July 16th, 2007 Benjamin Horst
On Friday I linked to an article about Italy’s Parliament making a large migration to open source Linux desktops.
Today I’ve found Erwin Tenhumberg’s helpful post linking to articles in French, German and Italian newspapers covering the story. He also adds that Italy expects to save 3 million euros with the move, and speculates on the impact this will have for ODF: “Considering that Linux typically comes with ODF implementations like OpenOffice.org and KOffice, it’s quite likely that this move also includes the adoption of OpenOffice.org and/or ODF.”
Posted in GNU/Linux, ODF, Open Source, OpenOffice.org | Comments Off on More News on Italy’s Parliamentary Migration to Linux
July 13th, 2007 Benjamin Horst
The Inquirer chronicles a 3,500-computer migration to Linux and open source for the Italian Parliament in Italian parliament bets house on SuSE Linux:
“ITALY’S parliament is about to undertake Europe’s largest governmental migration yet to open sauce.
“The IT department of the Italian parliament presented plans on Wednesday to begin migrating some 3,500 desktop PCs, including those of its 630 MPs, away from Windows to SuSE Linux starting this September. The Camera dei deputati will also run SuSE on all of its two hundred servers.
“This makes it the second and largest parliament in Europe to choose open sauce. The French parliament, with 577 seats, voted last year to have open sauce installed on all of its 1145 PCs. France decided on Ubuntu this February and the migration in the Parliament should be underway.”
The MP who initiated the project, Pietro Folena, “estimates the switch makes PCs some 90 per cent cheaper and he expects larger savings to be realized on the servers… “The savings are important, but the primary motive for this decision is to gain freedom. Freedom from single technology, freedom from a single software owner and a single contractor, freedom to develop our own applications and freedom from viruses.”
Well spoken, indeed.
Posted in Free Culture, GNU/Linux, Open Source | 1 Comment »
July 12th, 2007 Benjamin Horst
According to CXOtoday.com, India continues its relentless move toward open source on government desktops.
In India ‘Opens’ to Open Source, author Abhinna Shreshtha asks, “Kerala signs a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with Red Hat; the president of India sees open source as the way of bringing Information Technology (IT) benefits to the masses; the Government of Maharashtra plans to develop all new applications in Linux – is open source set to topple the rule of proprietary software in India?”
Sidenote: Maharashtra, population 97 million, is the second most-populous state in India, and more populous than any European country except Russia.
The article concludes with a quick survey of other Indian states (and other governments around the world) adopting FOSS: “With third world countries around the globe taking a healthy interest in open-source software, the news that Red Hat wants to create a strong presence in India comes as no surprise. Linux is already the preferred operating system in Kerala, Maharashtra, Bengal, and Tamil Nadu. Red Hat is planning to undertake such initiatives with other state governments in the future. Given the increasing importance being attached to OSS, proprietary software owners’ supremacy in the Indian market may have taken a severe dent.”
India, a rising economic superpower, is another front in the global struggle between proprietary, monopolist software and open source software supporting open formats. The success of open source and formats there will have a significant impact around the world.
Posted in Free Culture, GNU/Linux, Open Source | Comments Off on An Open Source Raj is Rising
July 9th, 2007 Benjamin Horst
The Year of the Linux Desktop has been predicted by somebody every year since the late 1990s. And each time, it is closer to being right–the number of Linux desktop, laptop, and mobile device users does grow healthily each year.
But since the prediction is not clearly defined (do the authors mean that Linux will gain majority marketshare, or do they just think the rate of growth will increase, and are they talking about the USA, Europe, developing world or globally, and which hardware platforms are they considering?), we’ll never see a year in which everyone’s interpretation of this phrase’s meaning is satisfactorily met. But that doesn’t matter, since Linux’s presence is felt more and more strongly all the time. And as new markets are invented, it starts with a stronger presence in each one (consider web tablets, where Nokia’s Maemo platform is setting the pace, and where the Microsoft-backed UMPC effort simply failed).
Maximum PC has published 2008: Year of the Linux Desktop, which covers some important points. Two in particular stand out as major milestones:
“Dell has consistently made headlines with its new Ubuntu-powered PC line. Now four models strong and selling for $50 less than their Windows-equipped counterparts, these PCs come preloaded with all necessary drivers, and offer consumers the same assurances of usability and support that they could reasonably expect from a Windows machine…”
“Outside of North America, we find even more dramatic signs of a coming shift in the userbase. Just this week, yet another state in India declared that it would no longer buy Windows systems, but would switch to Linux instead, spelling vast potential savings for the government and touting potential benefits to education for the populus.”
The tipping point will be reached at different times in different geographical markets and product spaces. Keep an eye on the margins now, to see what will be bubbling up into the mainstream next. Corporate America will probably be the last to adapt in this area, so what they are doing hardly matters today (if your interest is in predicting future trends).
Posted in Free Culture, GNU/Linux, Open Source | Comments Off on Year of the Linux Desktop (Again)
July 4th, 2007 Benjamin Horst
In Southwest India, the state of Kerala has committed to using, teaching, and developing open source software.
ZDNet reports:
“The Indian state, located on the country’s southwest coast, is partnering with Red Hat to train the technical staff of various government organizations and school teachers on desktop Linux and other open-source applications. The Linux vendor will also work with the state government to promote Kerala as a global destination for developing open source software.”
The wisdom of this plan is that as an early adopter, Kerala will develop valuable knowledge it can export to the global market, earning income helping others move to open source.
But in India, another state is also breaking ground in rolling out open source:
“Tamil Nadu, which embarked on a plan in January to put Linux in government offices, schools and villages, is making progress. Tamil Nadu is located on India’s southeast coast.
“According to C. Umashankar, managing director of the Electronics Corp. of Tamil Nadu (Elcot), the new operating system has gone down well with its computer users.
“We have switched over to 100 percent Linux in our office, which has more than 200 desktops and laptops. We have also been dispatching desktops with only Suse Linux,” he told ZDNet Asia in an e-mail interview.
“Although there was initial resistance to change, Umashankar noted, people warmed up to the software after an hour’s orientation.
“Elcot has opened a Suse Linux training center in its corporate office, and the first batch of 84 officials from the Department of Industries was trained in June. Trainers also conduct on-site training at various government offices.
“The current indications are that government users will fully accept the Linux OS in the days to come,” Umashankar said.
More than 3,000 Suse Linux desktops have been dispatched to government offices in Tamil Nadu, and Windows is not offered unless there is an absolute necessity.”
Posted in Free Culture, GNU/Linux, Open Source | Comments Off on Kerala, India Makes Open Source Investment
June 28th, 2007 Benjamin Horst
Walt Hucks has a few posts about both high-profile and everyday users leaving Windows in favor of Mac OS X and Linux.
He covers “influencers” in his first post on the subject: “James Robertson is giving up Windows at home, because of the administration load. He joins a growing chorus of people switching to Mac and some to Linux instead of quietly accepting the forced march to the Vista compound.”
Now he’s posted Giving Up On Vista, chronicling his own family and friends’ migrations to Linux and Mac OSes. Much of it comes from frustrations with using Vista, while other reasons include control over one’s own data, the time cost of Windows management, and, most important to me, the simple elegance of Mac and Linux systems today.
Hucks writes, “In some of my recent calls home, I learned that one of MJ’s friends, the one who has been the most pro-Vista, has decided that he wants to get rid of some of the six computers his family has (all except one running Vista) and replace them with Macs. MJ has decided that one of his two WinXP computers is going Ubuntu or Mint in the next week or two. The other one will probably be converted soon after, now that he sees that the family administrator is less and less willing to spend his evenings and weekends fighting Windows to make it obey the wishes of the computer’s owner…”
But Hucks doesn’t declare war, instead he simply calls for mutual respect: “Since FLOSS and free culture help to spread the benefits of software and arts and information to all of society, the continuing attacks on FLOSS from Redmond are attacks on consumers, citizens, and individuals, not just attacks on perceived competitors. I call upon the Softies to begin to respect us all by ceasing the anti-FLOSS initiatives.”
Sounds reasonable! The extremists and throwbacks may still be in the Windows camp, but the pragmatists and those who just want to get work done efficiently and without hassle are jumping into the Mac and Linux waters. And if you’re ready to buy a new Linux box, check out ZaReason, a great Ubuntu-based PC retailer.
Posted in Free Culture, GNU/Linux, Mac, Open Source | Comments Off on More Stories of Linux Adoptions
June 26th, 2007 Benjamin Horst
eSchoolNews reports San Diego’s one-to-one computing initiative will deliver Linux laptops to each of the district’s 100,000 students in grades 3 to 12 (the district has 130,000 total students).
“Looking for a cost-effective way to deliver portable computing to every student, the San Diego Unified School District is installing machines with desktop Linux and other open-source software. In turning to open source, San Diego joins a growing number of school systems aiming to extend computing resources affordably to more users.”
The article notes that most students in the district could not afford computers at home, putting them on the wrong side of the digital divide. And as the eighth-largest school system in the USA, cost is also a major factor for the district itself. Open source thus provides the best value proposition for the district and its students.
Custom hardware from Lenovo rounds out the district’s strategy.
Meanwhile, familiarity with open source operating systems and applications will be very marketable skills in the next few years. Congratulations to San Diego on this wise move to benefit its student population!
Update: Miguel Guhlin also covers the issue in his blog.
Posted in Free Culture, GNU/Linux, Open Source | Comments Off on 100,000 Linux Laptops Coming to San Diego Unified School District
June 15th, 2007 Benjamin Horst
Nokia’s development of the 770 and N800 based on its Maemo platform could be testing tools for a future strategic shift to mobile computing, writes Michael Mace at MobileOpportunity.com.
“Not smartphones, not converged devices, but full-on mobile computers intended to replace both PCs and mobile phones. Nokia says it expects these devices to eventually sell in the billions of units, and to become the world’s dominant means of accessing the Internet.
“Even though these future devices will still be mobile, if you take all of Nokia’s statements at face value the changes from mobile phones will be so extensive that it’s fair to call it a new business.”
As an open source fan, I am glad to see this. When Linux (or other open source)-based devices define a new market category from its very beginning, there will be almost no chance for proprietary software and monopoly control to get its foot in the door (analogous to the web server market, where Apache started early and holds about 70% marketshare).
Collaboration on the base platform is logical, and allows for faster and better innovation on top of and around it. I’ve long thought the Maemo platform, and the web tablet concept, are headed for significant future growth. Yes, we will see them replace many of the current uses of laptops and desktops and other small devices, though of course not every one.
Posted in Free Culture, GNU/Linux, Maemo, Open Source | Comments Off on Mobile Computing from Nokia
June 14th, 2007 Benjamin Horst
Paul Nowak writes for AjaxWorld magazine, After Ubuntu, Windows Looks Increasingly Bad, Increasingly Archaic, Increasingly Unfriendly.
“There are many night-and-day differences between Windows and Ubuntu and, for a guy that does 80% standard office tasks and the rest of the time I’m doing Linux admin tasks, it was nearly all in favor of Ubuntu after the first few weeks of the transition. Overall, my productivity and the scope of things I can do with Ubuntu far exceed what I could do with Windows.”
Interestingly, Nowak, a Linux sysadmin, had attempted to migrate before without success: “Three prior attempts over the years at using Linux as my daily desktop OS had me primed for failure. Well, Ubuntu takes Linux where I’ve long hoped it would go – easy to use, reliable, dependable, great applications too but more on that later. It has some elegance to it – bet you never heard that about a Linux desktop before.”
One of the most immediate annoyances with Windows is the difficulty of installing applications. Not that the process is hard, but rather it is not automated like Ubuntu’s Synaptic tool, and becomes much slower when installing and updating many applications at one time. He compares, rhetorically asking:
“MS Windows with a factory install disk, separate disks for Office and for Virus protection and then a lot of hunt-and-peck downloading for various apps like Thunderbird, Firefox, SSH, and Calendar or….Ubuntu with one CD and an OS that includes an integrated, extensible, and slick software package manager where all the software is approved and tailored to the installation?”
No contest. Ubuntu is better, and progressing faster. The next few years are bound to see a global sea change!
Posted in GNU/Linux, Open Source | 1 Comment »
June 13th, 2007 Benjamin Horst
A new period of innovation is opening in the world of mobile computing, possibly inspired from ideas boldly implemented by the One Laptop per Child project, and diffusing across the commercial world from there.
In this vein, PC Pro announces the introduction of Asus’ £100 laptop:
“The notebook measures roughly 120 x 100 x 30mm (WDH) and weighs only 900g. We saw the notebook boot in 15 seconds from its solid-state hard disk. The huge auditorium then burst into applause as Shih revealed the astounding price tag. Dubbed the 3ePC, Shih claimed the notebook is the ‘lowest cost and easiest PC to use’. As the crowds rushed the stage, we sneaked off to the Asus stand to take a closer look.
The notebook uses a custom-written Linux operating system, much like the OLPC, though unlike the OLPC, Asus has chosen a more conventional interface. The desktop looked fairly similar to Windows and we saw Firefox running on one 3ePC. A spokesperson from Asus told us that the notebook would come with “an office suite that’s compatible with MS Office”, though he refused to confirm or deny whether that meant OpenOffice.”
Flash-based hard disks are probably going to become standard in a new breed of subnotebooks like this. As will Linux-based operating systems and open source desktop software stacks. Many new uses will be devised for this form factor, and probably an entirely new market will come into existence. Freedom from proprietary software is a strong contributing factor behind this wave of creativity.
Posted in GNU/Linux, OLPC, Open Source, OpenOffice.org | Comments Off on Introducing the £100 Laptop!