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Spanish Region Goes Entirely Open Source
Posted by
ScuttleMonkey
on Wed Aug 02, 2006 12:42 AM
from the build-it-and-they-will-come dept.
from the build-it-and-they-will-come dept.
greengrass writes to tell us TechWorld is reporting that the Spanish region of Extremadura has decided to go completely open source with their day-to-day operations. While the region has long been a supporter of open source software, within a year it will be a requirement that all officials use the ODF and PDF formats for all documents. From the article: "Extremadura, Spain's poorest region, made headlines following a 2002 decision to migrate about 70,000 desktops and 400 servers in its schools to a locally tailored version of Debian called gnuLinEx. The government has estimated that the total cost of this project was about 190,000 euros (£130,000), 18 million euros lower than if the schools had purchased Microsoft software. "
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Microsoft Alternative in Extremadura, Spain 305 comments
grylnsmn writes "The Washington Post today has a front page article talking about how the Extremadura region in Spain is converting all government offices, businesses, and home from Windows to Linux. The article talks of their problems last spring and how the community banded together to solve them. "But the glitches are more an annoyance, [Ana Acevedo, who heads one of the government's document-processing units] said, than a hassle. 'It's mostly very tiny things,' she said." Overall, this is an important testbed for localities all over the world who are looking at making the switch. Overall, a very good and balanced article." Update: 11/03 20:37 GMT by T : Headline misspelled "Extremadura" as "Extramadura" -- fixed now.
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A Goal! (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:A Goal! (Score:3, Funny)
Please, if you're going to use football (sorry, 'soccer') metaphors, at least do it right. It should be:
"GGGGOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAALLL LLLLLLL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"
Re:A Goal! (Score:4, Funny)
"YOU TOOK A BLOODY DIVE!"
Parent
Re:A Goal! (Score:5, Insightful)
Yes. A few detailed points:
1. When you have tens of thousands of desktops, the money saved by not paying Microsoft is so great, that you can even afford to pay people to code a few specific things you need (regional customization, etc.). This is the beauty of the open source stack - you get 99% of the code FOR FREE; salaries for a few good programmers to code the last 1% is cheaper than 70,000 MS licenses. Now, I don't know if the region of Extremadura pay the salaries of the LinEx people; but my point is that even if they did, it would be a huge savings.
2. That last 1% of code may be GPL (in case it's integrated into the system and not completely standalone, or, even if it is standalone, a government or nonprofit might free the source code anyhow). So others will also be able to benefit from it.
Back to the article itself, this latest news is very good, and may be another sign of slowly-building momentum for the Open Source movement.
Parent
Re:A Goal! (Score:4, Insightful)
However I really am sceptical of the cost comparisons. They do not seem to take into account distribution or installation or any of the other many factors that come into servicing an entire region with software.
I also suspect it does not take into account any discounts you may be able to get from Microsoft for such large scale installations.
Yes, there may be a large difference in licensing. But to say that you are getting a 99% discount is a fallacy. The cost of software is not just in the procurement.
As a community we should be encouraging responsible reporting so we don't fall into the same obfuscational traps that corporations like Microsoft revel in. It would be nice to be able to have faith in pro Free Software articles rather than approach them with the same sceptism that stigmatises any pro corporate publishing.
There's no substitute for hard facts and honesty and I feel the open source movement is becoming as marketing savvy as the commercial competition. It may win a bit in the short term but in the long term may undermine the cost-benefits that people perceive.
Parent
Re:A Goal! (Score:3, Interesting)
You still can be a little sceptical when you look at the numbers: Total project in
Is it just me? (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Is it just me? (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Is it just me? (Score:2, Funny)
And look at their forking problems! Proof positive that proprietary religions don't have the same forking problems and open source religions.
Re:Is it just me? (Score:5, Funny)
Parent
No, no... the GP post was alluding to: (Score:4, Funny)
Paul B.
Parent
Re:Is it just me? (Score:2)
http://www.yoism.org/ [yoism.org]
Warning, the website contains annoyances, turn off your sound before visiting.
Their holy book is already at version 0.2. You can join if you want and submit patches.
And it's very modular, you can remove mysticism from it if you wishes.
Re:Is it just me? (Score:3, Insightful)
I have heard there are these things called 'science' and 'philosophy', both of which have coherent organized worldviews which are modul
Re:Is it just me? (Score:2)
Re:Is it just me? (Score:3, Funny)
or
Inquistion is Not Quite the Usual InquiSITION
(guess where I got bored in the previous line)
Nobody (Score:3, Funny)
Nobody expects the now Open Source based Spanish Inquisition!
--
Superb hosting [tinyurl.com] 20GB Storage, 1_TB_ bandwidth, ssh, $7.95
Re:Is it just me? (Score:3, Insightful)
gnuLinEx (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:gnuLinEx (Score:5, Informative)
Parent
Re:gnuLinEx (Score:2)
Looks like some nice work on the part of the Spanish Linux people. Also, they deserve congratulations on their success detailed in the article.
Re:gnuLinEx (Score:5, Informative)
Parent
Re:gnuLinEx (Score:3, Informative)
Re:gnuLinEx (Score:5, Informative)
Well, all the other properties I did not listed are the ones that I have seen in other distributions.
Parent
Good (Score:5, Insightful)
Good. Now if only my local government would listen to me and stop wasting millions of dollars on MS licenses. (Their "compatibility" issue boils down to being compatible with the printer -- they always print out their stuff on letterhead and mail it through the post!)
Re:Good double-PLUS good... (Score:2)
"(kiss-ass-hardware company) recommends microsoft windows XP home edition..."
"(kiss-ass-hardware company) recommends microsoft windows XP professional edition..."
"(kiss-ass-hardware company) recommends microsoft windows 2000 edition..."
As IF the consumer (nevermind the wiser PROsumer...) has a frackin' choice. These snivelly
Re:Good double-PLUS good... (Score:2)
Re:Good double-PLUS good... (Score:2)
Done, but you're not going to like what I charged you. ;)
On most of the Linux distros I've used, xscreensaver will accept either the user's
Proof that MS-fanboys just don't get it. (Score:4, Insightful)
Let's review the statement from Extremadura:
The government has estimated that the total cost of this project was about 190,000 euros, 18 million euros lower than if the schools had purchased Microsoft software.
Do you think that "Before buying printer, check Linux compatability at linuxprinting.org." is included in these 190,000 Euros? (= well over 200.000 US Dollars)
Do you think that they called vendors ahead before they bought whatever was needed to upgrade 70,000 computers to the new printing-needs?
Do you think that they called vendors ahead before they set up printers for 70,000 computers, no matter if run on Linux or Windows?
OK, I fully admit it:
For some gamer who runs a single computer in a basement, Linux is probably not the prime choice. Even for many non-gaming home users Linux might not be the best choice.
But this is about a government organization that:
Parent
Re:Proof that MS-fanboys just don't get it. (Score:3, Informative)
Have you ever worked for a company? Check with you school. You will see that they too make centralized decisions about which printers are bought and installed.
Anyway most printers are supported by linux. There are few windows only printers but they are pretty rare because the printer companies want to sell to mac users too (mac and linux use the same printer subsystem)
Re:Proof that MS-fanboys just don't get it. (Score:3, Insightful)
Implying that the time of anybody who uses Linux is without value, is rude.
Not everyone wants the hassle of switching OS or running duel boot systems that does not mean they are stupid, ignorant or "fanboys".
True.
But to talk about printer-setup for a single computer when the topic is a government with 70,000 PCs switching to Linux IS stupid, ignorant and "fanboyish". So I stand to everythi
Vista makes it worse, actually... (Score:5, Interesting)
There has been no incentive for schools to upgrade from Windows 98, indeed many schools near me have about 80% of their systems running Win98, and the students are quite happy with what they're getting. There's absolutely no incentive to upgrade to WinXP (although a RAM upgrade might allow XP to run).
Schools in fact have every reason to ask Microsoft WHAT EXACTLY they get in return for Big $$ they need to shell out in MS upgrades. If they switch (the servers are already on Linux) the clients also to Linux, schools will have absolutely zero incentive to upgrade to Vista.
For your information... (Score:3, Informative)
Judgement day (Score:4, Funny)
Simple math (Score:5, Interesting)
Good argument for GNU, Linux and open source in general with your boss: cuts your software costs by 98.9%. Finally someone puts an official number on this.
Credit (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Credit (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Credit (Score:2, Informative)
(*No peeps, I'm a native spanish speaker so need to point out the obvious
Re:Credit (Score:2)
It takes time, but it happens (Score:4, Insightful)
With every year, MS Windows loses another advantage or another killer-feature and the playground - while far from fair - gets a little bit more leveled.
I still remember the mid-late 90s, when you still had to recompile the kernel for sound (now it's autodetected), when there was no office suite (StarOffice came IIRC somewhen around 1998), when there was no KDE.
Of course, in many areas (especially gaming) Windows is de-facto without competition, but these areas become smaller with each year.
For the pioneers like Extremadura and Munich, a lot of political will and forsightness was needed.
For those governments that come later this political will won't be needed (or let's say not nearly as much will be needed) as the migration will be easier, cheaper and faster than in Extremadura or Munich - because of the experience made there, because some programs will already be ported, because the software was developed further.
In the next years, the biggest chance for OpenSource are the OpenDocument formats. While the old .doc format will remain "the standard" for quite some time, I think OpenDocument has good chances beating Microsoft's new XML format and becoming the standard in maybe 10 years. (Mainly because MS XML doesn't offer the advantage of the old .doc format (= being established) and has no advantage versus OpenDocument)
If that happens, MS Office loses it's dominating grip, Microsoft loses a lot of revenue and the ability to fund expensive pet-projects like XBox - and Windows loses another advantage...
Re:It takes time, but it happens (Score:4, Insightful)
Open Source is based around Economics of Plenty, rather than Economics of Scarcity. IR1 promised to usher in the Age of Plenty. IR2 actually created a product which is truly plentiful, having zero cost of replication.
In Economics of Scarcity, some portion of the value of things depends on how hard they are to get hold of. In Economics of Plenty, things are not at all hard to get hold of. Because we've been living in an age of scarcity for so long, we've tended to neglect that portion of value that does not depend on scarcity, and in fact some have sought to manipulate values by creating artificial scarcity: in the most egregious cases, overproducing goods in order to bring down the unit costs through economies of scale {itself taking advantage of Plenty}, then destroying much of the production in order to increase its market value. |Example: it costs little more to make six Widgets than to make three; but if there are four potential customers, then you'll get more money for each one if they are arguing over only three Widgets than if there are enough Widgets to go around.
One of the "counter-intuitive" {though note, there is nothing intuitive about Economics of Scarcity, being purely learned behaviour} things about Economics of Plenty is that the value of goods actually goes up when demand increases. {Side note: we are seeing this same phenomenon with recyclable materials in household waste, which are currently Plentiful. As recycling rates improve, recyclables will begin to obey Scarcity laws again.}
Another -- and this is what really rankles with anyone coming from a background of the Economics of Scarcity -- is that dividends are paid to investors in proportion to the total amount invested, rather than the individual's investment. The Sum Total of Open Source gets better everytime anyone improves an Open Source project; anyone who joins the Movement benefits from all the improvements that have come before, and the later you join, the more benefit you gain.
Now, many people have been brought up to resent the idea that someone else might benefit from their hard work. In the Age of Scarcity, that might have made some sense, since the only way you could get richer was by someone else getting poorer. But in the Age of Plenty it does not matter: one person's gains need not be balanced by another person's losses. Everyone can gain together.
It takes someone with real vision, and who does not mind making a large initial investment knowing that others will eventually benefit from it as much as they did, to see that.
Parent
Re:It takes time, but it happens (Score:3, Insightful)
Yes, because what most people do with computers today (essentially word-processing, email and websurfing) is a solved problem and except for bugfixes there is little demand for anything "new". Actually, quite contrarily most people don't want anything new.
That's the main reason why the transition to Linux takes so long. The advantages have to overcome the resistance of anything new or different.
MS presented it to us at my company - little there to tempt us, bu
Spain is a socialist country these days... (Score:2, Funny)
And now for the gaming version..! (Score:4, Interesting)
Here you can find the "home-user" version.a zine_DVD.pdf [linux-magazine.com]
And here (PDF Warning!!),
https://www.linux-magazine.com/issue/64/Linux_Mag
you can read an English language article describing this special
home version called JuegaLinex (Play LinEx).
It gives an option at install-time to d/l nvidia or ati 3D drivers.
I put this on a 800mHz mini-itx box for my niece and nephew--
They loved it!
(You can easily localize this version to English)
Many educational apps and a ridiculous number of games!
I recommend to try it on any small people you may know.
Far Hard (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Microsoft won't back down (Score:2)
"The new decision will extend the use of LinEx from schools to all civil servants and finally all of the region's administrative offices. The government didn't say how many systems would be migrated. The plan calls for all applications to be open source as well. The standard document format will be ODF (Open Document Format), with PDF used when exact visual appearance must be preserved."
Re:190,000Euro divided by 70,400 computers..... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:190,000Euro divided by 70,400 computers..... (Score:2)
Keep in mind that Corey's method for arriving at $18/hour is totally asinine.
Re:From Spain (Score:4, Informative)
I assume the parent means "both parents", as in Spanish - father is 'el padre', mother is 'la madre', but both together are 'los padres'. This masculine dominance happens with many words for people
Parent
Re:Good now they don't have an excuse to pirate by (Score:5, Informative)
Parent
Open Standard versus Free (Score:3, Informative)