Re: [ubuntu-uk] Has anybody seen this and what do you think......
Most, (if not all) councils outsource their IT to a 3rd party. This outsourcing will be very fluffy around what technologies they expect to be provided, but nearly all will state some kind of Technology Refresh after X years. The Service Integrator (SI) I work for wouldn't even consider making Linux part of the front-end refresh, so this will never be offered to the customer. So, rather than lobbying your MP, local Council or Ward officials (many of whom wouldn't know an OS if it bit them on the nose), maybe the people to speak to are the SI's or Outsourced Service Delivery managers? Or, better yet, the Non-Elected-Official who liaises between the council and the SI? They will own the relationship, and will be in more of a position to suggest that perhaps next time round you could put together a cost model for rolling out a Gnome/Unity/KDE desktop, as well as pricing for Windows, just to see what the cost/value differences are? Which, incidentally, might be able to be FOI'd - just saying... Bear in mind that the focus at the moment is to move more services to The Cloud, whether that be something like Google (unlikely), Rackspace (hmmm, slightly more possible), EC2 (in some cases), or an SI's own Local Cloud (such as the one I'm working on at the moment), and most of the integration to that will be using Citrix, not a web browser, you might find it pretty hard to convince people. I'm not saying the situation is untenable, but just that maybe people are focusing on the wrong areas, and not looking into how these things get going. -- Jon The Nice Guy Spriggs On 22 August 2013 15:39, Paul Sutton zl...@zleap.net wrote: On 31/07/13 20:42, Pete wrote: I guess most if not everyone out there know that Governments use Windows XP (Uk Gov't) and that it costs quite a huge amount to pay in bulk licenses, including local councils. Does anyone know how much these bulk licenses cost and how many the UK Gov't have? Well, onto the main reason I am posting - I have sent an email to my local MP to look into using a Linux based OS instead of Windows as they wont need to pay for licenses which will presumably save hundreds of thousands. Why not send an email to your local MP or the MP that deals with the IT or whoever it is that does. What's your thoughts on this? More to the point ask what the plan is once XP reaches end of life, in 2014 and suggest alternatives, but people are going to need training, support in its use, etc, who can provide that, who can provide tech support, etc, how much are canonicals packages on support. etc on this basis any pointers to people who can perhaps support local government in this may be helpful, Paul -- ubuntu-uk@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-uk https://wiki.ubuntu.com/UKTeam/ -- ubuntu-uk@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-uk https://wiki.ubuntu.com/UKTeam/
Re: [ubuntu-uk] Has anybody seen this and what do you think......
Good idea, I'll have to have a look on have a look on my local Council's website as I remember seeing a list of all the FOI's that have been requested. If the one I need is not there, I'll have to put my own FOI in. Pete Date: Fri, 23 Aug 2013 08:31:17 +0100 From: j...@sprig.gs To: ubuntu-uk@lists.ubuntu.com Subject: Re: [ubuntu-uk] Has anybody seen this and what do you think.. Most, (if not all) councils outsource their IT to a 3rd party. This outsourcing will be very fluffy around what technologies they expect to be provided, but nearly all will state some kind of Technology Refresh after X years. The Service Integrator (SI) I work for wouldn't even consider making Linux part of the front-end refresh, so this will never be offered to the customer. So, rather than lobbying your MP, local Council or Ward officials (many of whom wouldn't know an OS if it bit them on the nose), maybe the people to speak to are the SI's or Outsourced Service Delivery managers? Or, better yet, the Non-Elected-Official who liaises between the council and the SI? They will own the relationship, and will be in more of a position to suggest that perhaps next time round you could put together a cost model for rolling out a Gnome/Unity/KDE desktop, as well as pricing for Windows, just to see what the cost/value differences are? Which, incidentally, might be able to be FOI'd - just saying... Bear in mind that the focus at the moment is to move more services to The Cloud, whether that be something like Google (unlikely), Rackspace (hmmm, slightly more possible), EC2 (in some cases), or an SI's own Local Cloud (such as the one I'm working on at the moment), and most of the integration to that will be using Citrix, not a web browser, you might find it pretty hard to convince people. I'm not saying the situation is untenable, but just that maybe people are focusing on the wrong areas, and not looking into how these things get going. -- Jon The Nice Guy Spriggs On 22 August 2013 15:39, Paul Sutton zl...@zleap.net wrote: On 31/07/13 20:42, Pete wrote: I guess most if not everyone out there know that Governments use Windows XP (Uk Gov't) and that it costs quite a huge amount to pay in bulk licenses, including local councils. Does anyone know how much these bulk licenses cost and how many the UK Gov't have? Well, onto the main reason I am posting - I have sent an email to my local MP to look into using a Linux based OS instead of Windows as they wont need to pay for licenses which will presumably save hundreds of thousands. Why not send an email to your local MP or the MP that deals with the IT or whoever it is that does. What's your thoughts on this? More to the point ask what the plan is once XP reaches end of life, in 2014 and suggest alternatives, but people are going to need training, support in its use, etc, who can provide that, who can provide tech support, etc, how much are canonicals packages on support. etc on this basis any pointers to people who can perhaps support local government in this may be helpful, Paul -- ubuntu-uk@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-uk https://wiki.ubuntu.com/UKTeam/ -- ubuntu-uk@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-uk https://wiki.ubuntu.com/UKTeam/ -- ubuntu-uk@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-uk https://wiki.ubuntu.com/UKTeam/
Re: [ubuntu-uk] Has anybody seen this and what do you think......
El 23/08/2013 08:31, Jon Spriggs j...@sprig.gs escribió: Most, (if not all) councils outsource their IT to a 3rd party. This outsourcing will be very fluffy around what technologies they expect to be provided, but nearly all will state some kind of Technology Refresh after X years. The Service Integrator (SI) I work for wouldn't even consider making Linux part of the front-end refresh, so this will never be offered to the customer. So, rather than lobbying your MP, local Council or Ward officials (many of whom wouldn't know an OS if it bit them on the nose), maybe the people to speak to are the SI's or Outsourced Service Delivery managers? Or, better yet, the Non-Elected-Official who liaises between the council and the SI? They will own the relationship, and will be in more of a position to suggest that perhaps next time round you could put together a cost model for rolling out a Gnome/Unity/KDE desktop, as well as pricing for Windows, just to see what the cost/value differences are? Which, incidentally, might be able to be FOI'd - just saying... I got in contact with the councillor that manages the libraries and asked him who manages the IT for libraries and his answer is good question, i will find out. Any other idea on how to find out? I asked at the local library and twitter account for all libraries and their info was out of date. -- ubuntu-uk@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-uk https://wiki.ubuntu.com/UKTeam/
Re: [ubuntu-uk] Has anybody seen this and what do you think......
As local councils are supposedly beholden to the people that elect them and thus susceptible to public pressure, I would have though that the best place to start would be a letter to a local paper or better yet team up with a friendly reporter/blogger to 'expose' the money that councils, schools NHS, etc. (one consultant once insisted to me that the NHS doesn't have to pay for the licenses while at the same time agreeing that the tax-payer did on their behalf!), are wasting or being fleeced for. Of course this would need to be based on a lot of careful research and an alternative proposal. Don't forget you would be up against a well funded counter argument and serious vested interested corporates so it could get very dark and dirty, but I'm sure there must be some linux consultancies out there who wouldn't mind doing the grunt work if only for the publicity it might generate. It would be difficult for a council cabinet to justify a pro MS stance when facts and figures have been produced that show the opposite. I have often thought that talking to trade unions might also be a route, though they are much less idealistic than they used to be. Chris On 23 August 2013 08:31, Jon Spriggs j...@sprig.gs wrote: Most, (if not all) councils outsource their IT to a 3rd party. This outsourcing will be very fluffy around what technologies they expect to be provided, but nearly all will state some kind of Technology Refresh after X years. The Service Integrator (SI) I work for wouldn't even consider making Linux part of the front-end refresh, so this will never be offered to the customer. So, rather than lobbying your MP, local Council or Ward officials (many of whom wouldn't know an OS if it bit them on the nose), maybe the people to speak to are the SI's or Outsourced Service Delivery managers? Or, better yet, the Non-Elected-Official who liaises between the council and the SI? They will own the relationship, and will be in more of a position to suggest that perhaps next time round you could put together a cost model for rolling out a Gnome/Unity/KDE desktop, as well as pricing for Windows, just to see what the cost/value differences are? Which, incidentally, might be able to be FOI'd - just saying... Bear in mind that the focus at the moment is to move more services to The Cloud, whether that be something like Google (unlikely), Rackspace (hmmm, slightly more possible), EC2 (in some cases), or an SI's own Local Cloud (such as the one I'm working on at the moment), and most of the integration to that will be using Citrix, not a web browser, you might find it pretty hard to convince people. I'm not saying the situation is untenable, but just that maybe people are focusing on the wrong areas, and not looking into how these things get going. -- Jon The Nice Guy Spriggs On 22 August 2013 15:39, Paul Sutton zl...@zleap.net wrote: On 31/07/13 20:42, Pete wrote: I guess most if not everyone out there know that Governments use Windows XP (Uk Gov't) and that it costs quite a huge amount to pay in bulk licenses, including local councils. Does anyone know how much these bulk licenses cost and how many the UK Gov't have? Well, onto the main reason I am posting - I have sent an email to my local MP to look into using a Linux based OS instead of Windows as they wont need to pay for licenses which will presumably save hundreds of thousands. Why not send an email to your local MP or the MP that deals with the IT or whoever it is that does. What's your thoughts on this? More to the point ask what the plan is once XP reaches end of life, in 2014 and suggest alternatives, but people are going to need training, support in its use, etc, who can provide that, who can provide tech support, etc, how much are canonicals packages on support. etc on this basis any pointers to people who can perhaps support local government in this may be helpful, Paul -- ubuntu-uk@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-uk https://wiki.ubuntu.com/UKTeam/ -- ubuntu-uk@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-uk https://wiki.ubuntu.com/UKTeam/ -- ubuntu-uk@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-uk https://wiki.ubuntu.com/UKTeam/
Re: [ubuntu-uk] Has anybody seen this and what do you think......
On 23/08/13 18:09, Muñiz Piniella, Andrés wrote: El 23/08/2013 08:31, Jon Spriggs j...@sprig.gs mailto:j...@sprig.gs escribió: Most, (if not all) councils outsource their IT to a 3rd party. This outsourcing will be very fluffy around what technologies they expect to be provided, but nearly all will state some kind of Technology Refresh after X years. The Service Integrator (SI) I work for wouldn't even consider making Linux part of the front-end refresh, so this will never be offered to the customer. So, rather than lobbying your MP, local Council or Ward officials (many of whom wouldn't know an OS if it bit them on the nose), maybe the people to speak to are the SI's or Outsourced Service Delivery managers? Or, better yet, the Non-Elected-Official who liaises between the council and the SI? They will own the relationship, and will be in more of a position to suggest that perhaps next time round you could put together a cost model for rolling out a Gnome/Unity/KDE desktop, as well as pricing for Windows, just to see what the cost/value differences are? Which, incidentally, might be able to be FOI'd - just saying... I got in contact with the councillor that manages the libraries and asked him who manages the IT for libraries and his answer is good question, i will find out. Any other idea on how to find out? I asked at the local library and twitter account for all libraries and their info was out of date. Of course http://intellihub.com/2013/08/23/german-government-warns-use-windows-8-links-nsa-computer/ if true can present a very very strong argument against using Windows 8, esp from a data protection viewpoint, I know GCHQ may intercept certain data but employees of GCHQ would be possibly bound by the official secrets act, ad there are UK laws they need to abide by, where as the NSA doesn't have to abide by any of these and can use any intercepted data as they wish, once passed back to GCHQ minus where it came from makes it much harder to protect. clearly we need to establish facts, the link is to 1 website we need more than 1 source to make a proper assessment of the situation but that can come later. Paul -- -- http://www.zleap.net http://www.linkedin.com/pub/paul-sutton/36/595/911 Software freedom day event - 21st September 2013 - http://exeter.lug.org.uk/ I am committed to safeguarding children, young people and vulnerable groups and expect any school or establishment I am involved with to share this commitment. -- ubuntu-uk@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-uk https://wiki.ubuntu.com/UKTeam/
Re: [ubuntu-uk] Not everyone is an expert!
On 22/08/13 15:59, Gareth France wrote: It's not just here. I have seen this in other online forums. It seems that when you require the help the most is when certain individuals have the least patience. I shall continue to lurk but I'm afraid that my enthusiasm for engaging in conversation is not what it once was. I second this, I have come across the get lost and use google brigade even when asking for advice based on peoples personal experiences, with something. its really off putting,. I have however found this forum friendly and helpful so in this context it is OTHER forums where I have had problems. but end of the day it's still the GNU/Linux community that looks bad. Paul I am in a dead area for user groups and would like to start one up. I feel it would be a great help to have something physical where people can go for help, support and encouragement. However whenever I mention this and try to push for it I just get hit with a whole lot of negative comments and lethargy. Nobody seems willing to support the idea at all and I think it's a real shame. There seems to be a lot of laziness and 'let somebody else deal with it' attitude going on. I'm more than happy to set one up but it's not easy when you don't have any proof that anybody else will even turn up! Hi, Where are you? If we are close then I will help out! always happy to meet like minded people ;) We all need to remember at all times that when we talk on these forums, chat rooms, web pages that we are representing the brand (whichever floats your boat) and so should keep it positive, constructive and supportive at all times. If any of us feels the need to drag the tone down we really shouldn't be doing so in such a public way, keep it 1 on 1. Agreed 100% Peter Smout -- ubuntu-uk@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-uk https://wiki.ubuntu.com/UKTeam/
Re: [ubuntu-uk] Not everyone is an expert!
On 23/08/13 20:19, pete smout wrote: Hi, Where are you? If we are close then I will help out! always happy to meet like minded people;) High Wycombe, South Bucks. -- ubuntu-uk@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-uk https://wiki.ubuntu.com/UKTeam/
