Birmingham City Council has defended its year-long trial of desktop Linux, claiming it to be a success, despite an independent report showing it would have been cheaper to install Windows XP.
In an exclusive interview with Techworld, head of IT for the council, Glyn Evans, argued that the higher cost resulted from the council having to experiment with the new technology and build up a depth of technical understanding, as well as fit it with the complex system already in place.
The 105,000 saving that the report says would have resulted from going with Windows XP has also come under question as it was calculated using the special discounted licence rate that Microsoft offers councils - something critics argue is a calculated effort to prevent public bodies from building up technical knowledge of open source offerings.
With Birmingham's trial period over and with lessons learnt and understanding gained, the Council now expects to make cost savings over time, and contrary to press reports which claimed Birmingham had scrapped the Linux initiative, it will in fact "significantly increase" its use of open-source software, Evans said. The trial also had other positive results, he claimed, such as demonstrating the ease with which Firefox and OpenOffice.org can be substituted for Internet Explorer and Microsoft Office.
The trial was carried out with the government-backed Open Source Academy (OSA), and planned to install Linux on 330 desktops in the council's libraries service, split between staff PCs and public access terminals, in an effort to build up practical experience that could be drawn on by other public-sector bodies.
It ran from April 2005 to March 2006, but is still ongoing, with the council refining its Linux desktop image and planning further rollouts next year, according to Evans. "The project did not end when the element of original funding ended, because it is part of the Library Service strategy," he told Techworld. "This project is still very much ongoing, and now that a stable image... has been developed, we would expect significant movement forward."
Over-ambitious
He admitted the council's original plans were over-ambitious, with rollouts of Linux-based staff and public PCs originally scheduled during the one-year trial period. In reality, ongoing testing of the desktop configuration means no Linux desktops have yet been installed. Instead, 96 public desktops and 134 staff desktops are running open source applications such as the OpenOffice.org office suite and the Firefox browser.
The council does plan to begin migrating those desktops to its Suse Professional 9.3-based desktop OS, however, a plan that should go into action in the near future, according to Evans. He said that far from scrapping the Linux initiative, as has occurred in some other high-profile cases such as the London borough of Newham, Birmingham is planning to "significantly increase" the number of desktops involved with the project.
Evans' description of the project is a sharp contrast to the findings described in a case study authored by iMpower Consulting at the formal conclusion of the trial in March, which is available from the OSA's website [pdf]. The case study found that the council had failed to make a business case for its Linux desktops, largely because the half-a-million-pound cost of designing and implementing the system cost more than the estimated cost for a Windows XP installation.
The difference is largely down to high "team costs", including setting up the project, technical definition and design, development and testing and training, all of which amounted to roughly 100,000 more than the estimated team costs for a Windows installation. The total cost of the trial was 534,710, compared to an estimated 429,960 for Windows XP.
"The project showed that there are considerable costs incurred in de
If I buy a mobile phone, it's because I want to bring it with me to become mobile, not to keep it inside original packaging with temperatures between 15-25 celcius and low air humidity.
Welcome to the real world. I wished for a chick with long legs and a tight pussy but instead I got an ostrich and a cat who lets me pay everything.
Private Offices Used for..
2) Shagging the Intern/Teenage Junior
Or shagging the wife.
Here's a Dutch comic.
Manager: "Sorry guys, I need the meeting room. My wife just temperatured herself and we must fuck now".
Wife: "Hi..."
Every website wants you to have a password. You know, for important stuff like making a purchase because you use a password for a purchase at a brick and mortar store, right?
No, for the convenience of remembering your home address and credit card number. And of course, for the store owner to do a little profiling, but I personally would go nuts having to type my info for every book I buy at my favorite webshop.
Most doctors don't take kindly to being second guessed, think they know best even when they haven't considered something properly
I have a similar story to share.
My dad recently told me that after WW2 (he was 12 then), he got some serious abdominal pains. My grandpa called the doctor on a Sunday, who told him to 'give him an aspirine and put him to bed'. My grandfather refused and insisted, even yelled, to get the man to come around. Turns out it my dad wouldn't have survived an extra night with an aspirin, he had acute appendicitis (extreme inflammation of the appendix).
His conclusion: never, ever stop thinking where doctors are involved. Not because they're stupid, but because you know much better what you're feeling than they do.
the basic versions are so basic no one will ship them
Great, a basic version is just what I'm looking for. I'm in need of an OS, not a goddamn truckload of crappy applications that I'm going to have to replace by much higher-quality open source alternatives.
After that, I got tons of emails from recruiters for jobs that did Forms development
What's pretty funny, is that these recruiters can really be pushy. When I got
out of Oracle, I replied to a few job offerings which apparently were placed
by recruiters. I had dealt with these guys before so I was prepared... but
boy... After explaining what I was looking for, one guy called me back later:
Recruiter: "I've made an appointment for you, a very good opportunity. Can you
come on day X?"
Me: "Depends, what is it?"
Recruiter: "It's a great opportunity, the company is X"
Me: "Yeah, but what is it? I told you I was looking Z,
remember?"
Recruiter: "Yeah, and this company suits your experience better"
Me: "You can cancel it, I'm not interested"
Recruiter: "But the appointment is already made!"
Me: "Then you must cancel it." *hangs up phone*
These guys deserve to be treated like dogs with such attitudes
How do I choose? The money issue is huge, of course, and I think I'd much prefer the Perl job in terms of development preference and work environment.
I can't tell you what to do, but I can tell you what I did myself.
When I first started working, I was doubting between programming and network security. I couldn't find a job in the latter, so I choose a big company (Oracle). I invested heavily into Java (which is what Oracle does), but it wasn't really what I wanted. After three years, I went to look elsewhere.
I found out that when you've invested in some specific area, people start assuming that's what you want to continue investing in. Every recruiter, every interviewing manager had the opinion that I was most useful in the Java field.
But that's not what I wanted. After a brief stint as "just another Java developer", I found the job I wanted: programming C and Perl at an institute which develops instruments (like infra-red sensors) for climate and space research. However, it was very hard and based on my experience alone I shouldn't have gotten the job.
My advice: you should choose whatever you're most comfortable with, because it's an investment into your future. Others will say, "but, a good CS student can program in any language/environment". It's true, but that's NOT how most people see it who might have to employ you.
As for your debt: you can quickly pay that off by continuing to keep expenses as though you were a student. Don't start buying too expensive cars, don't buy crazy gadgets, don't invest in silly hardware, and make sure to get a girlfriend who doesn't have a hole in her hand (or at least, one who has a smaller hole than you have).
While they offer feedback systems like eBay, it would be pretty easy for sexual predators to fake the feedback to lure young foreign women.
Although it's true that most men can overpower most women, I think a lot of girls would get more spine when they practiced a little self-defense. I knew a girl once with whom I went to boxing lessons. She was a very good-{natured,looking} girl but I'd definitely feel sorry for any guy who thought he could slap her on the ass.
Problem is, you don't know what the refund amounts to before you press 'NO' at the EULA agree prompt. For $20, I'd like a nice Windows XP copy. For $50, I might not. It depends. But there's no way of knowing!
This sounds like Project Gutenberg Distributed Proofreading.
Every now and then, I log into Project Gutenberg Distributed Proofreading. There, I proofread a couple of scanned pages and then leave it at that for a few weeks. It's not much but that's OK; it's the power of numbers that kicks in.
I called the tech support dept to see if they could do that. Oh wait, thats sales' job. I called sales. They dole me it was tech support's job. I called tech support back and they told me it still wasn't their job. 2 hours of tech support later, you can guess how far I got.
I've handled this as follows. You call tech support and they say that it's sales. Then you first say, OK, what's your name. Write it down. Then you ask him to patch you through AFTER he's conferred with his sales colleague to make sure he's really the one who can help. If you still get hosed by sales, call the same tech support guy back and ask again. Keep calling the same person back.
I don't agree with you. A job besides the study where you can learn something technical is good. But what's most important, is to get to know the working environment. This is a great opportunity to make social mistakes, insult colleagues, come late to work and be fired.
I'm joking, but there's a grain of truth in it. When I started working, we started with a group (12 graduates). Several complained to me how the work cost them so much time. One even said it in front of the managers. I think this is childish -- you have to earn a living and complaining how it interferes with your TV time is stupid. My complaining was done on a student job, where the manager heard this but wasn't thinking about my future career, just laughed and said good-heartily: "Fucking lazy student!".
Re:What backwards compatibility has it broken?
on
PHP 5.2.0 Released
·
· Score: 1
people only notice the sysadmins and network admins when things don't work
Bollocks. I've worked in different jobs and I can absolutely tell the difference between a pro-active and a reactive sysadmin. No downtimes (or starting at 16:00) , friendly answers to questions, can-do mentality, et cetera. People _do_ notice.
Slashdot Mirror
Birmingham City Council has defended its year-long trial of desktop Linux, claiming it to be a success, despite an independent report showing it would have been cheaper to install Windows XP.
In an exclusive interview with Techworld, head of IT for the council, Glyn Evans, argued that the higher cost resulted from the council having to experiment with the new technology and build up a depth of technical understanding, as well as fit it with the complex system already in place.
The 105,000 saving that the report says would have resulted from going with Windows XP has also come under question as it was calculated using the special discounted licence rate that Microsoft offers councils - something critics argue is a calculated effort to prevent public bodies from building up technical knowledge of open source offerings.
With Birmingham's trial period over and with lessons learnt and understanding gained, the Council now expects to make cost savings over time, and contrary to press reports which claimed Birmingham had scrapped the Linux initiative, it will in fact "significantly increase" its use of open-source software, Evans said. The trial also had other positive results, he claimed, such as demonstrating the ease with which Firefox and OpenOffice.org can be substituted for Internet Explorer and Microsoft Office.
The trial was carried out with the government-backed Open Source Academy (OSA), and planned to install Linux on 330 desktops in the council's libraries service, split between staff PCs and public access terminals, in an effort to build up practical experience that could be drawn on by other public-sector bodies.
It ran from April 2005 to March 2006, but is still ongoing, with the council refining its Linux desktop image and planning further rollouts next year, according to Evans. "The project did not end when the element of original funding ended, because it is part of the Library Service strategy," he told Techworld. "This project is still very much ongoing, and now that a stable image... has been developed, we would expect significant movement forward."
Over-ambitious
He admitted the council's original plans were over-ambitious, with rollouts of Linux-based staff and public PCs originally scheduled during the one-year trial period. In reality, ongoing testing of the desktop configuration means no Linux desktops have yet been installed. Instead, 96 public desktops and 134 staff desktops are running open source applications such as the OpenOffice.org office suite and the Firefox browser.
The council does plan to begin migrating those desktops to its Suse Professional 9.3-based desktop OS, however, a plan that should go into action in the near future, according to Evans. He said that far from scrapping the Linux initiative, as has occurred in some other high-profile cases such as the London borough of Newham, Birmingham is planning to "significantly increase" the number of desktops involved with the project.
Evans' description of the project is a sharp contrast to the findings described in a case study authored by iMpower Consulting at the formal conclusion of the trial in March, which is available from the OSA's website [pdf]. The case study found that the council had failed to make a business case for its Linux desktops, largely because the half-a-million-pound cost of designing and implementing the system cost more than the estimated cost for a Windows XP installation.
The difference is largely down to high "team costs", including setting up the project, technical definition and design, development and testing and training, all of which amounted to roughly 100,000 more than the estimated team costs for a Windows installation. The total cost of the trial was 534,710, compared to an estimated 429,960 for Windows XP.
"The project showed that there are considerable costs incurred in de
Here's a Dutch comic. Manager: "Sorry guys, I need the meeting room. My wife just temperatured herself and we must fuck now". Wife: "Hi..."
It won't work. In a Microsoft wireless network, there will be only Bills, no Linuses.
My dad recently told me that after WW2 (he was 12 then), he got some serious abdominal pains. My grandpa called the doctor on a Sunday, who told him to 'give him an aspirine and put him to bed'. My grandfather refused and insisted, even yelled, to get the man to come around. Turns out it my dad wouldn't have survived an extra night with an aspirin, he had acute appendicitis (extreme inflammation of the appendix).
His conclusion: never, ever stop thinking where doctors are involved. Not because they're stupid, but because you know much better what you're feeling than they do.
HAHAHa, hey just because you have a lower user ID doesn't mean you can get away with that!
I agree, but don't forget everybody, slashdot has a system to make them Friends, so you get comments from them automatically at +5.
Befriend NewYorkCountryLawyer
Recruiter: "I've made an appointment for you, a very good opportunity. Can you come on day X?"
Me: "Depends, what is it?"
Recruiter: "It's a great opportunity, the company is X"
Me: "Yeah, but what is it? I told you I was looking Z, remember?"
Recruiter: "Yeah, and this company suits your experience better"
Me: "You can cancel it, I'm not interested"
Recruiter: "But the appointment is already made!"
Me: "Then you must cancel it." *hangs up phone*
These guys deserve to be treated like dogs with such attitudes
When I first started working, I was doubting between programming and network security. I couldn't find a job in the latter, so I choose a big company (Oracle). I invested heavily into Java (which is what Oracle does), but it wasn't really what I wanted. After three years, I went to look elsewhere.
I found out that when you've invested in some specific area, people start assuming that's what you want to continue investing in. Every recruiter, every interviewing manager had the opinion that I was most useful in the Java field.
But that's not what I wanted. After a brief stint as "just another Java developer", I found the job I wanted: programming C and Perl at an institute which develops instruments (like infra-red sensors) for climate and space research. However, it was very hard and based on my experience alone I shouldn't have gotten the job.
My advice: you should choose whatever you're most comfortable with, because it's an investment into your future. Others will say, "but, a good CS student can program in any language/environment". It's true, but that's NOT how most people see it who might have to employ you.
As for your debt: you can quickly pay that off by continuing to keep expenses as though you were a student. Don't start buying too expensive cars, don't buy crazy gadgets, don't invest in silly hardware, and make sure to get a girlfriend who doesn't have a hole in her hand (or at least, one who has a smaller hole than you have).
Problem is, you don't know what the refund amounts to before you press 'NO' at the EULA agree prompt. For $20, I'd like a nice Windows XP copy. For $50, I might not. It depends. But there's no way of knowing!
This sounds like Project Gutenberg Distributed Proofreading.
Every now and then, I log into Project Gutenberg Distributed Proofreading. There, I proofread a couple of scanned pages and then leave it at that for a few weeks. It's not much but that's OK; it's the power of numbers that kicks in.
I don't agree with you. A job besides the study where you can learn something technical is good. But what's most important, is to get to know the working environment. This is a great opportunity to make social mistakes, insult colleagues, come late to work and be fired.
I'm joking, but there's a grain of truth in it. When I started working, we started with a group (12 graduates). Several complained to me how the work cost them so much time. One even said it in front of the managers. I think this is childish -- you have to earn a living and complaining how it interferes with your TV time is stupid. My complaining was done on a student job, where the manager heard this but wasn't thinking about my future career, just laughed and said good-heartily: "Fucking lazy student!".
So sell these people a Xen solution.
You forgot to add that in recent years, they make you enter your own bank transfers into their systems, then happily charge you for the convenience.
I love banks.