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How Do I Start a University Transition To Open Source?
exmoron writes "I work at a small university (5,500 students) and am in a position to potentially influence future software purchasing decisions. I use a number of FOSS solutions at home (OpenOffice.org, Zotero, GIMP, VirtualBox). My university, on the other hand, is a Microsoft and proprietary software groupie (Vista boxes running MS Office 2007, Exchange email server, Endnote, Photoshop, Blackboard, etc.). I'd like to make an argument that going open source would save the university money and think through a gradual transition process to open source software (starting small, with something like replacing Endnote with Zotero, then MS Office with OpenOffice.org, and so on). Unfortunately, I can't find very good information online on site licenses for proprietary software. How much does a site-license for Endnote cost? What about a site license for MS Office for 2,000 computers? In short, what's the skinny on moving to open source? How much money could a university like mine save? Additionally, what other benefits are there to moving to open source that I could try to sell the university on? And what are the drawbacks (other than people whining about change)?"
Bes
http://osor.eu/case_studies/declaration-of-independence-the-limux-project-in-munich
Nah, too political and the political process takes too long.
No, what you have to do is the following:
1. Shoot all Windows admins. I know, it sounds brutal but trust me, it'll be better for everyone on the long run. It's no more than what they deserve after all. I mean, they freely chose to support the Evil Empire.
2. Send all the brainwashed Windows users to the appropriate re-education camp to have them deprogrammed. Now, some might say that this is no better than what Microsoft has done all these years, and I'd agree, but sometimes you have to fight fire with fire.
3. Send in the LPTs (Linux Proselytization Teams) to spread the Word amongst all those who didn't get the message the first time around. After all, there are always some for whom the deprogramming process doesn't work perfectly, or who managed to escape the initial roundup. It's necessary to root them out so they can be given proper guidance. Really, it's for their own good.
This may be hard for some of you stomach, I understand, but just think how free we'll all feel when Microsoft is gone forever.
The higher the technology, the sharper that two-edged sword.
4. Finally, the year of Linux on the desktop will be known as 'Year Zero'.
Loose lips lose spit.
Nietzsche started the "Soviet Russia" meme?
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
I think this is the problem with the Ask Slashdot Question.
This is how I read it: "Dear Slashdot. I don't use Word, Excel, Photoshop or any other proprietary software in my day to day work. But on the occasion that I need to crop a photo or graph a single column of data OSS seems to be just as good as the software I never use. How do I switch everyone else out despite their obviously ignorant desire to be held captive by giant evil corporations?"
The answer might be: "Dear Slashdot Questioner. Before you try and pry the closed source software out of your user's hands... perhaps you should remember that you're just an IT help monkey and might not be the best person to evaluate the merits of Open Office Calc vs Excel for the business department. You might not be able to judge the various merits of Photoshop and Gimp in the graphic design department. Or you might be completely clueless as to the relative value of Blender vs 3dsmax and Maya. Please leave tool selection to the various department heads. And we'll leave your decision between a Cisco router and a Netgear router to you.
Cordially,
The Educational Faculty.
P.S. We know where you live.
"