Robert Pogson

Years ago they did migrate schools to GNU/Linux. Now they are dragging the rest of the government into the 21^st century.
“The government of Spain’s autonomous region of Extremadura has begun the switch to open source of it desktop PCs. The government expects the majority of its 40,000 PCs to be migrated this year, the region’s CIO Theodomir Cayetano announced on 18 April. Extremadura estimates that the move to open source will help save 30 million euro per year.”
see Spain's Extremadura starts switch of 40,000 government PCs to open source

The only question I have is “What took them so long?”. Chuckle. Maybe they needed to wait for some graduates to take jobs in the civil service, graduates who could do some maths… At €30million per annum, the last seven years cost them €210 million. If what you have been doing isn’t working, stop! The hole will only get deeper.

A few days ago I talked with a young woman whose ISP had notified her of disconnection if she did not take care of her malware spamming the network. Over the phone we discovered that she had managed to install an anti-virus application but had not even her firewall running… She did not need this stress during the last couple of weeks of her school year. We activated her firewall then but today her last use of that other OS was to compute her weighted grade average and to back up her files. She’s at 89% with one more course to be reported. This is one sharp cookie but still a babe in the woods when it comes to IT. She is going to love LibreOffice instead of that thing with the ribbon.

Today I met with her to install GNU/Linux. Unfortunately, younger associates had recommended Ubuntu GNU/Linux instead of Debian GNU/Linux. She backed up her files and installed the OS herself from a bootable installation CD. The only questions she needed answered were about the keyboard “language” etc. There were no issues with drivers. She’s running now. Her friend will install GNOME in place of Unity which is an improvement. I forgot to ask what release of Ubuntu GNU/Linux it was but I think even now one can replace Unity with something more familiar.

So, another installation of that other OS bites the dust. There are still a few to go, far too many for me to take care of, but between Android/Linux galloping across the mobile space and GNU/Linux chewing at M$’s roots, the world is becoming a better place one PC at a time. This young lady has friends, lots of them, and she still has one year of formal education scheduled during which her friends can see her “different” computing experience. I expect she will be happy to report snappy reliable performance… She’s an expert writer. Perhaps she will post an article here.

I love to hear Richard Stallman speak. He has a talent for digging down to the fundamentals before presenting his thesis. You have to be pretty thick not to understand the man:

RMS: Non-free software is not the world’s only problem. I undertook to work on this problem because (1) it dropped in my lap (I could not be neutral except by leaving my field), (2) I had an idea for how I could tackle it effectively, and (3) nobody else was even working on it.
…
I am not the best person to ask for this kind of help, because I focus on something else. Rather than trying to convince IT managers that it is more profitable to respect our freedom–I don’t know whether that is true–I try to convince computer users that they should insist on software that respects their freedom.”

That’s not actually a talk he gave but an e-mail Q&A back in 2000 but it’s just like his talks, clear and based solidly on principles that he lays out.

see Thus Spake Stallman – Slashdot

So, when commentators here assign all kinds of evil to RMS, I know they just aren’t listening or cannot read. RMS is not about harming anyone but making IT that works for people. It’s so easy to do that if you follow his advice and use Free Software, code that is accompanied by permission to run, examine, modify and distribute under the same terms. Those principles help ensure that by using the software you are not being lead around by the nose and enslaved by others. Compare that with M$’s EULA which definitely lists all the rights you give up by using their software. M$ was the reason I got involved with FLOSS so many years ago. I had not heard of RMS and FSF and GPL. That came later and I’m glad it did.

I recommend Debian GNU/Linux operating system which is not on RMS’s preferred list because Debian accepts that non-Free software may be OK and distributes some. I use Debian GNU/Linux in the real world where hardware may exist for which there is no Free Software, like Intel NICs. Rather than advising people not to use that hardware already owned and in the house, I recommend using a little non-Free stuff but being aware of compatible hardware for future purchases. Wasting hardware is unethical just as abusing users.

It’s too much for ordinary consumers, the vast majority of users of IT, to deal with a pile of such issues when moving to Free Software. Over time more manufacturers are supplying drivers for Linux so this issue may well disappear, but in the meantime some compromise must be made in practice. There’s nothing wrong with the principles however. It’s the right way to do IT with shared, re-used, redistributable software because it’s the best quality at the lowest price and it respects the freedom of the users.

“Global notebook shipments suffered a drop in the first quarter, down 14.1% sequentially and 13.7% on year, the sharpest decline in the notebook industry’s history, showing the current weak status of the industry, according to Digitimes Research’s latest notebook report

Digitimes Research believes that strong tablet demand is the driver behind the drop in first-quarter notebook shipments and emerging countries’ notebook markets are also expected to have been impacted.”
see Digitimes Research: Global notebook shipments see record decline in 1Q13

OEMs, you can’t have it both ways:

• believing M$ promotes huge gains in PC shipments while
• blaming tablets when shipments go south.

Not much changed in the last year except M$ tried to inflict one more horror on the world of IT. Economies are recovering. Tablets don’t cover the range of features and performance you’ve told the world are indispensible. What’s wrong is that you allowed M$ to dictate to you what to build for the last two decades. You didn’t have to but you did. Now, when M$ tells you to jump off a cliff, are you going to do it? Think for yourself. ASUS shipped GNU/Linux on eeePCs with huge rates of growth a few years ago but M$ shut them up. Dell is selling GNU/Linux PCs like hot cakes in China and India. Why not everywhere?

There’s a reason M$ interferes in your business, Free Software works for your end-users and M$ makes no money on it. Free Software would work for you too. Just ship it. People will buy it. You can lop ~$100 off the price and still make money. You can bet consumers will notice.

I found an interesting article about how businesses can use GNU/Linux thin clents. It covers all the important stuff…
“Implementing thin-client solutions achieves a number of benefits, including lower costs, easier maintenance, and an enhanced customer presence. Costs are reduced because the client’s hardware needs are less than solutions that require full, local-client functionality. Maintenance is easier because all the software maintenance is done on the server, because no software resides on the thin client itself. In fact, some businesses using thin-client solutions simply replace a failing thin client rather than perform maintenance on it. Again, because no software runs on the client, no configuration is needed on the replacement hardware. Finally, a thin-client solution can enhance customer presence because it lets a business safely provide access to customers within an environment that can be fully controlled and secured from the server.”
see How to Implement Open-Source Solutions: Thin Clients | Systems Management content from iPro Developer
…except there’s something terribly wrong with assuming the purpose of the thin client is to run applications on M$’s OS. A computer running GNU/Linux can do anything that a computer running M$’s OS can do but GNU/Linux will be better, faster and cheaper. That’s why TFA suggest using GNU/Linux on all the other infrastructure.

It’s past the time that we should assume the use of applications that are M$-only. That’s just plain silly. More computers were shipped with Android/Linux last year than M$’s OS. Why not assume Android/Linux “apps”? Why not replace M$-only applications with FLOSS applications that the world can use for $0? The world is huge compared to M$ and “partners” and can make its own software. The world has better office suites (better compliance with open standards), better browsers (faster, less malware), and better servers than M$ and “partners” (faster, greater uptime and throughput). Why the Hell should we put up with applications that run only on that faulty/defective-by-design OS?

Wake up! FLOSS should be the default solution and applications on that other OS a temporary solution while alternatives are found/created.

“The Document Foundation (TDF) announces LibreOffice 4.0.2, for Windows, Mac OS X and Linux”

I’ve been enjoying my use of LibreOffice. It’s a great office suite of applications for many uses. The Document Foundation provides a migration document too for those with complex inventories of documents. There’s information in that document about a neat feature of interoperability with LibreOffice: “MS Office is able to read and write ODF format since version 2007, although with several important exceptions, especially in the case of spreadsheets, up to version 2013, which is supporting the reference implementation of ODF 1.2. Also, if the other party does not have LibreOffice and only needs to read or print the document, this can be exchanged in PDF format, either read-only for the final versions, or the Hybrid PDF that can be further edited in LibreOffice without loss of formatting or information.”

They also gratefully accept donations.

Use LibreOffice. It’s a great value. Most people will save more than the cost of their hardware using it if they use LibreOffice instead of the “pro” licences from M$. It has all the most-used features of office suites and few of its own that maximizes the value of your hardware.