October 31st, 2008 Benjamin Horst
That open source is more cost effective in initial deployment and ongoing maintenance is not surprising to anyone who uses open source software, despite the premise being attacked by Microsoft (and some people apparently do believe MS’ marketing).
The experience of the German Foreign Ministry is that open source desktops cost less to operate and maintain than Windows and Microsoft Office-based systems, reports Metamorphosis:
“Open Source desktops are far cheaper to maintain than proprietary desktop configurations, says Rolf Schuster, a diplomat at the German Embassy in Madrid and the former head of IT at the Foreign Ministry.”
This is an informed opinion, as the Ministry has been working with open source since 2001, and is currently midway through a complete migration to FOSS.
“The Foreign Ministry is migrating all of its 11,000 desktops to GNU/Linux and other open source applications. According to Schuster, this has drastically reduced maintenance costs in comparison with other ministries. “The Foreign Ministry is running desktops in many far away and some very difficult locations. Yet we spend only one thousand euros per desktop per year. That is far lower than other ministries, that on average spend more than 3,000 euros per desktop per year.
“The ministry has so far migrated almost four thousand of its desktops to GNU/Linux and expects to complete the move by the summer of 2009, Schuster said. About half of all the 230 embassies and consulates have now been switched over. “It is not without problems. It took a while to find a developer in Japan to help us with some font issues we had in OpenOffice.”
The groundwork of the past few years is beginning to pay off for a large number of first-movers around the world. I expect the migration trend will continue to accelerate as more and more case studies help to sway the slower adopters.
Posted in GNU/Linux, Open Source, OpenOffice.org | 1 Comment »
October 30th, 2008 Benjamin Horst
The following study has been making the rounds lately, but it’s also worth keeping track of here, for future reference.
Living in a world where most companies and small businesses I know are comfortable with open source and most already use it to a greater or lesser extent, it’s even more important to understand those who don’t use it and the smaller set of those who deliberately decide not to adopt open source yet. This knowledge will hone our development and promotion efforts to address those users’ needs in future revisions.
An academic paper written by Huysmans, Ven, and Verelst entitled Reasons for the Non-Adoption of OpenOffice.org in a Data-Intensive Public Administration is an informative resource for this purpose.
The paper’s abstract reads:
“Several academic studies have already been conducted to investigate the reasons influencing the adoption of open source desktop software such as Linux and OpenOffice.org. However, few studies have been devoted to determine the reasons for not adopting open source desktop software. In order to address this issue, we present a case study on the Belgian Federal Public Service (FPS) Economy which considered the use of OpenOffice.org, but eventually decided not to adopt OpenOffice.org as their primary office suite. This decision was to a large degree influenced by the fact that a large number of users within the FPS Economy perform data–intensive tasks such as statistical data analysis and reporting on a daily basis. Notwithstanding the fact that several reasons were actually in favor of the migration, we have identified several barriers that may discourage the use of OpenOffice.org in similar environments.”
The entire paper is available online at the link above for a detailed reading.
Posted in GNU/Linux, Open Source, OpenOffice.org | Comments Off on Case Study on Non-Adoption of Open Source
October 29th, 2008 Benjamin Horst
For ComputerWorld UK, Glyn Moody writes, “All Russian Schools to Use Free Software.”
“It began with a few pilot projects, and apparently these have been so successful that the Russian government has now decided to make it the standard for *all* schools.”
Most of Moody’s links lead to articles in Russian, so I cannot glean anything from them. However, when he runs them through software translation, Moody discovers that Russia plans to have one million computers in schools by 2010, and their default software platform will be locally-customized open source applications (presumably including Linux, OpenOffice, etc). After a three-year period, schools will be permitted to switch back to proprietary programs, but they’ll have to pay the licensing fees on their own. I do not expect many will be interested by that option.
Posted in Free Culture, GNU/Linux, Open Source, OpenOffice.org | Comments Off on All Russian Schools to Use Free Software
October 28th, 2008 Benjamin Horst
This year the annual OpenOffice.org Conference will be held in Beijing.
“Since Redflag 2000 and IBM officially joined OpenOffice.org in 2007, Beijing has become the second hot-spot for the development of OpenOffice.org and several derived products. The contributions to OOo from China are steadily growing. It’s an exciting time: China’s software developers and users are able to look at office software with fresh minds, untainted by years of exposure to Microsoft products.”
The conference starts on November 5. News updates should be frequent during the run-up to the conference and there are many interesting sessions planned for the conference itself. I’m especially excited by the case studies of major national-scale adoptions happening around the world, specifically Malaysia, Cambodia, Spain and Brazil.
Posted in Open Source, OpenOffice.org | Comments Off on OpenOffice.org Conference 2008 in Beijing
October 27th, 2008 Benjamin Horst
An email from Jean of the OOoAuthors project announces, “Friends of OpenDocument Inc has just published the printed edition of Getting Started with OOo3, here: http://www.lulu.com/content/4633456
“In addition to the paperback book (US$17.95), a free download of the PDF of the book is also available from that link. The interior pages are in black & white. It is formatted for approx. 6×9-inch pages (the size of the printed book), which should print fine on A4 or US-letter paper if someone wants to print it. If you are paying for your own ink/toner and paper, buying a printed copy is probably cheaper than printing it yourself.”
For a color PDF of the same document, designed for on-screen viewing, download from OOoAuthors.org.
Posted in Free Culture, Open Source, OpenOffice.org | Comments Off on Getting Started with OOo 3.0 Guide Arrives
October 23rd, 2008 Benjamin Horst
Google has released the source code of its Android platform, and coincidentally, I saw my first G1 in the wild yesterday.
“Android is not a single piece of hardware; it’s a complete, end-to-end software platform that can be adapted to work on any number of hardware configurations. Everything is there, from the bootloader all the way up to the applications. And with an Android device already on the market, it has proven that it has what it takes to truly compete in the mobile arena…
“Have a great idea for a new feature? Add it! As an open source project, the best part is that anyone can contribute to Android and influence its direction. And if the platform becomes as ubiquitous as I hope it will, you may end up influencing the future of mobile devices as a whole.”
With the release of Android, the open sourcing of Symbian and the gradual failure of Windows Mobile, it’s clear the mobile market will take a very different direction than the PC market two decades ago. (I expect Apple’s iPhone will flourish alongside the open source platforms as well.)
Without the negative influence of a Microsoft monopoly, mobile devices are going to be much more dynamic and innovative than the PC software industry has been for many years. (Although open source is forcing major changes there now, as well.) This should be interesting!
Posted in Free Culture, Open Source | Comments Off on Android Source Code Available
October 22nd, 2008 Benjamin Horst
The VAR Guy points out that in Dell’s netbook line, they now advertise that some models run Ubuntu:
“It’s one small step for Dell and consumer Linux — and one giant leap for Canonical’s Ubuntu Linux efforts. Specifically, Dell is spending advertising dollars to promote PCs with Ubuntu Linux preinstalled. The move has significant implications for the business world as well.”
Potential customers can see the same machine (with almost identical hardware) for sale in two versions: Ubuntu and Windows. And the clear and obvious price difference favors Ubuntu.
In the flyer the author found in his newspaper, in fact, only the Ubuntu version was shown!
As netbooks grow and Linux maintains a strong foothold in the segment, more people will become familiar and comfortable with it. This will lead to its growth in other business markets too, as users will want Linux’s power and usability on their primary work machines as well:
“If Ubuntu can impress consumer Netbook users, that positive first impression could help Canonical’s operating system push deeper into the corporate market.”
Posted in Free Culture, GNU/Linux, Open Source | Comments Off on Ubuntu Netbooks from Dell
October 15th, 2008 Benjamin Horst
OpenOffice.org 3.0 was released on Monday, October 13, and download demand has been enormous since then. In fact, it’s been so strong the website is down and a temporary download-only site has been put in its place until the spike recedes.
Frank Mau announces over 350,000 downloads were initiated in the first 24 hours since OOo 3.0’s release:
“It could be more but the huge traffic on www.openoffice.org bear down the web-infrastructure on the site host. Hope the next days will bring up the service back on a stable base.”
Eike Rathke points out the release of OpenOffice 3.0 is also the project’s 8th birthday. He also provides a list of known mirrors to download 3.0 from if you cannot reach the main site.
Kazunaro Hirano writes: 3.0.0 Released! Website down but Mirrors are OK! He too provides links to mirror sites for alternate download access.
There are lots of reasons for this huge interest in OpenOffice.org 3.0, and I like to think pent-up demand from Mac users is one of them.
Posted in Free Culture, Mac, Open Source, OpenOffice.org | Comments Off on Huge Demand for OpenOffice.org 3.0
October 9th, 2008 Benjamin Horst
Ian Lynch pointed out a new UK-based resource site for schools using open source software, called Open Source Schools.
“The Schools Open Source Project is an initiative to help schools with awareness, adoption, deployment, use and ongoing development of Open Source Software (OSS)…
“The project will provide an authoritative, informative and impartial website that will raise awareness of how OSS can be used to enhance teaching and school infrastructures. The project will then develop and support a community of practice that engages those who are currently using OSS and welcomes and supports new members.”
The site is very attractive, built in Drupal, and provides many community features, so I expect it to become a very useful resource as it continues to grow.
Posted in Drupal, Free Culture, Open Source | 1 Comment »
October 7th, 2008 Benjamin Horst
One of the joys of open source is its mutability. If someone has a great idea and the right experience, they can make fundamental changes for the better. With this mindset, two Linux developers from Intel modified Fedora and Moblin to boot from a solid state drive (on the Eee PC) in only five seconds.
LWN.net announces: “At the Linux Plumbers Conference Thursday, Arjan van de Ven, Linux developer at Intel and author of PowerTOP, and Auke Kok, another Linux developer at Intel’s Open Source Technology Center, demonstrated a Linux system booting in five seconds.”
Lots of further tech details in the article, but in short, it’s great to see how fast Linux can boot when developers take it upon themselves to make it happen.
Posted in Free Culture, GNU/Linux, Open Source | Comments Off on Boot Linux in 5 Seconds