(clug-talk) OSS Oil & Gas

[Kevin Anderson]

>May I ask what your idea is? I'm not a developer, but I used to work for >an oil company. I tried to get the company to use Linux but all their >oil and gas software required a Windows NT backend. I think open source >oil and has applications would go a long way to promoting the use of >Linux especially in this city. > >Jesse Sure.   We had 3 application that were central to our business before this company changed hands.   First.  Accounting software. Second.  Risk Management/Position Reporting software. Third.  Tracking software.   The first we are mandated to use the corporate standard for. The second, we've already replaced with something we built in-house. The third has been licensing hassles and installation delays for so long now that it's impacting our business planning.   I would like to develop an Open Source package to replace the third.  This resolves my licensing issues, though it greatly delays implementation.  However, if there are others in similar positions, then I think this could be an achievable goal.  We COULD develop it internally, but I'm not sure that we have enough people with enough expertise PLUS the time to spare.  If it was developed jointly, then we wouldn't have those types of problems.  Further, the package we ARE going to run is hugely expensive.  We're paying User Support costs that would come close to the cost of hiring a developer, and User support is billed (at extremely high prices) beyond the first couple of hours per month.  In short, I believe I could better invest the money we're now spending by hiring someone to write a replacement.  Add to that that the current solution runs on a software that needs to be upgraded ever couple of years rather than via a web client.  Adding all of this together, I'm sort of in an exploratory mode looking to see if there is interest.  I know I'm being vague about what the software does, and that is intentional, at least for now.  I'm not entirely sold that this is the best solution, and I'd like to continue with the current vendor, but it just isn't working out.  This has been discussed as far as the president level in our company.  We haven't made a decision one way or another, but I'm exploring...   Personally, I've set up both Tidal Energy, and I'm in the process of setting up Seminole.  Neither has a single Microsoft server on site (exception below). Tidal has a Linux server and a Sun Solaris server.  They run Win2K on their desktops.  20 Users in 1 Office. Seminole is larger, and I'm still in the process of building it.  They currently have 8 Linux servers in 3 provinces, plus (due to the situation above) a single Windows server.  50 users in 3 offices.  I expect the Windows server to disappear before the transition is complete.  Seminole runs Postgres for all their databases (except the MS SQL required above) (no bitterness).  The conversion from MS SQL to Postgres are done but need significant testing (which won't be complete) before we go live on the application at the end of the month.   If you have people who need references about running Linux, contact me off-list at kevinandersonATmyrealboxDOTcom.  Using this address to contact me off-list is hit and miss at best.   I'll start a new message about how I got Linux in...   Kev.