Slashdot Mirror
A Public Funded "Microsoft Shop?"
An anonymous reader writes "I work at a public hospital in the computer / technical department and (amongst others) was recently outraged by an email that was sent around our department: '(XXXX) District Health Board — Information Services is strategically a Microsoft shop and when talking to staff / customers we are to support this strategy. I no longer want to see comments promoting other Operating Systems.' We have also been told to remove Firefox found on anyone's computer unless they have specific authorisation from management to have it installed under special circumstances. Now, I could somewhat understand this if I was working in a company that sold and promoted the use of Microsoft software for financial gain, but I work in the publicly / government funded health system. Several of the IT big-wigs at the DHB are seemingly blindly pro-Microsoft and seem all too quick to shrug off other, perhaps more efficient alternatives. As a taxpayer, I want nothing more than to see our health systems improve and run more efficiently. I am not foolish enough to say all our problems would be solved overnight by changing away from Microsoft's infrastructure, but I am convinced that if we took less than half the money we spend on licensing Microsoft's software alone and invested that in training users for an open source system, we would be far better off in the long run. I would very much like to hear Slashdot's ideas / opinions on this 'Strategic Direction' and the silencing of our technical opinions."
He just wants us to have more sick people so he can heal them with his glowing palms.
It's entirely possible that your hospital signed a deal with Microsoft...by exclusively using their products, they would get a discount.
It certainly wouldn't be the first time...
Living With a Nerd
Adoption stories and influences :-)
by eldavojohn (898314)"Every so often I see an adoption story about so-and-so taking up some open source solution and sometimes I think 'Wow, French government? Now it's really going to take off. This is it. It's time.' And then I wait. And wait. Are these stories at all positive for the project? I mean, you would think with states and governments using Ubuntu or Red Hat that it would catch on like wildfire if the savings are there so why isn't that happening? I know Microsoft sends out a lot of Wormtongues to stick in the ears of important people. Do you plan on targeting governments in a similar manner? Does/will Canonical work on making a presence in things like the EU Commissions where we've seen corporations collecting members in their pockets?"
Matt: No, we have no plans to turn Wormtongue. We do, however, have aspirations to play Frodo.
Ultimately, governments (good ones, anyway) are established to reflect the voice of their citizens. At Canonical, we believe that real, lasting change happens from the bottom up, as citizens within government and IT and those served by it clamor for change. We try to help this along by working with government organizations, including open source-friendly lobbying groups, to promote free markets and expanded choice through free and open-source software, but I personally believe that individuals will make the difference.
Change can be expensive, whether in terms of cost or bother, and so as individuals or organizations we generally try to avoid it. But people are now starting to feel enough pain - be it software costs, inefficient use of hardware, viruses and other malware, etc. - that Linux and open-source software, generally, are getting plenty of attention. The cure, in other words, now outweighs the effort of applying it. Yes, Microsoft will do its part to thwart this progress,but even so I've seen broad and ever-increasing government adoption of open source. It's just that most of it doesn't get reported.
Don't lose heart and, in particular, don't lose "voice." We're being heard. The worst thing we could do is to slacken our pace now.
Basically seems to be the answer I constantly get. "No, we're not sinking to that level. If we had that money there are a lot more productive things to spend it on."
And they're basically right. People should use open source because they choose it. Not because someone told them to. When the change comes from within and is organic, then it stays and prospers and grows.
I would not recommend that you make this suggestion to your boss unless your job is one resembling Chief of IT at your job. A public hospital really isn't a great place to experiment with open source. If you feel a need to be vocal about this just wait until IE becomes a pain due to a virus or zero day exploit and suggest Firefox as a slightly safer alternative. If you want to discuss other operating systems, you're probably best off looking for other parts of your city's public works that use Linux and asking your IT guys why your counterparts found it so successful. Or point out that if it's good enough for the DoD to use, surely it's good enough for a public hospital. I don't know what kind of scheduling and patient programs you guys are running that might only work in Microsoft. Yes, MS Exchange is a problem without a great complete open source replacement. I don't know your details. But the last thing open source needs is "John Smith died because MS Exchange stopped working on his doctor's computer. The culprit?
My work here is dung.
Look, I'm not much of a MS fan either, but I just don't see what it is you really want.
This is the sort of thing that should be raised with your senator or congressman. Assuming they're not in the pocket of MS already. People need to get governments round to the idea that open source is good for them. In Europe we're a bit more keen to run with such strategies and I would imagine someone ending up fired for that sort of email.
jaymz
If the hospital is tax payer funded, then you have every right as a taxpayer to take this memo to the board.
I would suggest that you gather a number of like minded taxpayers (and voters) and make a visit to the board to explain your stance.
You might want to do some research and find that your IT director got a free beer (golf trip) out of this. Fodder for the meeting.
machinator omnis sine licentia
also have reason to prevent scope creep to contain support costs. Firefox may well be easier to support than IE, but IE alone will be easier to support than IE+FF.
Nullius in verba
It's entirely possible they have a good (depending on viewpoint) reason for this beyond your implication of shilling for MS.
I find myself in similar situations every day, where I see a lot of inefficient and wasteful decisions and policies.
The thing is, you have to choose your battles. Ask yourself a brutally realistic question: Do you think you can make a difference? Is there any chance at all that you could change someone's mind about this?
The bad news is, probably not. And if you're not willing to work hard for it, you're really better off just sucking it up and going along with it, no matter how brainless the edicts are. Play it safe, keep your job, don't make waves.
The good news is, if you are willing to pitch this battle, if you are willing to work hard, putting together the necessary information and documentation in such a way to actually demonstrate to the powers-that-be that there is a Better Way, possibly even volunteering to take on a huge chunk of the work yourself, and do your damned best to ensure that your bosses look really good in the process, that you can not only get what you want, but you can look really good in a highly visible way in the process. That's how to get promoted into places where you're not just fighting these battles, but actually making the decisions.
Or you may get fired because someone can't handle you disagreeing with them, no matter how stupid they're being. That's the gamble, the risk versus reward. I can't tell you which path to take, because I don't know all of the politics of your particular situation, but I hope it all turns out well, no matter which road you go down.
>> I would very much like to hear Slashdot's ideas / opinions on this 'Strategic Direction' and the silencing of our technical opinions."
Let see, this is slashdot.
What do we have here:
Bossy overlords
Bossy overlords against Free Software
Bossy overlords against Free Software and Pro Microsoft
Bossy overlords against Free Software, Pro Microsoft, and wasting public funds
Bossy overlords against Free Software, Pro Microsoft, and wasting public funds
The underdog who wants to challenge the Bossy overlords against Free Software, Pro Microsoft, and wasting public funds
The underdog who wants to challenge the Bossy overlords against Free Software, Pro Microsoft, and wasting public funds, and censoring the underdog
Multiple choice opinions:
1. "Just do your job!"
2. "We hate Microsoft!"
3. "You da Man!"
4. "Profit!"
In large scale companies or departments - everyone using the wrong thing is more efficient that everyone using a different thing. Standard operating environments can suck ... but in the end save money.
EMail: 0110001101100010010000000110001101110010 0110000101111010011011100110000101110010 0010111001100011011011110110
Yes it would cost less in the long run, but in the short to medium term they'll be running around like headless chickens outside their comfort zone (sorry for the mixed metaphors).
For right now: If these guys are 'strategically' a Microsoft shop, then there's little you can do at your pay grade. Suck it up or leave.
And as much as I hate being tied to IE, I (putting my IT manager hat on) can see why I wouldn't want an unsupported browser on my network. And Mozilla doesn't make it easy to deploy Firefox across an enterprise (no group policy, no MSI -- I know about 3rd party tools but those don't really count)
And who knows, maybe your bosses are the nasty types who see the fact that IE performs poorly on modern websites as a 'feature'.
Go somewhere random
The command line is a fine interface, and if you're not a jackass, it's much quicker than hunting through any set of menus.
It seems to be a clear case of management by magazine, or management influenced by some free launch event. Make proper recommendations. Respectfully document your objections while providing alternatives. Then, in a few years, when the company is facing public scrutiny for being a financial failure, someone will come across your correspondance and you'll have the unique satisfaction of being able to say "I told 'em so."
I use irony whenever I can, but my shirts are still wrinkled...
You're speaking of "efficiency". I assume you're speaking of FireFox as an example. But there's is nothing more efficient about an IT organization supporting more than one tool for the same purpose, based on the preference of a user (or an admin). If you can lay out how a company or IT organization would improve efficiency by supporting FireFox, along side IE (because you MUST support IE since many 3rd party apps use the IE engine embedded), I'd love to see it. I might even elect you to office.
it is funny you say that... Efficiency.
Open Source is great and it has its place in the world, but if you are looking for an efficient work place where IT only has one set tools to maintain and support, then mixing your OS's, software, browsers, etc., it not the way to go.
I work at Government Lab and I am in charge of a number of Enterprise Level systems. While Mac and Linux are used exclusively in my personal life and home business, Windows is what is used at the office. Not because of my love for Microsoft, but because we can globally control the desktops, the applications used on the desktops, who has access to the systems, etc. It makes our lives easier and we are more efficient at our jobs. Need all 2000 desktops patched? Fire up SMS and have it installed tonight. Need to yank access for a terminated employee? Disable their account in AD and their access to the Domain and email are now gone. Is it perfect? HELL NO! But it is a lot easier than when we had to support the minority systems of 5 flavors of Linux and 3 Mac OS's along side the Windows desktops.
As an IT Director (who came up through a 17 year career as an IT support person), I'm increasingly frustrated by IT admins who just don't see the big picture.
Using the Firefox example:
YES, it is absolutely true that Firefox is superior to IE on a user-by-user basis, in 90% of the cases.
YES, most exploits are written to take advantage of IE (or, rather, its various bloat that accumulates).
NO, the corporate management tools for Firefox are in no way comparable to what is commercially available to IE.
Without question, a *current* version of IE which is *properly patched* is superior (security-wise) to a 6 month old, unpatched version of Firefox.
I'm able to control my IE deployments down to a microscopic level, all from a single scree (and tied in to many of my other deployed applications). I'm not able to do that with Firefox. I'll gut it out and take my chances with the IE that I can control (including to blackhole communications at a moments notice if there's a problem), rather than Firefox which I cannot.
The first 8 years of my life were spend as a CAD systems admin (Unix systems). I run Squid. I love open source. But don't even begin to tell me that because you're looking at "what browser is superior for Joe's computer" that you can plan a corporate infrastructure.
And hacking into the registry isn't complicated? Trying to sort through the bizarre and dizzying array of options, often thrown in the most obtuse places, in the Exchange System Manager isn't?
Computers are complex things. A good IT guy shouldn't have his ass chained to any one system. Only lazy or inept IT people get cold shivers at seeing a text login.
I'm not going to say anything in particular about this situation. Obviously management controls the show, and if they're pro-Microsoft, you've got two choices, do what you're told or get another job. But in general, anyone who thinks Microsoft's offerings are really that much easier than *nix must have horseshoes up his ass.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
There is nothing "experimental" about open source in hospitals. There are several HIS and hospital management open source solutions that are quite good, throw in some open office in the mix and you have a very cheaply run hospital.
NO SIG
Do your job. Do it well. Advance. Get into a position of influence and authority. Change the policies.
:)
This isn't a war worth waging. You have to ask yourself if this is something worth losing your job over because that is what is possible if you stir things up. Sure, they may not fire you for "recommending non-Microsoft software" but, if you piss off and annoy enough people (or just the wrong person), they'll find a reason to let you go ("not being a team player", for example).
There are things worth stirring the pot over but this just isn't one of them. I agree with your general stance - government agencies being locked into Microsoft strikes me as a very bad idea - but it's not worth the fight. Just do your job and do it well, get promoted into a position of influence, and try to change policy when you're in a position to do so. Until then, pick your battles.
And, if you knew me, you'd find it hysterical that _I_ am suggesting not starting a fight over something...
If you go to your CIO saying "if we took less than half the money we spend on licensing Microsoft's software alone and invested that in training users for an open source system, we would be far better off in the long run" you will be ignored. Rip and replace never goes as smoothly as the pamphlets promise. Fine one application with measurable improvements over your existing system and make an ROI case for that one small change. Earn the credibility by being sympathetic to your CIO or IT Director's objectives.
As a front-lines IT grunt, it's your job to implement policy. It isn't your job to mouth off about it throughout the company outside your management chain to try and get it changed. That would be insubordination.
Feel more than welcome to complain internally within your group. But when talking to customers (end customers, and the other, non-IT staff in the organization) it is reasonable to expect you, employee (in your capacity as such), not to publicly disparage the policies of your employer. It's not professional, and I'm pretty sure it's sufficient grounds to fire you unless you are protected from such by some other arrangement (civil service laws, union, etc.)
You can talk to whatever legislative body pays the bills and ask them to encourage open source, you can talk to the media as a private citizen, you can do a lot of things. But you can't necessarily do those things at work, and you can't do them in your capacity as an employee. This goes for any employer.
SirWired
It's still an IT shop. If I had made choices in my job (which I run a large section of IT where I am so I do) and some young dude was going around undermining my decisions (like say telling the customers how my choices suck and there's better stuff out there) I might send an email like that as well.
Not everyone agrees with everyone. But there is still a food-chain at most jobs. And you might not agree with management, but it doesn't give you the right to undermine them either. Not saying that happened here, but it looks like a good possibility.
Are you saying that this linux can run on a computer without windows underneath it, at all ? As in, without a boot disk, without any drivers, and without any services ? That sounds preposterous to me. If it were true (and I doubt it), then companies would be selling computers without a windows. This clearly is not happening, so there must be some error in your calculations. I hope you realise that windows is more than just Office ? Its a whole system that runs the computer from start to finish, and that is a very difficult thing to acheive. A lot of people dont realise this. Microsoft just spent $9 billion and many years to create Vista, so it does not sound reasonable that some new alternative could just snap into existence overnight like that. It would take billions of dollars and a massive effort to achieve. IBM tried, and spent a huge amount of money developing OS/2 but could never keep up with Windows. Apple tried to create their own system for years, but finally gave up recently and moved to Intel and Microsoft. Its just not possible that a freeware like the Linux could be extended to the point where it runs the entire computer fron start to finish, without using some of the more critical parts of windows. Not possible. I think you need to re-examine your assumptions.
Interesting comparison you make:
>> The command line is a fine interface, and if you're not a jackass, it's much quicker than hunting through any set of menus.
However, you're comparing someone that has memorized all the command line commands, syntaxes, and switches to someone that has no idea where in the menus each option is. "hunting" through the menus isn't necessary if you have even a basic understanding of their layout. However, without a thorough understanding of the command line, there's no hope in hell of being able to use it at ALL.
Don't get me wrong - I love the command line... but your statement is not even close to being realistic.
I used to have a sig, but I set it free and it never came back.
I've worked IT for a health organization before. They're probably mandating this because whatever they've implemented to comply with HIPAA and/or other regulations is dependent on AD and Group Policy. I can tell you from experience that if you're operating on a limited budget and are already running and AD/Exchange environment, you don't have to spend any extra money to become HIPAA compliant. However, that does lock you in to using MS products, since they're the only ones (easily) supported by GP. Could other operating systems and software be introduced and still be compliant? Of course, but that would add administrative overhead supporting and auditing those systems and applications that fall outside control of your AD/GP domain.
Never start vast projects with half-vast ideas.
You know, I'm a long time Linux SysAdmin. I like to have both a Windows and Linux machine around. Each has it's purposes. On Linux I can do real work. On Windows, I can play video games. ;)
I ended up getting a nasty virus on WinXP a few months ago. I continued using Linux.
I got a copy of Win7, and was entertained by it. I actually kinda liked the pretty of it. ooohhh.. aaaahhhh. Glad it wasn't me spending the money. I ran into hardware compatibility issues. The video drive that worked for two months suddenly caused blue screens after about 5 minutes. Something else fatal happened, where it just blue screens during bootup. The only solutions I've found where to reinstall. But, I have games on there, that I don't want to reinstall. Oh well. Now it blue screens during the install. The only references to this one I found were that the install media has a fault. {sigh} I guess I have to go to the store and buy a new copy if I want it to work.
I threw another drive in there, and am running under Linux very happily. It installed quickly (like, way faster than XP, Vista, or Win7 do). All my devices worked right out of the box. The only real configuration I had to do was to set up Xorg (xorgsetup [enter][enter][enter]).
The people who whine about how bad Linux is, or how hard it is to work, are the folks who have never just sat down and tried it.
I've had a few people come by. They want to use my computer for something. I point at the Firefox link at the bottom and tell them to have at it.
Under Linux, I'll have Firefox or Chromium (or both) up, and several xterms.
Under Windows, I'll have Firefox or Chrome (or both) up, and several putty windows.
For average Joe User, there's no big difference between the two, except you can't play your video games. I know, some work under Wine, but for me I still consider that the only drawback. Since I spend about 3 hours a year playing video games, I can find that outlet elsewhere.
Now, for the topic at hand ... who cares. So the guy in charge wants his shop MS. That's his problem. Maybe he likes his Windows. Maybe he's just annoyed because there's some subversive zealot changing the way his shop works. If he's in charge, those decisions are his to make. There may be good reasons those decisions were made. Maybe he uses AD to manage all his machines, and it automatically updates and continues to make sure things work right. Hey, sometimes that works. For some reason, he gets paid the big bucks there, so he can make the calls. If he wanted an all OpenBSD shop, with Links as the only browser, and Pine as the only mail client, so be it.
Serious? Seriousness is well above my pay grade.
touche'
:)
I should have been a little more even-handed with my reply - no doubt.
But the point being that I have spoken to IT directors and we discuss "open-source" options etc and the first thing I hear from them is "our budget was just locked down, we have NO MONEY... " And then they write a big check to Microsoft for their CALS and server licenses, never thinking that they actually CAN save $ in a lot of areas if they would give up their blind allegiance to Microsoft.
It gets old ofter a while. That's all. Especially since there are options.
Windows is not the answer.
Windows is the question.
The answer is "NO."
"As a taxpayer, I want nothing more than to see our health systems improve and run more efficiently. I am not foolish enough to say all our problems would be solved overnight by changing away from Microsoft's infrastructure, but I am convinced that if we took less than half the money we spend on licensing Microsoft's software alone and invested that in training users for an open source system, we would be far better off in the long run."
Sure. Take your decision right to your boss, just like that. And he'll say, "Exactly how did you arrive at your estimate of 'less than half', what's your measuring criteria for 'far better off', how long is 'the long run', and what training makes this magically appear?"
At that point you'll probably stammer something like, "Open source good - Microsoft bad! Nerd SMASH!" and then your boss gets to push the button that opens the trap door beneath you.
WTF are you talking about? Even some Microsoft KB articles tell you to enter the registry.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
I would have to say, that the cost of off the shelf software has very little to do with the cost of running a hospital. A copy of MS Office professional costs $400 on Amazon. Windows 7 Ultimate costs $300. That's nothing compared to the cost of the actual people working in the hospital. Or if you compare it to the cost of medical supplies. They probably spend more on latex gloves per year than they spend on off the shelf software like Windows and Office. Most of the expenses are specialty machines, tools and software.
Anthropic principle: We see the universe the way it is because if it were different we would not be here to see it.
Doesn't make it OK to sabotage your workplace by encouraging open IT revolt. Honestly I don't know why so many MS haters feel like whatever they do there actions are appropriate as long as it's anti-MS. You fail to show us if you have any understanding at all of why MS is being used, or why you would think something else would be better overall. I know all the complaints about MS products, but honestly they are just a very few of the thousands of factors that need to be taken into account when buying software for a large business. I am in no way saying here that there are not better products to do the jobs you do than the MS products you are using. However the only thing you really tell us here is that you hate MS and find it upsetting that your Bosses what you to do what they tell you. If you think there should be a change in policy and have some legitimate reasons why perhaps you should put them on paper and talk to your bosses. Don't be surprised when your bosses have legitimate reasons for wanting to stay with what they have. Planning IT for a large org is more complicated than you might think.
The command line is a fine interface. Graphical interfaces are fine too. Haven't we all learned by now that there isn't one UI that is absolutely superior to all others, but rather it depends on the user, what the user is trying to accomplish, and the context?
Though I was working in a private high school, there were a lot of factors that came into the ultimate decision to switch the entire system from Novell NetWare + SuSE (for backend services) + Windows to an entire Windows shop. For one, there were a lot of high powered donors who we couldn't really question, since some of them really WERE shills for Microsoft and basically gave us free licenses for all of our server operating systems. Second, we brought in consultants, including a consulting project manager who was playing it safe (he was also heavily promoting Microsoft and proprietary products over anything else we could draft up as a solution; I kept hearing "best practices" when talking about Microsoft products, and "not best practice" for any OSS software.) Third, I was the sole person in the department (out of four) who was comfortable with the UNIX command line interface. Finally, fourth, I had a direct superior who had just taken over as IT Director and didn't want to rock the boat too much.
I riled a lot of people up before I left, and I admit, I fucked up in my politicking. After fighting with the project manager (and on a much smaller level, with my direct boss), I was able to get a grand total of two FreeBSD boxes and one Debian backup box (out of twenty servers.) When I decided to leave, the fate of all three were in question, despite them providing internal services that we simply didn't have (network/host monitoring, centralized syslog, backup.)
I tried to suck it up, though what ultimately made me leave was the irrationality of possibly dismantling services for no reason other than the fact that other people didn't understand UNIX (I made the business case of all three servers and didn't implement them simply because they were FOSS.)
So I think you have three options:
1) Play it safe.
2) Try to rock the boat and see how far you get.
3) Leave ASAP.
"Hegelians, who love a synthesis, will probably conclude that he wears a wig." - Bertrand Russell
I can almost relate with this point of view.
I work for a Los Angeles County public facility, with a total of 2 IT staff, supporting 400-500 employees at 3 sites. Yes... thats TWO. there are no other technically educated employees here. This is almost an impossible scenario to function in, but its all made possible.. by microsoft.
Active Directory pulling everything together, users/servers, as well as high end utilities that let us deploy to users with ease and 5mins of training (or packet shape, or fine control group policies). Not to mention the availability and low cost to hire temporary contractors that support MS OS's.
It does get on my nerves when the mac monkeys or linux lovers promote other OS's that dont even begin to meet the functionality and versatility that Microsoft has made possible. Macs are pretty, i get it... leave em at home. Linux.. i know.. its super stable... leave it at home.
Just have to accept that in some business environments, working smarter and easier is far greater than a pretty computer case, or open source that requires training by IT staff you dont have to spare.
There is a considerable difference between fucking around on a home installation and actually making production servers. I mean, at home, I'll happily try things in both in any OS install that I wouldn't even dream of doing on a production server.
Put it this way. I've been running a Debian webserver and Debian STMP proxy/gateway server on the same install for the better part of two years. They started out as standalone servers, and I transferred them over to KVM guests under an Ubuntu server (which itself has been up for about eleven months now). These servers are treated like any production server should be, conservatively. I don't just run around installing any old damned package, mucking around with custom-compiled modules or any of that. That's what test servers are for (and also what makes virtualization so great, I can create an image, screw it up to my hearts content, and then restore the backup). And Windows certainly is no proof against FUBARs. I've seen Windows machines, even servers, that were just gawdawful frightening disaster areas, to the point where I recommended reinstallation rather than trying to clean up what had been done to them.
There is a considerable difference between "Linux on the desktop" and "Linux in the server room". Linux on the desktop can be a pain (though so can Windows, I know, I administrate dozens of the things), but in the server room, it has a healthy heritage of nearly forty years. Server software like Samba and Apache have most certainly stood the test of time and use. But production servers require patience and most importantly discipline. I've seen too many "tech savvy" guys fuck things up horribly because the one thing they don't have is the cautious mindset. They treat production equipment like their home computer.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
Windows NT/2K/XP/Vista/7?
Com/ActiveX/.net
Need I go on?
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
Back a couple of years ago, I was IT coordinator at a public school district. At the time, we were aggressively rolling out new computers, and we had a mixed environment of Macs and PCs. I had always used Open Source software on my personal computer, and on my office computers at work. Being a poorly-funded school district, which had just spent a considerable ammount of our budget on the new machines, I advocated the use of Free Open Source software as a way to bring functionality to the users while keeping costs down. Prior to this, I had been making sure OpenOffice.org was installed on all of our machines, alongside MS Office (even though we didn't have enough licenses for MS Office as it was, Management told me to "shut up and install it anyway, not like they are going to audit our little district"). I started a pilot project in the Elementary school where I only made available OpenOffice on computer lab machines, and provided teachers with basic training on how to use it. It worked fine, and there were few complaints. I did this with approval from Administration. After a successful school year running an OpenOffice-only Elementary school, I decided that I had sufficient data, cost/benefit analysis, etc, to make the push to do the same at the High School. I was given go-ahead from the Administration to make both Office suites available, and to encourage use of OpenOffice. I did not anticipate what would happen next... students and teachers started to complain about the new Office software, and that the district was being "cheap" and that "no one in the real world uses OpenOffice". Despite me pointing out the advantages of the new software, and pointing out other instances of Governments and Businesses using the software, it didn't matter. I was even providing free CDs with the OpenOffice software on it for students to take home and install, and there were several students who were grateful for this. It increased their ability to do homework - at home! Alas despite my best efforts, with the best interests of the students and taxpayers in mind, the Administration reversed their decision. They announced that starting immediately, we would only be using Microsoft Office software, and that they would be diverting funds to purchase enough licenses to install it on every computer in the whole district, including our successful Elementary school implementation. I protested that this was a waste of funds, especially in the Elementary school, where we had no problems, and that it wouldn't be good for the users there to change ships in the middle of the school year. So I was told that I was to immediately begin installing Office 2007 on all district computers, and removing any OpenOffice software. Guess what? A few weeks later I was fired. My grounds for dismissal? Insubordination. Installing un-approved OpenOffice software on district computers. Failure to remove OpenOffice software from district computers. I protested and said that I didn't have enough time to make the requested changes, as we have over 500 computers, and I'm the sole IT person. I explained that I have to make new computer images, and test, and deploy those images, and that can't be done overnight (although I usually did my ghosting overnight when no one was there /pun). Alas, they wanted me out of the door, because I dared to think differently, and because "the Open Source software you installed was not good for the school."
And the funny thing is, this is the same Administration that adopted an official policy (with little input from me) that all school computers must run Firefox. To this day at that school, users aren't allowed to run IE. At all. I believe that started from people complaining that our Google Apps and Google Email systems didn't work well with IE. No one complains about Firefox, everyone loves it, and that seems to be what drives the school board. They don't respond well to people complaining, and unfortunately, the people complaining about the OpenOffice software were outnumbering the people co
Browser add-ons routinely break
You need browser add-ons to correctly run your "critical" applications? You need different applications. One of the largest points of moving business applications to web interfaces is that the interface is standardized. That is, your web apps should run in IE, Firefox, Opera, etc. etc., because all these apps follow the same published standards. (BTW "Microsoft" is not a standard.) If an app does not follow these standards, you don't buy it, and that is what saves you headache down the road.
I have to agree strongly with this last part. 'build a pilot operation at home'.
Back many years ago I worked for a company that was a Microsoft shop. We built networks, apps, websites all using MS products.
I started using linux at home and after a few months of working on it came in telling them that this linux stuff was really stable. The answer was always 'No, No , No We can only trust MS'. I'd go away and come back and tell them you know this MySQL stuff is fast, you know I mimicked that last app we had and I got twice as many transactions per minute vs SQL Server. 'No, No, No, we can only trust MS and Oracle'. I'd go away and come back and tell them you know this PHP and perl stuff works really well. I redid our latest app using PHP and perl and it works just fine, maybe we should take a look at this Apache on linux thing 'No, No, No we can only trust MS IIS '. So I went away.
Then one week a patch came out and screwed up a app that was written in VB. Then the following week we were hit with a storm of viruses. Then we had to pull developers off of projects to help the guys who did maintenance. Then there was the realization that network admin and developers have a completely different skill set. But this went on patches breaking things and worms and viruses. After about 2 months of this everyone was tired and I was being asked about this linux stuff and open source solutions.
After 3 months of testing and a lot of hard work, we had moved all new development over to linux and all of our codebase was being tested on ASP on linux. First the IIS servers went , then the SQL Server, then the PDC servers and we became a linux house. We lost some people who just couldn't do without their MS shiny baubles and always wanted to return to those days. Including my boss. Guess who became the head of IT. Yep, and don't think I don't know that there are technicians who go home and practice with their AD server every night. (I've been known to do that also). But in these last few years we have sales people call trying to sell us stuff and they are always incredulous that we have no MS Servers. I keep waiting for the day when a sales rep won't be shocked to find that out.
But anyway you have to work with the internals to learn it. Just to give you an idea, I don't hire people because they have updated there home desktop to the latest version of Ubuntu or Fedora for the last 2 years. Red Hat or Canonical may hire you, but good luck with that.
The cost of purchasing MS software is trivial in your budget I assure you. It may seem like a lot of money, but the salaries of the people using the MS software probably eclipse your entire software budget in less than 2 weeks. The cost is nothing.
Training is not just a financial cost, this is a ignorant view point and shows very little connection with the reality that is the job of those people you support.
Open source will likely cost more overall. You'll have more difficulty integrating with proprietary systems in use, because those private systems have no urge to deal with Linux, its not worth their effort to hit a target that moves daily. Then you have to deal with all the incompatibilities of whatever other OSS supporting software you add in, like OO.org and how those documents deal with other organizations the hospital has to deal with. You'll lose more the first year in time because of people sending documents in the wrong document format (OO native instead of MS compatible) than you'll save on the price of Office.
The problem with your post is typical with the FLOSS community. The problem is the misconception that the cost of purchasing software is the expensive part. You couldnt' be more wrong. Software cost is in day to day operations and maintenance, which FLOSS offers no advantages to and several disadvantages. You can argue that 'fast patching' is an advantage, but to most IT departments its not. Its FAR more difficult to deal with breakage from randomly updated packages for your distro than once a month patch tuesdays. Any sane IT department isn't tracking patches as they come out anyway, they're going to QA them in their environment first, so they are going to establish some sort of schedule for this sort of thing thats effectively going to put them on a once a month or less often cycle anyway. FLOSS offers the promise of open access to your data, but no one cares how open it is from a technical point of view if every time they send it to someone else, the other people can't view it. It is in fact for all intents and purposes less open with OO.org in native format than DOCX as far as the normal user is concerned.
Training people to switch from Windows to Linux is not as cheap as you think, you can't just send them to a couple classes and everything will be dandy and they'll be just as productive as they always were. They won't, it will take years for them to return to that level of productivity ... because ... they've been using the system they already use for years. You can't replace it and expect to return to the same level of productivity any time soon. And regardless of how much you think each version of windows or office is different than the past versions, the switch to something like Linux/KDE or Gnome and OO.org are FAR FAR greater transitions than going from Office 95 to 2007, you just don't realize it because you're constantly dealing with software that is unlike the rest of the software on the system ... Linux users are used to no consistency. These users work with Windows and Office everyday on their own, at home. They know how Windows works for them and the subtle differences are the ones that waste most of the time. The obvious difference people get used to quickly, the little quirks that you respond to subconsciously take YEARS to retrain yourself for.
The cost for YOU to switch to Linux from MS software may be less since you already use both. The cost for your desk workers who do not work on computers as their primary job function on the other hand is much much higher and you're ignoring it completely.
You might want to consider that those people making the choices above you might ... maybe ... have just a little more experience managing than you do. I realize this is hard to see from your perspective and you may think they are morons but they have a different view of the organization than you do and are privy to a lot of information to whi
Persistent Volume manager for Kubernetes - https://github.com/dwimsey/openshift-pvmanager
The registry, which you shouldn't even have to touch anymore, seems obtuse until you start looking at some of the horrendous conf files scattered across the linux file system.
Given that each conf file generally comes with comments (more than you can say for the Registry), and is easily and trivially searchable (it's just text, and much quicker to run a fulltext search on than the Registry), I don't see what your problem is.
I'm not going to say that every conf file is perfect, and it's possible I just don't know, but...
There's a reason they're plaintext, and there's a reason that's better. I can write a sed script to edit a config file, I can do it quickly, and I can then distribute that to however many Linux machines I have. I can also write a script to generate a conf file, and build that into my deploy script. I can back up any particular config file, or the entire /etc hierarchy, using standard backup tools, because they're just files -- I can even stick them into version control.
I'm sure Windows can do some of that, but think about it. Does your server configuration fit in version control? Can you check out a copy of your application and, with a single command, bring up and configure a VPS to run it? Can you develop that script in less than a day, let alone the few hours it takes me?
Windows is probably easier to admin at a small scale, on the order of a fileserver here, a printserver there -- but then, at that scale, you set up Linux once and it pretty much just runs, which is why you can buy NAS devices which do all that for you. At a large scale, certainly once you get to thousands of boxes, I think any Unix has advantages over Windows, and you can see it in real-world TCO studies.
Don't thank God, thank a doctor!