ways to handle things due to their 'buggy training'. And when they need to change platforms they have to reinvent lots of other fixes they had before.
Summing all that up, they stay in the middle of vendor lock-in. if we can't educate people well on computers, and they think they are educated enough, they would not blame their knowledge but the products.
Not really. Anyone who knows *nix can adapt to Linux in a couple of days. And there are lots and lots of people who know *nix out there.
True, they might be more expensive than someone with an MCSE. But the MCSE you'd hire/contract for a migration of this size would be more expensive than the MCSE you'd hire to maintain a site that has already migrated.
Migration specialists cost the same whether they're Microsoft, Linux, Sun or whatever.
Again, not really. The problem is when people do not look at it as a real migration. If you've ever done an Oracle/Sun migration, you'd know the costs involved and the amount of planning. And those are the kind of experts you'd be calling in for a project such as this.
The strange part is how they could spend so much money, so quickly, on so few PC's.
Realistically, they should not have spent 1/20th of that before finding that Microsoft would cut their sales price to come under the Linux figures.
And most of that money would have been spent on identifying all the apps used and which could be ported and for how much.
Linux desktops are cheaper to run than Windows. Particularly if you're using them in a diskless environment.
The HUGE costs are porting the apps or migrating the data to Linux-based apps. This is because most vendors have spent time locking your data up in their proprietary formats in order to make it as expensive as possible for you to dump them.
Which is why migrations such as this are STUPID to rush into.
It makes far more sense to plan them over 5 years. That way, the cost of migrating/porting those apps can be compared to the cost of upgrading them (or migrating anyway when the ISV goes out of business) and the real savings can be seen.
And you can realize the easy savings sooner to off-set the more expensive projects later.
"I have no idea how anyone could spend half a million pounds on 200 desktops, running free software"
Easy! Involve a local government. What with employing 10 x as many union workers and managers as needed; the friend of a counciller getting the hardware contract despite having the highest bid; general local government ineptitude and someone with their hand in the till at every level of the project I'm surprised they didn't spend even more.
And looking at the general direction the comments on this story are going I'd say we have a winner. Another great day for Slashdot ad impressions and another "look at what teh evil Micro$haft did" data point to use in the next flamewar.
Web2.0: I love when people Flickr my cuil and digg my boingboing until my google is reddit and I start to yahoo
Well, I think I'd like to extend what you said. I think that people should start making their own microprocessors. Otherwise, how do they know how they work? We should mandate microprocessor design in public schools. Otherwise, how can you debug your own kernel panics? After that, we need to make sure that people can make their own hard drives. After all, if you don't know where the 0's and 1's go, how can you fix the problems?
I've already done the same for my car. I won't drive one, until I know how it works. Right now, I'm busy growing rubber trees so that I can make my own tires so I can change one myself. I'm pretty excited. Only another 5 years to go, and I'll have enough rubber to make a tire! After that, I have to learn how to mine iron to make steel for the steel belting in the tires. But hey, I'm not ignorant! I figure in another 200-300 years, I should have the know-how needed to drive my car.
Does anybody know how to make a tire stem and valve? I can't put air in my tires until I know how these little bastards work.
Of course this is only news because its a Linux IT project failing. There are so many over-budget, behind-schedule public-sector IT projects involving non-Linux systems that they dont make the headlines any more.
Oh, except the new UK Health Service IT system which has just gone waaaay over budget....
Q: How can windows be cheaper than a free OS?
A: *nix requires real hardware, boatloads of cheap pseudo hardware that offloads all the work to poorly written windows drivers has flooded the market over the years.
I'm not making an "argument" here...
You made an unsupported assertion about what you claim people think. That is an argument.
After 30 minutes my predictions are correct.
Really? Not according to the posts I read in this discussion.
For both my points, take the time to go through the comments posted so far.
I did thanks, I just don't see how they support your assertions.
Now did you have a specific point about what I posted or are you just looking for a scrape?
Here's my point, you're making baseless assertions about "what people think" and are ponderously close to being a troll. You throw around random large numbers and apparently did not bother to read the article being discussed. Just because you say, 'Slashdotters all think this" does not make it so and does not mean there is anything valuable at all in what you've posted. How about instead of generalized jabs at your opinion of the consensus here you try addressing specific posts from someone or *gasp* the article itself.
Training. Do people even get Windows training?
Back in the 3.1 days, my Windows (and MS Office) training involved watching half a dozen VHS videos. Does that still happen? I think not.
Today I had to ZIP some files onto a USB drive because my 40 year old boss didn't know how. He's a lead engineer in charge of a 650 million pound project but things like Zipping a few files together aren't interesting to him. Why should they be?
I work with others in their forties who cannot map network drives, don't understand that you can save shortcuts in your favorites [sic] to absolutely anything, are unable to save email attachments, do not understand that you can drag and drop almost anything anywhere, etc, etc, etc.
I'm not convinced that training for the office working Joe Bloggs is the problem. Joe Bloggs doesn't know how to use Windows to even a moderate standard.
Me? I only use Windows these days because everyone else is using it and I know that is true for many, many people.
This post contains benzene, nitrosamines, formaldehyde and hydrogen cyanide.
Any Government project expands till it exceeds the budget. Therefore the deployment cost of a Linux project simply depends on the size of the available budget. If they budgeted for a total expenditure of $100, then it would have come in at less than $500 for all 1500 machines.
Excuse me, but please get off my Pennisetum Clandestinum, eh!
Okay I followed each and every one of those links. Most did nothing at all to back up your assertion. Of the few that did, one was modded as "funny" and one was modded to 0. I hope you had fun making all those links, but they don't support your opinions as far as I can tell.
Now, let me save you some keyboard lubricant. Go back to my original post, and then read it very carefully. Understand what I said in that post.
Yeah, maybe you need to take some English classes again, because I read your post. You made numerous assertions about the opinions of people here, and no, I don't see how you can claim most of those links support it. Address them specifically if you have a real point.
While it is fun to lay the blame outside of Linux, the community should really be looking at the product provided and working out how to make it deployable for every one of the 6.2bn folks on the planet if it is going to get the pervasive desktop deployment that some seem to be looking for.
I've been using Linux as my primary (and only at home) OS since 1996, and I code on it for a living now.
I know this argument sounds reasonable, that "the community" should put in "more effort" to make Linux pervasive on the desktop, but it hasn't worked this way, and will not.
"The Community," in the guise of various volunteers and companies, (e.g. Ubuntu) have done a lot already, and this pervasive adoption hasn't happened, and it won't.
People will not just use Linux because they don't want to. They don't care. They are not interested. They like Windows because it comes on their computers by default, "everyone else uses it," they didn't see how much it cost, and it looks pretty, even though underneath it's pretty ropey.
"We" (whoever that is) should stop wasting our valuable time casting pearls before swine. OK, that's maybe a bit harsh, but the work has been done now (shiny user-friendly distros and Microsoft-compatible apps), it is up to them to take it if they want it.
What is far more important to me, and I suspect most of "us", is a healthy and diverse hardware and software ecosystem where everyone can play and compete, through open standards so that no one is left out if they don't want to be, and healthy progress can proceed.
"We" do not need Linux (as only one flabour of *nix) to be pervasive, to replace one monoculture with another. It would be better if everyone ran a better OS (i.e. not Windows) but that isn't going to happen.
"We" should be quietly confident and work to improve "our" software, and when any of the Heathens feel ready to convert, we should offer them our patient and friendly support.
If they don't want to convert, respect their decision, whether is is due to ignorance, laziness, fear, legitimate need or personal taste.
There ends my rant for today.
Stick Men
For the life of me I do not understand how each PC could have cost so much. I was the admin for a public library for 25 years. I have installed many hundreds of library public-use PCs. My most recent full-PC installs, on Windows XP, were running about $800 each for brand new fully capable machines complete with per-seat security software of various kinds (the public is REALLY hard on machines) such as Centurion Guard and Fortres. Just before I left I installed thin clients which were running about $400 per seat (including the servers).
I realize lots of folks here see this as a Linux vs Windows issue. It's really not. The OS in this equation just isn't that much. The issue is total cost of installed base: dollars (pounds) spent divided by number of machines. These were 2500 POUNDS! That's got to be something like $4700 per machine.
Somebody screwed up.
How about a moderation of -1 pedantic.
The councils in the UK are notorious for employing the unemployable. Really. I am surprised it didn't cost twice as much. Let's look at where some of the money probably went:
1. 3 people employed instead of one, so the council can claim it is filling it's job share quota
2. Overpriced training for everyone - who cares if they didn't need the training, there is a training quota to meet
3. Never estimate how dumb some of these staff are - a task that should and would take an average IT person 1 week, most likely took 1 month
4. Meetings, political awareness, and general laziness generally win out
Overall, not a great picture. I experienced first hand the horrors of working for a council IT department, having come from the private sector. I was very glad to return to the private sector as fast as possible.
Remember - how many council IT staff does it take to correctly install Linux? No one knows, it hasn't been done yet!
What!?! You've never hired people familiar with the platform you're deploying to deploy it?
...Because they decided to stop paying both the experienced planners and the support company.
How often do you see an ad like "Wanted: Systems installer for large Windows deployment. Must have five years experience deploying Windows Vista"?
Perhaps they believed that Linux was free, and they didn't need pay for it?
This is why. Sit there for a moment and consider just what exactly is "Total Cost of Ownership"? In a nutshell it is hardware+software+training+support. You will always have the same formula be it Windows or Linux. So let's break it down...
Windows:
Hardware: $$$$ (As needed to support new OS)
Software: $$$$ (Yearly license fees)
Training: $$$$ (As you add new people. If you are going to save it may be here since Microsoft's dominant position in the market make it feasible that employees already know the system)
Support: $$$$ (Yearly or on an "as needed" basis)
Linux:
Hardware: $$$$ (As needed to support OS but older hardware will work and in fact may work better than newer hardware)
Software: ---- (No cost at all if you stay solely FOSS)
Training: $$$$ (As you add new people. Here is where the cost may go up)
Support: $$$$ (Yearly for the first few years then "As needed" basis. Cost can be high here to start but should go down as you progress)
So you see, right from the start you have a savings in Linux. The only way to save with Microsoft is if they "cheat" and undercut on their license fees. The assumption (often wrong) that is made in the Windows TCO studies is that training costs will be low since "everyone is likely to know Windows" already. It would be interesting to follow a large organization as they deploy Vista. By that I mean follow the TCO from day one. That will give you a huge clue on the true TCO.
B.
This is a sig. This is only a sig. Had this been an actual sig you would have been informed where to tune for more sigs.