Udine at Robert Pogson

‘Open source software is everywhere in the offices of Udine’s administration. The vast majority of servers in use at Udine, 96 per cent, use either the Red Hat or Debian Linux distribution. Postgresql is the default relational database management system. On the desktops, the city officials find OpenOffice alongside the ubiquitous proprietary office tools. "There are still some constraints that force us to use proprietary software here", says Antonio Scaramuzzi, head of the IT department. "But we’re planning to migrate the desktops to an open source based virtualisation platform."’
see Local open source firms and university curricula support Italian Udine

This is yet another example of a city thriving on FLOSS (Munich, Largo, Extremadura). Even a small city with 100K residents can manage to do it. What’s holding back the rest of them? Lock-in. M$ has conspired with OEMs, ISVs and retailers to keep the world dependent on Wintel. That cannot end too soon. When everyone is free to choose what works for them based on price/performance the world will be a better place. At the rate M$ is losing share and OEMs are racing to production of tablets not running that other OS, the world will be a better place in a couple of years. 2011 was a big improvement. 2012 was huge. It looks like the dam bursts in 2013.

My Mission

My observations and opinions about IT are based on 40 years of use in science and technology and lately, in education. I like IT that is fast, cost-effective and reliable. I do not care whether my solution is the same as yours. I like to think for myself.

My first use of GNU/Linux in 2001 was so remarkably better than what I had been using, I feel it is important work to share GNU/Linux with the world. I have been blessed by working in schools where students and school systems have benefited by good, modular software easily installed in most systems.

I have shown GNU/Linux to thousands of students and hundreds of teachers over the years and will continue in some way doing that until I die in spite of the opposition.

1 Response to “Udine”

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1 ram Mar 2nd, 2013 at 1:00 am

I would not call it Wintel. Intel has jumped ship and supplies Linux friendly boxes (NUCs) and servers directly in case some so called OEMs and distributors refuse to do so. To date, Feb 2013, AMD has still not seen the light, nor have all the Taiwanese motherboard manufacturers.