Tamil Nadu state departments asked to switch over to open source software
thehindu.com
thehindu.com
The UK govts recent suggestion that we require open formats may begin to address one of those issues [1]. The move to more recent browser mediated applications might mitigate another. A new generation will have grown up with devices that probably don't run Windows [2] and that might reduce the training issues associated with UI changes.
Can I turn the question round: how many decades do we think that the default systems for large enterprises and governments will be provided by Microsoft?
And if a country as huge as India with a developed IT workforce of the kind India has decides to start a migration programme, the resulting pool of skilled people and working software (GPL Licensed software) would make future migrations that much easier. I personally wish the UK had a Munich or two simply so we can develop the skills here.
[1] http://opensource.com/government/14/2/uk-government-open-sta...
[2] http://www.channelregister.co.uk/2014/03/21/microsoft_sorgen...
I myself am a BSD fanatic, but I recommend Linux based systems to all of my Windows using friends.
[1] Internet connections were so slow that it was impossible for most people to download a Linux distro on off the internet. But there were a lot of computer magazines distributing various Linux distros on CDs for a Rs. 100 or thereabout.
As a teenager, the only Internet access I could afford was Netzero. Any time I had $13 to spare, I'd head to Books-a-Million and buy a copy of the Linux Format, if only so I could upgrade my Linux partition. Good times :) Do Linux mags still come with discs?
The project uses customized FOSS software, such as Dr. Geo, Rasmol, K-Tech lab, Geogebra, Chemtool, and Kalcium [4], to teach various subjects. They also have ICT as a separate subject starting from Class 4 (9-year olds). As part of this, they start teaching programming (in Python, and using games, graphics, and other age-appropriate methods, and starting very gently) from Class 4. (They also teach a lot of other stuff.)
The project implements a lot of e-governance programs using FOSS software. This includes [4]:
1. A single-window admission system for higher-secondary education
2. Computerization of the program of providing free lunch in schools
3. Online transfer and posting of teachers
4. Software for administering the state's annual Youth Festival (Arts competitions. Around 10,000 participants this year, often touted as Asia's largest such event.)
5. ERP software for arts festivals at the school level.
6. Software for administering scholarships
7. Centralised online textbook intend system
8. Payroll administration for teachers and other staff in the department
9. Software for monitoring physical fitness programmes in schools
(In case you are wondering: every school is provided a (paid-for) broadband connection as well.)
They estimate that the shift to FOSS has saved the state quite a bit of money already [5]:
"The Project has supplied thousands of computers and laptops to schools in the state. about 50,000 computers to schools. The proprietary OS and other application software come with a price tag of about Rs. 10,000/- per PC. By deploying Free Software based Operating System and applications instead of Proprietary software , IT@School Project is able to save an amount of Rs.11 Crores (Rs. 110 million) each year. Also the Educational content like interactive multimedia CDs are now being developed on free software platform, resulting in a savings of Rs. 75 lakhs (Rs. 7.5 million). The examination software which was developed using free software has effected in a savings of about Rs. 25 lakhs (Rs. 2.5 millon)."
[1] https://www.itschool.gov.in/glance.php
[2] https://www.itschool.gov.in/
[3] https://www.itschool.gov.in/downloads.php
[4] https://www.itschool.gov.in/activities.php
[5] https://www.itschool.gov.in/otherprograms.php#6
(Edit: Minor fixes, formatting.)
Source - I worked in CDAC Chennai and was involved in a project related to BOSS, and quite a few depts. were switching to BOSS while I was there (2 yrs back)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GnuLinEx http://gobex.es/salaprensa/view/press/press/detalle.php?id=8...
(I think other Spanish regions have talked about wanting to use more open source software, but that might be LibreOffice rather than MS Office, rather than a full switch away from Windows.)
Here's another: Lausanne, in Switzerland (pilot):
http://www.24heures.ch/vaud-regions/lausanne-region/Lausanne...
The JoinUp website has lots of examples of open software use in public administration settings. Try digging around in the news archive:
(taken in a school in pyongsong, autumn last year)
Now I'm wondering what those dates on the bottom refer to.
http://www.koreaittimes.com/story/8242/north-korea-needs-set...
http://content.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1906219,00...
http://cacm.acm.org/magazines/2012/8/153816-inside-the-hermi... (A¢M paywalled)
I don't remember all details now, but the Air Force I am sure their official policy is that all their desktop machines run Ubuntu and all their server machines run Debian.
The Army and Navy don't have a broad policy like this, but also has lots of FOSS-related use and work.
Also Brazil government has several state companies that develop FOSS software, but several places still unfortunately rely too much on Microsoft (usually in the judiciary and executive branches)
Even urban city engineering schools use pen , paper and drawing abilities of a left brained person for grading.
And even the comparison with RHEL is not really fair. New applications will continue to be compatible with Windows 7 for many years, while with RHEL you are mostly stuck with what you get with a particular version. EPEL et al. do provide some relief.
Suggesting that Xubuntu is a viable replacement is disingenuous - Xubuntu 12.04 LTS is supported until 2015. Let's take vanilla Ubuntu 12.04 for the sake of the argument. It's supported until 2017. A large organisation will not deploy a new system when it is released (many organisations are migrating to Windows 7 four or five years after the release). So, let's say that they deploy it now. That's only good for three years of support. So, in three years you have to redo the whole migration. Users have to be retrained now for GNOME 2 and in 2017 for Unity. You see where it is going, it is a mess.
Of course, then there is the issue that many existing Windows software doesn't work on Linux, compatibility of LibreOffice with Office documents, etc.
Linux on the enterprise desktop is usually not a viable option, except if you already have good infrastructure to support and maintain it (e.g. Google), or for a subset of users (e.g. developers).
The RHEL derivates such as CentOS or Scientific Linux provide such long support.
> that many existing Windows software doesn't work on Linux, compatibility of LibreOffice with Office documents, etc
There is Wine which allows to run Windows programs on Linux just fine. I am still using Office 2000. Compatibility is also problem with newer Windows and I would say that in long run Linux will be more compatible with WinXP than Windows themselfs. Microsoft seems very eager to drop old functions to boosts its sales.
You are also forgetting that upgrading Linux is usually much easier. MS is changing UI every version and it requires retraining users and administrators.
By virtue of Red Hat. If Red Hat goes away, I'd be surprised if they can keep up that commitment. Besides that CentOS is now a Red Hat project.
There is Wine which allows to run Windows programs on Linux just fine. I am still using Office 2000.
Now try Office 2013. Last time I tried, not even CrossOver could run new Office versions without serious loss of functionality.
MS is changing UI every version and it requires retraining users and administrators.
Windows 7 is very similar to Windows XP. The same can't be said for e.g. GNOME 2 -> Unity or GNOME 2 -> GNOME 3.
Why would Red Hat be going away?
>Now try Office 2013. Last time I tried, not even CrossOver could run new Office versions without serious loss of functionality.
Libreoffice exists, and is very adequate for a government agencies' typesetting needs.
>Windows 7 is very similar to Windows XP.
Windows 7 is also an old product that is being phased out in favor of 8 and 8.1.
>The same can't be said for e.g. GNOME 2 -> Unity or GNOME 2 -> GNOME 3.
What about GNOME 2 -> MATE or GNOME 2 -> Cinnamon?
The article talks about an indian, debian based distribution called BOSS[1]. No doubt the company providing it will be more than happy to also provide long term support, or easy migrations as part of a huge support contract with the indian government.
[1]: http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bharat_Operating_System_Solut...
But, really, that's just sidestepping the issue. The real issue is that user documents are in Microsoft Word, Excel and Powerpoint formats, and, despite improvements, Open/Libre Office support for those documents is not nearly good enough to support moving to Linux full time.
This actually leads to another question I've had. We see all these announcements about cities, states, and regional governments moving to Linux. Of those, how many actually go through with the move? How many have stuck with Linux 2 years out? 5 years out? It's impossible to say whether Linux is actually viable on the (corporate) desktop without knowing if these Linux migrations ever actually take place, and, if they take place, whether Linux manages to stick, or if there's another migration back to Windows once it becomes clear that Linux doesn't yet do the job for end-users.
IT@School (see another comment for details) seems to have stuck with it for at least 6 years, to go by the retrospective on their webpage [1]. And they show no signs of migrating back to Windows yet.
It may have helped that in this case, there was (AFAIK) no widespread officially sanctioned use of Windows for governmental purposes to start with. I don't think MS could get their foot in the door in any meaningful way before the FOSS spirit took over. I do faintly remember MS trying to lure the government with nominally priced e-governance offers, though.
[1] https://www.itschool.gov.in/glance.php#8
(Edit: spelling)
OTOH my <big bank in India> has good online services, usage pattern monitoring, two-factor authentication etc. With this bank I've never had a single online transaction as much as hang or go wrong in the past 10 years. When I travel I sometimes get a call to verify the transaction I've just made at an ATM.
So the only conclusion I can draw is that the bank finds it easier to monitor/control things from their data center. They probably consider all terminals as vulnerable and operate from that premise.
It would be good for India to take control over it's own operating system. It would open up their market of software developers. Making the Linux community stronger is another strong benefit for everybody.
Apart from that, simply resistance from users, who are not really "computer people" and basically know that clicking the "w" icon launches the application on which letters can be drafted, is not a small matter. I hope the training programmes are well planned to cover that aspect.
Is it because Indian English is its own distinct dialect or variation with different rules, similar to differences between American and British English?
Is it because English is fundamentally a lingua franca in India where nobody is expected to really master the grammar, including the press?
Is it because the press in India doesn't consider it important? I know in my local press in the US I've seen many more typographical and grammatical errors creep in since newspapers went into decline a few years ago.
Or is there something else explaining it which I have not imagined?
[1] Here I'm not even sure if I need to use "the" there. In my native language I would have to use it, but isn't the expression "american english" specific enough to avoid the need of it?
"The Hindu" (linked in the post) is one newspaper which takes these things seriously. They even have an "ombudsman" of sorts (whom they call the "Reader's Editor") and they encourage readers to write in to this person pointing out all sorts of mistakes, including grammatical [1].
Constraints of the printed page would also explain some of the "different" language which one finds in newspapers.
[1] http://www.thehindu.com/navigation/?type=static&page=contact
Many of the errors were in the quotes, but there are some in the article itself. Some of the errors that stood out to me were simply the omission of the word "the", for example
"With the Microsoft Corporation deciding to stop technical assistance for Windows XP operating system next month, the Tamil Nadu government has advised all its departments to install free open source software BOSS Linux."
Just as the author uses "the" in "the Microsoft Corporation" I expect to see "the Windows XP operating system" and "the open source software BOSS Linux"
Here is another:
"many of them continued to Windows XP use as the primary operating system"
Sentences like this one stand out as well:
"The prompt for the present advisory is the Microsoft decision as a result of which security updates or technical support for Windows XP operating system would not be discontinued after April 8."
For example African American Vernacular (aka ebonics) and Southern American English both have their own Wikipedia pages as well, but you would never find the Washington Post or New York Times using them in an article.
I'd suggest that's a distinction without a difference. Or to be more precise, it's a distinction whose difference - the level of official ossification built up around the dialect - isn't really relevant to the question because it has more to do with external factors, and little to do with the language's actual developmental status.
For example, American and British English have crossed the boundary that you propose despite being so similar that native speakers are often hesitant to even regard them as different dialects. But they do have separate rulebooks, because at some point in the past few centuries Americans of high social rank decided that England's culture was no longer the ideal to which they should continue to aspire.
On the other hand, take Haitian Creole and French, which are so different as to not really even be mutually intelligible. But up until very recently Creole did not have an official grammar (or even spelling) enforced by proofreaders and copy editors. How come? Well, Creole's spoken by poor people, and French is spoken by rich people. Rich people set up the social institutions you propose, and for a long time they had a strong interest in maintaining French as the only official dialect.
The example is extreme, but I hope it does illustrate that there are actually two different continua at play here, and while they may be correlated they aren't closely tied together.
I disagree with that statement.
This isn't to say that Linux is wholly immune to security exploits. It's not. But it's hugely more manageable and securable than Windows is, even in more recent versions. Which, though they've addressed much of the problem, still leave huge classes of vulnerabilities open.
The ability to configure minimal systems on Linux (principle of least privilege) with only the software and services required for functionality helps hugely in this.
Imho, the main issue is more in:
- setting up the right set of policies, it's a difficult task. On a unix system, the problem is probably easier to tackle because the first (simpler) layer of security implemented through the file system (linux for instance provides a more elaborated capability mechanism, many others unix also each have their own implementations of a policy/capability mechanism).
- letting end users having too much control on their computer, because often time they wish to install all sort of products on their own (this is especially true of developpers, but usually computer literates are more security minded than the lambda user). With web apps, this problem is nowadays shifted toward the browser, so maybe this problem isn't as much of an issue as it was 10 years ago for system wide policy enforcement (but as I said it is now one at the browser level).
In the case of proprietary software, every new big player means "more social lock in effect".
I recently attempted to move everyone in my office to libreoffice where possible and was met with a very large resistence from people who's spreadsheets simply did not work.
it's hard telling people that they have to edit functions/macros that were set up by someone smarter than them 10 years ago.
A UI can be thought of being easy-to-use with the frequency of usage. I have been using Linux for many years. Now, whenever I use Windows the only thought in my mind is how can someone use a software so clumsy.