That wouldn't do it for me.
How much is *retraining* going to cost.
I've used Linux and Windows and Windows is *much* easier to work with.
Linux and its tools also tend to have a lot more anoying bugs that the
comercial stuff. The saving grace seems to be that the *nix architecture
tends to keep my OS up and running--provided that the user knows the tricks
to take advantage of that fact.
Even so, I wind up restarting Xfree pretty often. The fact that I don't have
to reboot the machine is pretty irrelevant--restarting the X windowing system
is the moral equivalent of rebooting the work station.
=============
I think that the point isn't whether free, open source, or even Apple or IBM
solutions are better. From a business perspective "better" is irrelevant.
What is relevant:
1) The County is in violation of State and County regulations.
Specifically, Microsoft is a a convicted monopolist. The County can't do
business with monopolists.
(NOTE WELL: to carry the case you better have lawyers there. The county will
have lawyers. The license fees are chicken-feed compared to total operating
costs . The County will have lawyers there to keep it from being forced to
do something that will cost it a lot more than the relatively irrelevant MS
license fees.)
2) There exist alternatives to MS.
3) The alternatives in #2 don't have to be better than MS. They just have
to exist and be minimally viable.
=============================
4) Get a lawyer. Be prepared to sue the County into compliance. You are
planning to visit a regulation induced disaster on County IT and gigantic
unecessary expenses on Maricopa County taxpayers. The whole thing is driven
by regulations, economic logic is irrelevant. If the County is indeed in
violation, the courts can be used to cram the whole thing down the CIO
director's maw. If the County is *not* in violation of law then your cause
is toast.
On Tuesday 02 July 2002 21:22, you wrote:
> Curtis Zinzilieta wrote:
> > A far worse result would be to turn out in numbers, largely unorganized,
> > and appear before them speaking like religious zealots.
> >
> > Numbers are important, yes, but more important will be the ability to
> > calmly and rationally present our points and viable alternatives.
> > Alternatives that can actually be implemented in a reasonable timeframe
> > and can be expected to work. I believe it's impossible to expect the
> > county to turn over every desktop and server in a very few days, for
> > instance, regardless of standing laws or statutes.
> >
> > Again, clear and concise points, well presented, with backup, are what
> > will be needed here. Speaking off the cuff, without prior thought or
> > consideration, is not likely to make many points.
>
> I'm cramming to get my thesis out and have only been skimming the
> posts...
>
> On thing that I have not seen discussed so far is suggestions on how to
> ween the Gov. off of M$.
>
> Example: can Kword, Kspread, Kpresenter, etc. be compiled using Qt, etc.
> and run on Win*? Is there another opensource *word editor which works
> on multiple platforms? How bout databases?
>
> If I was their IT guy I would want to see the following at least
> described if not in person:
>
> 1) A list of software with capability lists that are common to
> orginizations like theirs.
>
> 2) a compatibility chart for what they currently use to what roughly
> replaces it.
>
> 3) a list of those packages which will not only run on *NIX, but also
> Win* so that I could lod it up on the uses machines and start getting
> people to use it, etc.
>
> 4) and possibly last, and this would likely be the clincher, chart the
> costs (seat purchase, maintance, etc.) of the two. Best of all would be
> a first pass on estimating the migration costs also.
>
> well... back to working on my thesis... that's my 2 c
>
>
> EBo --
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