By Richard Thurston, 6 March 2007 09:24
NEWS
Birmingham City Council is mulling an extension to its open source software deployment, which was criticised last year for falling short of expectations.
The council revealed last autumn it had installed just 200 Linux desktops, while using up more than £500,000 of open source public funding. The project was subsequently mothballed, and some machines in the city's library cluster were migrated to Windows XP instead.
But the council said this week there is room for further deployments, though some will not happen this year. Head of IT, Glyn Evans, said: "Following on from our pilot [the 200 desktop deployment] we are keen to keep the community that we established together. There are opportunities to share expertise and issues. It is an important part of our future strategy... open source can offer a lot of advantages."
He added: "We are currently rolling out a revised model, and we will continue rollout as appropriate."
One piece of work the council has undertaken since the autumn is to roll out Linux desktops in a number of city community projects. Those projects have also been given free broadband connections by BT to connect them to the internet.
Birmingham is also considering moving to thin client PCs, which would give it another opportunity to deploy open source. But the decision on thin client migration is "at least 12 months" away, said Evans.
Evans argues he is "not evangelical" about open source and points to several limitations with the software. He says Birmingham's library-management system and accessibility software are not compatible with Linux, meaning staff use of Linux in the library service is limited. And he added that retraining costs could be considerable in some situations, citing the example of accountants who currently carry out complex calculations using Microsoft Excel.
Aside from the community projects, Birmingham's current open-source footprint covers 200 PCs in the main city library, although some of the implementation work is yet to be completed. Out of those PCs, some are running an entirely open source desktop and some are running Windows with Open Office.
Birmingham City Council is supporting the National Open Centre, an organisation that was launched this week to promote discussions and policy on deploying open source software.
Richard Thurston writes for ZDNet UK
Comments
There are 5 comments. Join the discussion
1. Gareth Evans
So could someone explain how Open Source is cheaper than using the universally deployed systems from microsoft. Why bother to go to the expense of re-training people when everyone already knows how to use Microsoft products. There's a MASSIVE pool of prospective employees out there that know how to use MS products.
Leave the Open Source stuff to the Geeks that still use eMail products that only work with plain text.
2. James Barker
£500,000 to roll out 200 desktops that don't work properly. And this is progress?
Makes Vista seem a bargain!
3. Darrall Pullen
£½ million.....they must be some of the fastest desktops ever. Seriously though this has to be one of THE WORST ever implementations of how not to deploy Open Source. Birmingham City Council and whomever managed this project should be audited as this cannot be a safe use of public funds. I know Open Source plays a role in modern ICT but someone explain how this deployment has given any benefits to BCC? Hang your heads in shame..... you are a disgrace to your profession!!!
4. Simon
I can see there's going to be a lot of comments on this one !
It is clear that the three people posting so far are simply equating the cost of the project as the cost of providing 200 desktops. It's clear that this has been the pilot of a much larger planned rollout - probably many thousands of desktops in all. Any large project like this has a large price tag, had the project been to roll out Vista then I suspect we'd see similar figures bandied about.
The other factor to consider is the other meaning of free - as in free speach. Are people REALLY happy that our government (both national and local) are dictated to by a foreign company ? Yes that IS the situation - as long as government has Windows on teh desktop then they are bound to do certain things dictated by a foreign company (ie Microsoft). If you read the small print of the licences, and the government licence will not be THAT different from the consumer one, then you will find some extraordinary rights and restrictions in there !
With Free (and in free speech) Software there are far fewer restrictions. In general, the users have the right to use it unhindered, no-one can stop them using it or turn it off remotely, no-one can stop them adapting it to their needs, and so on. This alone can give some enormous savings over time.
Yes there will be an up-front cost, but I'd expect the long term savings to be significant - some in actual saved expense, some in increased flexibility.
Oh yes, and just don't get me started on security !
5. Robert Hedderley
Obviously we do not have all the facts so have no way of knowing what this project entailed. £2500 per desktop workstation does appear on the face of it to be a tad on the costly side and I would have thought that 50% of that figure would have provided an exceptionally good system but we don't have the information do we.