Call to Ubuntu-UK Team >From Fouad Riaz Bajwa Ubuntu-Member & Ubuntu-pk Loco Team
This is an important call for action to the Ubuntu-UK team members; I would like to direct you to this important Ubuntu activity and news **"East of England FOSS in the VCS project"**. You guys must get ready to accelerate and support this activity. Ubuntu has once again become the reason for a wave of positive change within the UK ICT governance. Jono and I would suggest Ubuntu-UK to mobilize its team members, contact Chris Bailey at the Social Rights and see how you can help out these departments and their member voluntary organizations in the near future with the availability of any possible voluntary services, training or technical support, read below this line or visit the website http://foss.ciac.org.uk, or organize a small meet-up with the department and organization IT heads to discuss the report! From: Chris Bailey <chrisbailey at socialrights.org> Results of Ubuntu Linux desktop tests by non-profits As part of the East of England Free and Open Source Software (FOSS) in the Voluntary and Community Sector (VCS) project, funded by the UK government's ChangeUp programme, 10 desktop computers using Ubuntu Linux were distributed to non profit organisations in the East of England Region for testing and evaluation. The resulting feedback by the organisations involved has now been published online and is available on the project's website at http://foss.ciac.org.uk The East of England FOSS project was last week awarded the first "Open Technology Gold Award for the VCS" by the national FOSS in the VCS project. The award was presented by Nicola Thompson, Head of the National ICT Hub for the VCS at the ICT Hub East of England Regional Conference. ************************************************** DETAILS of East of England FOSS in the VCS project ************************************************** Results of Ubuntu Linux desktop tests in the VCS Monday 16 October 2006 by Chris Bailey Testing use of Linux on desktop computers 10 desktop computers using Ubuntu Linux were distributed to VCOs in the East of England Region for testing and evaluation. The organisations were: Fenland CVS Ipswich CVS West Norfolk CVS Cambridge Independent Advice Centre Voluntary Action Luton Colchester MIND Crossroads, Cottenham Community and Voluntary Forum: Eastern Region (COVER) Cambridge Online Herts Citizens Advice A range of suitable FOSS programs were included: Open Office - FOSS equivalent to Microsoft Office Evolution - FOSS equivalent to Microsoft Outlook Firefox - FOSS equivalent to Internet Explorer Scribus - Desktop publishing Project Planner - Project management GnuCash - Finance Methodology The organisations involved were invited to an initial session where they were introduced to FOSS and Ubuntu Linux. They then all received a personal training session at their own premises. After three months the organisations were invited to submit an interim assessment of their use of the computers. At the end of the project they were asked to fill in a questionnaire. Assessment of results Feedback from actual users was generally very positive regarding use of the software. They found it intuitive and, with only occasional difficulties, quickly adapted to its use. Many of them seemed very surprised at this and at the range of good quality free software available. They had clearly been influenced to believe this would not be the case, but soon overcome any such prejudices. Resistance to more general use of the software was however much stronger at managerial and decision making level. There were a number of factors involved: * Strong resistance from some contracted technical support staff who saw it as a threat to their entrenched monopoly position of using Microsoft software. In at least two cases they put strong pressure on the organisations involved to switch the computers to using Microsoft, making clear that they would not supply any support for Linux and implying that there were unstated dangers to mixing its use with Windows. This raised fears with decision makers about being able to get longterm technical support for Linux. * Managerial staff often considered that they had invested so much money on technical support and solving past problems that they felt that moves to Linux would be a waste of the money already spent. Obviously people don't change just for change sake and need good reasons to change to Linux from an environment they have already heavily invested in. Linux desktop migration is sometimes difficult when they have already heavily committed to a Microsoft server environment, particularly if they are using Exchange server. * To a certain extent these problems were compounded by our own initial approach to the project. We had initially envisaged, and indeed were funded, to only supplying 10 desktop Linux computers for testing FOSS on a stand alone basis. However, when the training visits to premises took place it immediately became obvious that everyone was expecting us to integrate the computers fully into existing networks and work environments. Without this they were not really prepared to test the computers properly. We therefore had to carry out a lot of additional work not originally envisaged without adequate funding and resources. This meant we had to draw a line somewhere on how far we could go with integrating the computers into existing network systems and gave a false impression concerning the full capabilities of Linux. Despite these problems, in a number of cases managers were pleased to have been made aware of FOSS as an alternative to proprietary software and said they would certainly consider its use when making new major ICT investments in future, providing the issue of good longterm technical support could be dealt with. Some conclusions >From the experiences of the overall East of England FOSS in the VCS project, not just the Linux on the desktop project, it is clear that FOSS use by the VCS can be a viable and extremely cost effective alternative to proprietary software. It could also eventually result in software solutions much better adapted to VCS use than present proprietary "off the shelf" solutions that are often aimed primarily at users in the business sector. The rapid recent development of user friendly Graphical User Interfaces for Linux distributions, particularly Ubuntu, have created products that can quickly convince end users of Linux usability. However for FOSS to be able to establish itself within the sector it will need to adopt a clear strategy aimed primarily at decision makers: * Concerns about longterm technical support have to be addressed. Much of this will need to be done nationally through development of a Linux user group dedicated to the VCS, training ICT circuit riders in Linux support, a national VCS help desk and knowledge base for Linux, etc. Pressure needs to be put on technical support suppliers to force them from entrenched positions of only supporting Microsoft operating systems. * Although there are clear parallels between the ethos of the VCS and the Free Software community few VCS decision makers will decide to switch to FOSS solely on ethical or political grounds. Cost is a much more viable reason in their eyes and it is most effective when they are considering new ICT investment. Management are open to the argument that they are not doing their job properly if they are not considering the cost savings that arise from using FOSS, other things being equal. This can be taken advantage of initially through developing a number of very cost effective FOSS solutions to key needs of the sector that involve little disruption of existing work practices - use of Open Office, Firefox, Thunderbird cross platform FOSS programs, LAMP based CMS websites, Linux file server and backup systems, suitable LAMP based groupware programs running on an internal Linux server, etc. * By proving the viability, stability, security and cost effectiveness of even a relatively small initial number of FOSS solutions the conditions can be created for convincing management to seriously think about moving more widely to FOSS when it comes to times for considering major new ICT investments, such as replacing old hardware, software upgrades, etc. This present project represented an initial step in that direction. References and Sources: 1. Source: http://foss.ciac.org.uk/article43.html 2. Interim assessments of using Ubuntu by participating organisations. http://foss.ciac.org.uk/IMG/doc/Interim_assessments.doc 3. Herts Citizens Advice interim assessment. Longer interim assessment from Herts Citizens Advice. http://foss.ciac.org.uk/IMG/doc/Herts_Citizens_Advice_interim_report.doc 4. Voluntary Action Luton interim assessment. Longer interim assessment from Voluntary Action Luton. http://foss.ciac.org.uk/IMG/doc/Voluntary_Action_Luton_interim_report.doc 5. Questionnaire Replies. Questionnaire Replies from all 10 participating organisations. http://foss.ciac.org.uk/IMG/doc/Questionnaire_replies.doc Forwarded for information purposes by Fouad Riaz Bajwa FOSS Advocate Forwarded for information purposes by ----------------------- Fouad Riaz Bajwa FOSS Advocate Ubuntu Linux Pakistan Team -- [email protected] https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-uk https://wiki.kubuntu.org/UKTeam/
