Proposal for non-profit

[Derek Neighbors]

--=-clpwXO89AJLrrrmobxfU
Content-Type: text/plain
Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable

> replying to my own post...nobody else is.

I was going to respond, but got side tracked.  My biggest criticism is
that you site over and over "open source" instead of "free software".=20
While you all can view me as a nazi on this subject. =20

A good deal of what you are trying to "sell" them has crap to do with
access to the source code and much more to do with the freedoms
associated with licensing.

Someone in a response to this thread, mentioned "much of this open
source software can run on windows (apache, php, open office, etc)".  I
will go one step further and say for governments and non-profits, very
soon you could see Microsoft offerring the source code.  So when you go
in cavalier like touting "open source" good, microsoft bad.  It might
come back to haunt you when they say microsoft is "open source" now too.

> I am totally serious about taking this non-profit completely to open
> source - they now have 1 windows computer and about 30 Macintosh
> computers and I don't see how they can continue on Mac's and I can't see
> starting in with Microsoft Windows at this point.

MacOS X is running pretty strong, I would suspect they could quite
easily continue on Mac's if they so desired.  Taking that road MacOS X
and most of its applications are fairly "open source" as well. ;)

> Hardware is unbelievably cheap right now. I am looking at a Compaq ML
> 530 P2 for $3250. This has 2-Xeon 2.4G processors, 1 Gb ECC RAM, 16 hot
> swap bays and embedded U3 SCSI in a 7U rack form factor. I think it has
> an IDE CD (big deal) and no hard drives. Wow that is a lot of iron for
> little money.

I'm not sure what cheap high end hardware has to do with "open source"
or even "free software".  I could see if you were making a point that
lower end recycled hardware was in place.  Stuff that couldnt run
windows, but maybe could be terminal server material.

Maybe that was the allusion.  That you could get a cheap large machine
and use existing client machines.  Which would be cheaper than buying
all new client machines?

> I plan on getting some help with custom programming (now all their data
> resides in Filemaker Pro), and I will be inviting people on this message
> boards to do some of the programming to replace this.

I wouldnt under estimate the cost (financial and otherwise) of replacing
applications.  Remember most users dont care if they are using an etch a
sketch or a super computer.  As long as they can do their job without a
hassle.  Getting a 5 year old boy to bathe and change his underwear is a
chore, so is getting users to change their applications. :)

> There are a lot of people giving lip service to getting government and
> businesses on open source stuff, but I have an opportunity to make it
> happen soon.

That's great.  We need more success stories.

> If my proposal sucks, feel free to say so, I'm not looking for
> compliments...I want to make a rock solid proposal and plan on offering
> it for any one else to incoporate for their use. I'm looking for people
> to critique my proposal, make it stronger as I'm getting very little
> help from the director & assistant director since they are not all that
> computer savvy. They are not Microsoft enthusiasts. The board president
> is a Microsoft enthusiast and I want to make sure that the proposal that
> I put in front of his is as good as it can possibly be.

The biggest bad move you can make is to turn it into a "Microsoft vs
Open Source" debate.  Especially if an Microsoft enthusiast is
involved.  Certainly point out ills that M$ makes, just don't
particularly attribute them to M$. :)

Make it a value proposition.  Focusing on "free software" vs
"proprietary" software. =20

> The proposal (link listed above) was the general concept. Part 2 was the
> initial hardware purchases to create the network infrastructure, and the
> first 4 general targets (testing open source accounting software,

There is no decent "open source" accounting software packages to date.=20
There are some good starts, but I assume being non-profit they probably
will do fund accounting in which case I must say "good luck".

> defining the server application layer & client interface for the SQL db
> to replace Filemaker, data conversion for all their existing data
> currently in proprietary format and LTSP testing and if desired,
> implementation).

Again, I must urge this is no small task.  Certainly it may not be
insurmountable, but the worst thing you can do is shrug it off like
Linux (sic) and open source (sic) are the solution to all the worlds
problems and then have endless delays in moving to it, because of data
or application issues.

> Anyway...I put the first message and my proposal online for PLUG 48
> hours ago and not a single comment has been uttered...

Remember it was posted going into a weekend.  Traffic in general has
been slow, I wouldnt take it as people ignoring it.

btw: the above might seem brutal, it's late, my personality is horridly
blunt.  however, i think the original draft overall is a good start.  I
think its great to see the community building documents like this and
more importantly sharing them.  i hope more than anything you can turn
this into a success story.  best of luck

--=20
Derek Neighbors
GNU Enterprise
http://www.gnuenterprise.org
derek@gnue.org

Was I helpful?  Let others know:
 http://svcs.affero.net/rm.php?r=3Ddneighbo

--=-clpwXO89AJLrrrmobxfU
Content-Type: application/pgp-signature; name=signature.asc
Content-Description: This is a digitally signed message part

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----
Version: GnuPG v1.2.1 (GNU/Linux)

iD8DBQA+KlX6Hb99+vQX/88RAjzJAJ9Y9Q1v+vWgRrXx/UpfG5TOAvxjjACfevtB
QnF53ElgdF871rN4jlTo+gI=
=zPTH
-----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

--=-clpwXO89AJLrrrmobxfU--