O n Sat, 2011-02-12 at 19:46 +0000, alan c wrote:
> the IT department and found that Bracknell use an overwhelming amount > of Suse Enterprise server, and are carefully aware of the non linux > apps they still depend upon, and plan for a future with thin clients. > I think they have been noted in the press as doing well etc > generally, but it does not hit local news, nor, apparently, the > Councillors awareness. > > Armed with my new knowledge I am recently in touch with my Councillor > to help make them aware that there is no real reason why they need to > stay with a paid-for OS on their corporate laptop. It may take a bit > more time of course. Local and national govt are very slow to change - there is pressure building up but we need to keep pushing the case for linux & open source. Our hlug Open Source day on March 26 is all about this and the need for govt to support Open Document Standards. We have sent invites out to all the Herefordshire councillors - the cabinet member for ICT says he will attend & following pre -publicity about the day published in the local paper we were approached by the council ict dept and told that they were in the process of moving the council web platform over to 'mostly open source' and they too would like to send a rep and talk to us. The underlying structure may change to Open Source, the council may start using Linux Servers but the majority of their employees will probably still be using proprietary office software We want the council to consider putting Libre Office on their desktops as a starting point which is why we will be talking about long term strategy to get out of lock-ins and issues around open formats. We also want to let more ordinary people know about and use open source and that's why we give away our custom open source disc - The Linux Emporium have just kindly agreed to sponsor 100 more discs for the day which is fantastic as we do everything with zero funds - we will replace open office with Libre Office on this version. Once people switch to using cross platform open source software and become familiar with it then moving over to a full Linux OS becomes far less intimidating. The more people out there who use linux and open source software the more pressure will be on govt local and national to use open formats we can all read. It will also become easier for councils & national govt to change the OS used by their employees to Ubuntu or another flavour as they will have less resistance to deal with. It does take time but the boulder is moving - we just need to keep on pushing it. Sarah -- ubuntu-uk@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-uk https://wiki.ubuntu.com/UKTeam/
