Help request: I'm writing a report on free and open-source software.

[John.d.h]

For my Professional Writing class, I'm doing a feasibility report on getting my university to implement more free and open-source software in its labs, since currently we tuition-paying students are doling out a fortune for MS Windows, MS Office, etc., that comes on every computer in the whole school (and it's one of the 10 biggest universities in the nation) and the computers are crashing all the time, much to no-one's surprise.  Out of the 12 computers in this lab, two have been removed because they wouldn't boot, and another two currently don't work unless you boot them from an external device (meaning the hardware is fine but the software is not).  I think we can all guess whose operating system they're running.

Anyway, I need to find some good sources and examples of other institutions making strides toward converting their proprietary software systems over to FOSS.  I've already found a couple helpful articles (like where India's president says they need to start embracing open-source, and a US Department of Defense memo saying the same), but not really enough on which to base a 2500-word report.  What would be supremely helpful is anything about a large public university taking on such an initiative, but I'll take what I can get, sources, suggestions, etc.  If any FOSS developers are willing to give me some insight, I'll gladly take that too.

[softcoder]

Ok I think it would be best to understand what angle you are taking for this report? Is it a financial cost analysis, is it a comparison of ongoing service maintenance and support based focus, is it a philisophical discussion about proprietary vs open source benfits, etc?

I think you canno t cover it all and would need to have a primary goal in a fairly specific aspect of open source software. With that said France is definately a poster child for open source on a large scale (and many places in Europe)

http://www.infoworld.com/d/developer-world/open-source-what-you-should-learn-french-461
http://arstechnica.com/open-source/news/2009/03/french-police-saves-millions-of-euros-by-adopting-ubuntu.ars

http://www.fastcompany.com/blog/douglas-crets/low-base-media-entrepreneurs-global-industry/shantou-university-using-open-source

http://pkp.sfu.ca/ojs-journals

http://www.canadian-universities.net/News/Press-Releases/November_22_2006_Open_source_software_Not_just_for_starving_student.html

[John.d.h]

I'm mostly focusing on costs, since the university has had a lot of budget cuts lately (to the point of eliminating entire academic programs), so I think that would be the point that would matter to them the most right now.  The variables I'm working with so far are:

1. cost of installation - initial cost to switch computers from proprietary to FOSS, including labor to install it and time training people with the new software
2. cost of maintenance - time and money spent on fixing crashes, malware, etc.
3. cost of upgrading - recurring costs of updating proprietary software vs. FOSS

Unfortunately, I don't really have access to a lot of information like how many computers are on campus, or how much we're spending on software, so I'm probably going to have to make a lot of generalizations and estimates.  I think that article about the French police is going to be especially helpful, since it gives me a good number to work with (70% savings on IT costs) for a scenario in which the transition works the way it should.

[@kukac@]

We had an improvement in our school system last year, it was about half million HUF (ab. 25 360 USD), although, they were integrated into an older system (plus I attend to a secondary school). Next year, there will be a bigger change in the system, since the whole thing is going to Windows 2003, so we will have the same desktop, etc. no matter which computer do we log in. (We were the beta testers this year, it will go live next year. However, it is my last year in this school.)

The school has some agreement with the MS, so they can install Windows and Office on all of their computers. We have our own system administrator, whose work is to set up, and install these things.

[softcoder]

Just remembered Germany is starting to get big on Open Source too for Government related stuff. I found some links here, but maybe Titi and others could give better details?

http://news.techworld.com/operating-systems/7357/german-open-source-takeup-driven-by-cost/

http://www.h-online.com/open/news/item/CeBIT-2010-German-police-to-use-open-source-Navit-navigation-Update-944770.html

[John.d.h]

Very useful stuff so far.  Thanks!  I should have a rough draft done some time tonight (GMT -5), and I'll post a link for review when it's done.

(Still taking advice in the mean time, though.)

[softcoder]

Titi said he'll try to post some more info regarding Germany's use of Open sOurce, he knows a lot more about its use there than I do.

On the other hand here in Canada, I know unversities use a LOT of open source software. I beleive Simon Fraser University in Vancouver area of BC, Canada wrote their own University Library system and released it as open source!

http://researcher.sfu.ca/cufts

This is how a LOT of higher educational institutions havbe been operating for many years now and has benefited not only their own sector, but the public and commercial sectors as well.

[zombiepirate]

SFU also has CSIL labs that run Ubuntu (I'm never up at the main campus so I can't tell you any more than that). All the main computer labs still use Windows though, and I think people might complain if they were switched over, especially the people I see playing DOTA in the labs all the time 

[John.d.h]

I'm starting to get the feeling that I live in the only country that isn't on board.  Maybe when I finish this report, I should send a copy to Obama.

I know my university has at least one server running Ubuntu (the one where I uploaded my web design project), but I haven't seen any desktops running it except the one I'm running off my USB drive right now.  I'm okay with a lot of the proprietary stuff, like the computers in the Engineering building having AutoCAD, since it's an industry standard and every aspiring engineer kinda needs to know it, but we're also wasting a lot of money on junk.  Every computer on campus (AFAIK) has MS Office, and I really see absolutely no advantage to that.  In fact, if I were using MS Office, I'd be screwed because my laptop charger just broke and I'd have to start all over if my report weren't stored on Google Docs (not open-source, but still awesome! ).

[titi]

I don't know what I should write exactly, this is an article about opensource in Austria:
http://www.h-online.com/open/news/item/Vienna-Windows-and-Linux-to-coexist-892081.html
( use Google and you will find a lot of stuff about germany too )

What I think why opensource gets more and more popular here in Germany:
The Copyright holders get more and more power here in germany and a lot of lawyers just live from taking people to court because they used illegal stuff like Software/Films/Music ....
More and more people get in touch with these bastards or hear from others about it. So they all start to think how they can work around these problems. Obviously more and more people come to the conclusion that its better to use legal (and free) software.
Another thing is that people get more and more concerned about the security of their data. Using closed source software you only have the word from the producer who always says "our software is very secure". And the people more and more learn by pain that this isn't true!
And more and more people get really annoyed, because commercial software more and more does what gives the biggest benefit and not what the users want.

Why is open source used in a lot of business concerns?
They learned by pain too these things:
- Opensource software cannot really die. Maybe there is no more active development, but it is still there.
  Closed source software producers can disappear very suddenly, if the producer is no longer in the market or whatever your data and you are lost!
- New versions/features of closed source software may suddenly be much more expensive, But you have no choice you have to buy it at all costs, because every migration is super expensive or impossible and you need the software to work. These kind of things will never happen with open source products
- another important thing is that opensource is available for free and if it doesn't fit your needs you can change it.
- they typically bound to proprietary formats with closed Software! So they cannot use another product later.

Regarding Microsoft:
Here in germany Microsoft tries everything to make the people use windows!
Schools and universities usually get it for free, Students get it for free for private use too. M$ just hopes that those people will get used to MS products and later at work they will decide for a MS product.
Nevertheless a lot of people ( escpecially the students) more and more use linux or a mix of both.

I think talking only about the costs is not a good idea in a university! I think if costs are really a problem, Microsoft and others will happily give away their products for free to get as much future customers as possible.
Things you should focus on are
- stability(linux)
- Producer independend learning
- Open source and usually well documented software. By this students are able to look into details and learn a lot from these systems.
   This is not possible with closed source, which is typically not fully documented( secrets ) and protected with patents/licenses.
- everyone can copy everything without getting in trouble. So students can setup the same things at home and work with it in every way they want.

  

[softcoder]

Titi raises an interesting point of which all I can say is... "how do you put a price on freedom"? Even if it is only software, we are talking about freedom.

[Gabbe]

Are you going to write about only the positives about Open Source, or about the negatives aswell?

[wyvern]

I think I might have something on that subject.

[John.d.h]

What I think why opensource gets more and more popular here in Germany:
The Copyright holders get more and more power here in germany and a lot of lawyers just live from taking people to court because they used illegal stuff like Software/Films/Music ....
More and more people get in touch with these bastards or hear from others about it. So they all start to think how they can work around these problems. Obviously more and more people come to the conclusion that its better to use legal (and free) software.
Another thing is that people get more and more concerned about the security of their data. Using closed source software you only have the word from the producer who always says "our software is very secure". And the people more and more learn by pain that this isn't true!
And more and more people get really annoyed, because commercial software more and more does what gives the biggest benefit and not what the users want.

Yeah, that sounds about right.  I read an article a little while ago about how M$ had an internal memo saying that they should stop trashing the open-source movement so much, because it was actually having the opposite effect (making M$ look bad, therefore helping open-source).  I think that's saying a lot considering their company is already widely known for being a monopolizing giant bully, and their public opinion is sinking even more.  Another article I saw had a quote from one of the high-up guys at M$ (Steve Ballmer, I think) calling free software "a cancer".  In some ways, Apple is just as bad.

Why is open source used in a lot of business concerns?
They learned by pain too these things:
- Opensource software cannot really die. Maybe there is no more active development, but it is still there.
  Closed source software producers can disappear very suddenly, if the producer is no longer in the market or whatever your data and you are lost!
- New versions/features of closed source software may suddenly be much more expensive, But you have no choice you have to buy it at all costs, because every migration is super expensive or impossible and you need the software to work. These kind of things will never happen with open source products
- another important thing is that opensource is available for free and if it doesn't fit your needs you can change it.
- they typically bound to proprietary formats with closed Software! So they cannot use another product later.

True.  I don't think I'll spend much time on the "what if the company disappears" argument, because (unfortunately) I don't think companies like Microsoft are going to go away any time soon.  Raising their prices is a very possible scenario, though.  What if Windows Caligula 2015 or whatever costs $900 for each copy?  They could certainly do that if they wanted (and some people would fall for it).  I already mention in my essay that every computer on campus that has Windows XP (there are hundreds of them) are no longer supported, so any security flaws or bugs will never get fixed.  You also left out that bug fixes take forever with proprietary software.  With open source, any programmer can take a look at the problem and fix it, but with non-free stuff you might have to wait months and months to get an update.

Schools and universities usually get it for free, Students get it for free for private use too. M$ just hopes that those people will get used to MS products and later at work they will decide for a MS product.

Ha, I think that's one of the biggest reasons so many people use Windows.  They don't know any better, because they never knew they had an option.  In most stores here, your "options" are whether you want Windows basic or premium, and whether or not you want M$ Office with it.  They know that if they can be everywhere, people will never think to question their choices.  They've fooled the world into thinking that we need them.

I think talking only about the costs is not a good idea in a university! I think if costs are really a problem, Microsoft and others will happily give away their products for free to get as much future customers as possible.

Good point.  I'll still talk about costs a fair amount, because there is a lot more involved than just the cost of licensing, like paying tech support every time one of these machines crashes, but I can certainly cover other areas as well.

Things you should focus on are
- stability(linux)
- Producer independend learning
- Open source and usually well documented software. By this students are able to look into details and learn a lot from these systems.
   This is not possible with closed source, which is typically not fully documented( secrets ) and protected with patents/licenses.
- everyone can copy everything without getting in trouble. So students can setup the same things at home and work with it in every way they want.

Very good points.  Thank you.

Are you going to write about only the positives about Open Source, or about the negatives aswell?

I'm working on a feasibility report.  In case you're unfamiliar with that (I was), it's basically comparing different options to see which is the most feasible (practical/doable) to take.  Thus, I'm comparing the benefits and detriments of different options (like updating).  Of course I'm going to be strongly biased one way, but I'll try to be a good scholar.

[wyvern]

So are you trying to write an essay showing the advantages of free operating systems like linux?

[John.d.h]

So are you trying to write an essay showing the advantages of free operating systems like linux?

Yes, and other free software in general.

[wyvern]

I might be able to find stuff on that topic, at least I've read some articles on the subject and have seen plenty of funny pics. If I could just find those articles.

[John.d.h]

Here's my rough draft.  I still need to do a memo of transmittal, my conclusions/recommendations could probably use some work, and I don't really know if I did the abstract right, so any avid writers can feel free to give me some helpful feedback.

http://docs.google.com/Doc?docid=0ARUAF5tBNeWaZGhoYmpmbnFfNTRjODh4enRjYw&hl=en

Did I cover everything adequately?  Is there anything that I missed, or anything that I included that doesn't belong?  I'm open to all constructive critiques.

[wciow]

A well written report John but is "calendaring" a proper word 

Although your report points out all the benefits of FOSS software it essentially overlooks the elephant in the room, compatibility. Your section on compatibilty rightly points out that FOSS is generally a loser in this category due to the current monopoly of properitary software firms who will share informaiton with each other for profit but not with the open source community :'( and the general lack of enthusiam of companies to produce software for such a small market share as Linux.

The compatibilty issue is the single biggest issue I found when I first began using Linux. Great strides have been made by the likes of Ubuntu to make driver detection and installation easy but what happens when the back engineered linux driver for your new digital camera stops working because it hasn't had a thorough testing on your combination of OS/Hardware?

Most people run Windows at home. If you walk into any computer store you will see that 99% of the computers on sale are running windows. Whilst a computer savvy person may build there own machine or install linux imediatley, Joe average will simply get an off-the-shelf package with the same software they use at work/school/college, that there friends and family use and that in the case of anyone under about 25 that they were taught to use in school. This will be Windows.

You also point out that there are several machines which are hardware intact but are not working due to software problems. This seems rather to do with a lack of maintenance than anything else. Surely if there was a dedicated IT technician/team they should have these machines up and running regardless of OS. You rightly point out that maintenance costs would be lower for FOSS, and I know this to be true from my own experience, however blaming a lack of basic IT maintenance on the OS is not an arguement for or against either OS.

[softcoder]

A few quick comments on comptability and maintenance, real world style:

I beleive proprietary software DOES NOT do a better job AT ALL in this arena if we look at it honestly. For example having used Microsoft Office for decades now (at work) and also using Open Office, I have had FAR MORE compatibility problems with office than I ever did with Open Office. Depending on the applications you will often find Open Source 'pureposfully' attempting to keep compatibility with more things than proparietary software! That is a key tenant of Open Source.. freedom. IF something isn't compatibile what are your options in proprieatry software? Either pay big bucks are HOPE they will write something for you or... write a hack ( a code cave or something) to try to add your own support for something. My honest experience is that Open Source as a principle:

1) strives for compatibility
2) allows you to endtend the software however you wish

Now maintenance. I have YET TO SEE a company not spend the same OR MORE money when upgrading propriertary software (like MS Office, or SQL Server or the Operating System). For IT I would say it's 1000 time easier updating hardware and software using Linux as an OS (I know many won't agree)! Every time I change something in Windows XP or higher I must re-authenticate my system to prove I didn't steal something from Microsoft. That is a BIG hastle andtakes time + money for a company. I have no such silliness in Linux. If something goes wrong and I find a defect in some open source software and I need a fix or change REALLY bad.. I really don't much say in proprietary software.. I HOPE the company will make the change if I throw enough money at them but its their call, its their software! In open source, I can look into the source code myself and do as I wish! I f I don't want to upgrade to a new version, I don't have to! I can even hire developers to write the features I want and at the end of the day have the code for it.

I'm tired of hearing the TCO (Total Cost of OWnership) arguments coming from companies like Microsoft, where they are trained to lie and deceive people into falling into their money grab trap.

I beleive this article would sum up what I am talking about.. from the mouth of Microsoft themselves:

http://www.groklaw.net/pdf/Comes-3096.pdf

and just for fun: http://www.pwnage.ca/?q=node/11

People are simple repeating the mantra spoken to them by their loving Microsoft rep who took them out for golf a few times. Lets be honest here, proprietary software aims to lock in, open source aims to free users. What price can you put on that? They are felt over a lifetime.

[John.d.h]

A well written report John but is "calendaring" a proper word 

Yes it is, but maybe I'll change it to "scheduling" or something.

Although your report points out all the benefits of FOSS software it essentially overlooks the elephant in the room, compatibility. Your section on compatibilty rightly points out that FOSS is generally a loser in this category due to the current monopoly of properitary software firms who will share informaiton with each other for profit but not with the open source community :'( and the general lack of enthusiam of companies to produce software for such a small market share as Linux.

The compatibilty issue is the single biggest issue I found when I first began using Linux. Great strides have been made by the likes of Ubuntu to make driver detection and installation easy but what happens when the back engineered linux driver for your new digital camera stops working because it hasn't had a thorough testing on your combination of OS/Hardware?

Agreed.  I tried to address that, but I guess I'll work on it a bit more.  What I'm trying to get across is that Linux can't handle everything that Windows can (sometimes less, sometimes more), but it has all the basic needs covered.  This is especially true of our library computers, which really just have all the basic stuff anyway and are mainly used for web browsing and document authoring/editing.  I think about half our bandwidth and computing power is used by people checking Facebook.   Hardware compatibility has been somewhat of a mixed bag for me.  When I was first trying out different distros of Linux, many of them didn't support my wireless card.  On the other hand, Windows sometimes has trouble recognizing my camera.  On Windows, my microphone works with Skype but not with Audacity, and on Linux the opposite is true.

Most people run Windows at home. If you walk into any computer store you will see that 99% of the computers on sale are running windows. Whilst a computer savvy person may build there own machine or install linux imediatley, Joe average will simply get an off-the-shelf package with the same software they use at work/school/college, that there friends and family use and that in the case of anyone under about 25 that they were taught to use in school. This will be Windows.

You also point out that there are several machines which are hardware intact but are not working due to software problems. This seems rather to do with a lack of maintenance than anything else. Surely if there was a dedicated IT technician/team they should have these machines up and running regardless of OS. You rightly point out that maintenance costs would be lower for FOSS, and I know this to be true from my own experience, however blaming a lack of basic IT maintenance on the OS is not an arguement for or against either OS.

Good point.  Maybe it points toward our IT guys being overworked and unable to maintain all of the systems efficiently, which is still a great argument for FOSS.

A few quick comments on comptability and maintenance, real world style:

I beleive proprietary software DOES NOT do a better job AT ALL in this arena if we look at it honestly. For example having used Microsoft Office for decades now (at work) and also using Open Office, I have had FAR MORE compatibility problems with office than I ever did with Open Office. Depending on the applications you will often find Open Source 'pureposfully' attempting to keep compatibility with more things than proparietary software!

The way I see it is that open-source tries to be compatible with everything, but proprietary software wants to be compatible only with itself.  Take the *.docx format for example.  Do you think they actually added any new functionality to that format compared to the old *.doc, or did they just do it to break compatibility?  I'm thinking the latter.

That is a key tenant of Open Source.. freedom. IF something isn't compatibile what are your options in proprieatry software? Either pay big bucks are HOPE they will write something for you

... and if you've got an old version, they don't even want to fix it, because then you'll have to buy the new one.

Now maintenance. I have YET TO SEE a company not spend the same OR MORE money when upgrading propriertary software (like MS Office, or SQL Server or the Operating System). For IT I would say it's 1000 time easier updating hardware and software using Linux as an OS (I know many won't agree)!

Well, the French police department is saving 70% on IT costs now that it runs Ubuntu, so I think it's fair to say it's cheaper to maintain.

Every time I change something in Windows XP or higher I must re-authenticate my system to prove I didn't steal something from Microsoft. That is a BIG hastle andtakes time + money for a company.

Some of the computers in the engineering lab on campus do this.  When you start them up, they demand you enter an access code or wait 30 seconds to click "activate later".  I'm pretty sure my university isn't running pirated copies of Windows, but MS just assumes we are unless we prove otherwise.

I have no such silliness in Linux. If something goes wrong and I find a defect in some open source software and I need a fix or change REALLY bad.. I really don't much say in proprietary software.. I HOPE the company will make the change if I throw enough money at them but its their call, its their software! In open source, I can look into the source code myself and do as I wish! I f I don't want to upgrade to a new version, I don't have to! I can even hire developers to write the features I want and at the end of the day have the code for it.

Exactly.  That's why FOSS is more secure and why bugs get patched so quickly, because anybody can find problems and fix them, and then contribute those solutions to the community.

I'm tired of hearing the TCO (Total Cost of OWnership) arguments coming from companies like Microsoft, where they are trained to lie and deceive people into falling into their money grab trap.

I beleive this article would sum up what I am talking about.. from the mouth of Microsoft themselves:

http://www.groklaw.net/pdf/Comes-3096.pdf

Oh wow... I see why that memo is marked "highly confidential".  That's some real cloak-and-dagger stuff there.

[John.d.h]

Just a quick update: I turned in the final draft of the assignment and I got a 119/125.

[softcoder]

Good job John