Yet another city

Lyngby-Taarbaek switches to OpenOffice: Will prevent illegal downloading

All students and teachers in Lyngby-Taarbaek Municipality is now offered free office suite OpenOffice. It may be the same, and students are not tempted to illegal downloads of Microsoft Office, says the CIO.

Danish news (translated by Google): http://translate.google.com/translate?js=y&prev=_t&hl=da&ie=UTF-8&u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.version2.dk%2Fartikel%2F12299-lyngby-taarbaek-skifter-til-openoffice-vil-undgaa-ulovlig-download&sl=da&tl=en&history_state0=da%7Cen%7CLyngby-Taarb%25C3%25A6k%2520skifter%2520til%2520OpenOffice%253A%2520Vil%2520undg%25C3%25A5%2520ulovlig%2520download%250A%250AAlle%2520elever%2520og%2520l%25C3%25A6rere%2520i%2520Lyngby-Taarb%25C3%25A6k%2520Kommune%2520tilbydes%2520nu%2520den%2520gratis%2520kontorpakke%2520Openoffice.%2520Den%2520kan%2520det%2520samme%252C%2520og%2520eleverne%2520fristes%2520ikke%2520til%2520ulovlig%2520download%2520af%2520Microsoft%2520Office%252C%2520lyder%2520argumentet.%2520

USB-stick with free software to students

Municipal of Tønder (Denmark) hands out USB-stick with F/OSS software to all students and teachers.

Danish:
http://www.toender.dk/asp/news.asp?mnu=319&ID=2744&k=nto

Clumsy English:
http://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&ie=UTF-8&u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.toender.dk%2Fasp%2Fnews.asp%3Fmnu%3D319%26ID%3D2744%26k%3Dnto&sl=da&tl=en&history_state0=

OpenOffice.org Newsletter in Danish

The monthly newsletter is again on the street. This time with a breaking story about the Municipal of Tønder.

All elementary schools have changed to the use of free and open source software and the municipal has actually made a financial benefit analysis showing cost reduction DKK 410.000. If we project this amount of money into national level, we are talking about DKK 55 mio. that could be spend on more valuable project, teach books etc.

Newsletter: http://doc.oooforum.dk/Nyhed/2008Marts.pdf
Municipal of Tønder: http://www.toender.dk
Comments on Version2.dk: http://www.version2.dk/artikel/6450

On open source communities

A small piece on open source communities in general and OpenOffice.org specific

Each time you enter a shop to buy something, this can be grosseries or a computer program, you have an expectation that it is ok and that everything works as described. You have the right to demand certain quality because you payed for what you have bought. If the new DVD player doesn't work, you can have it repaired, exchanged with another one or in the end, get your money back.

This is not the case when you use open source software from the simple reason that you didn't pay anything. Of cause you can uninstall the software. If you need a piece of software in conjunction with a guaranty, you can buy a commercial application like StarOffice from SUN Microsystems. StarOffice is a commercial version of OpenOffice.org and you can buy StarOffice with both garanties and support.

• How does the open source environment actually work ?
• How can anyone make a business when the software is free ?

From time to time I get a question from people that would like me to confirm that it actually *is* free of charge to use OpenOffice.org. "Can we use it in the company too ?" is the question.

Yes. OpenOffice.org is free of charge. Also in a company - without any limitations.

This can be true because several IT companies has found a possibility to make money on selling consulting and education. These companies doesn't make any money if the application doesn't exist, so the company is indirectly making money on supporting and helping the application development. Furthermore, several companies, organizations and governments that supports the development because they are using OpenOffice.org. By supporting the development, they make sure that the application is developed in a way that ensures OpenOffice.org to be developed in the right direction. You could call it a kind of self decided license fee. In most cases two or several companies or organization stick together and solves a specific problem in common. That way they can achieve something without each of them is getting involved directly.

In Denmark there is a lot of companies, organizations and authorities that is using OpenOffice.org, but as far as I know, only very few of them is actually giving a contribution back to the community. All members of the community are private contributers.

In the last two years of discussion on open standards and use of open source software like OpenOffice.org I have often heard that OpenOffice.org is not good enough and other programs are much better. But I have never heard from anyone that Denmark could participate and contribute to solve some of these problems. In Denmark we raise demands and criticisme, but we don't contribute.

I think this is caused by the lack of understanding for the way open source software works. And how development works.

In Denmark there is a lot of schools that is using OpenOffice.org in education. There must be some of the schools that has made some kind of education material like a syllabus or maybe even a teaching book. It would be much more effective if the schools could get together and develop this material in high quality once and release it under one of the free licenses.

The community behind OpenOffice.org in Denmark would very much like to contribute to get people together. Public schools can even get supported with fundings from the National IT- and Tele Agency.

In 2007 we started a new project in the international level of OpenOffice.org with the purpose to develop some kind of certification of users. A common goal of knowledge. The project is unfortunately partly closed for the moment, because we cant find participants.

Conclusion

Next time you wonder why something hasn't been developed yet or why you can't find a course to join or why you can't open .docx-files in OpenOffice.org or why you can't play multimedia files in presentations properly, change the question to: "How can I help to make it work ?".

You don't have to be a programmer to contribute to development. We can use anybody who can spend a few hours among friends in a wonderful community. Can you write a short how-to description or help us with graphical work or perhaps help us writing press releases. Do you know a lot of politicians or just a lot of people, you can help us promote the cause. There is always a job for everyone. And remember, its always YOU that sets the limits, so you can always say no thanks and back out for a while.

If your company uses OpenOffice.org, please remember to join the reference list on http://da.openoffice.org or http://www.openoffice.org. This is also considered a contribution.

Office in schools

British Educational Communications and Technology Agency (Becta) has released a report http://publications.becta.org.uk/download.cfm?resID=35275 that recommends schools in Great Britain not to consider upgrading to Microsoft Vista and Office 2007 unless they can upgrade all computers at once and has a direct benefit of such upgrade.

The report from Becta has been referred to in the Danish media over the last few days. (http://www.version2.dk/artikel/5884 and http://www.computerworld.dk/art/43644)

A journalist from the Danish computer magazine Computerworld.dk has asked about such report in Denmark. Vice President Per Thorbøll of UNI-C http://www.uni-c.dk/generelt/english/index.html explains that they don't have money nor authority to do a similar report in Denmark, but as he says:

The conclusion is of cause from Becta, but the computers are the same and the Windows versions are the same. So I think that the situation in Denmark is quite close to the British.

This is as close as he can get to a confirmation without confirming.

UNI-C is the Danish IT Centre for Education and Research and hosts and supports IT for almost all the Danish schools and universities.

That might be the reason for our struggles ...!

A research performed by one of the Danish IT newspapers Computerworld reveals one of the main problems:

• 56% of the answering persons has never heard of open source software.
• 38% of them answered that they have open source programs installed on their computer.

Some of the comments to the result says that there is probably people that is using open souce software without knowing that it's actually open source.

• 25% are using open source software
• 84% of those who are using it, knows that open source is free of charge
  

The research is representing 1.200 people that uses the Internet.

I think that one of the problems is, that teachers in public schools don't know about license rights and copyright law. From my point of view, all students that leaves public school should know about whats right and whats wrong and how free software can be free of charge. That's the only way to change this.

Schools warned off Microsoft deal

Have a look at this article on BBC http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/education/7063716.stm

Schools warned off Microsoft deal
The UK computer agency Becta is advising schools not to sign licensing agreements with Microsoft because of alleged anti-competitive practices.

About time we see some concrete advise on this issue. Here is the original press release from Becta.

Progress in Denmark

The last few days shown a few interesting news.

The Danish Government has made an agreement with Danish Municipals ( http://www.kl.dk ) and Danish Regions ( http://www.regioner.dk ) about how open standards should be implemented in the public sector. This press release is in Danish:
http://videnskabsministeriet.dk/site/forside/nyheder/pressemeddelelser/2007/bred-aftale-om-aabne-standarder
My own unofficial translation here.
A lot of details about the implementation has been published here: http://videnskabsministeriet.dk/site/forside/nyheder/Aktuelle-temaer/aabne-standarder/bilag e.g. these manuals for the offices: http://www.oio.dk/aabnestandarderforsoftware .

The Minister of finance has been asked to reveal how much the Danish state is paying Microsoft each year ( http://www.computerworld.dk/art/41817 ). The Minister (Thor Pedersen) claims that these numbers is impossible to collect. This is rubbish, because the sate has a centralized purchase of software licenses.

Several Members of the Danish Parliament wants to liberate the scholar system from Microsoft monopoly. Microsoft is offering a 70% discount to schools and universities but despite that, the bill is too high. And the MP know that monopoly in schools will keep the Microsoft monopoly in the rest of the country, both public and private sector. http://www.computerworld.dk/art/41789
The reason for this discussion is an article ( http://www.computerworld.dk/art/41785 ) that covers the fact that using Linux in the schools is more expensive than Windows. But the actual cause for that fact is, that Linux support is very expensive today. Why ? Because not many customers are using it. If the schools could gather together and collaborate about a common solution and establish a support center, it would be much cheaper.

What is nearly grotesque is that the agreement between the government and the Danish Municipals specifically mentions schools, hospitals and public libraries as not covered by the agreement. So what is it worth, when my children don't get the opportunity to learn about OpenOffice.org and open standards at school. They will end up as Microsoft users just like the previous generation. When they get on the job market, they will ask for Microsoft applications.

Sorry that all my references are in Danish. I'll try to find some time to translate to English one of these days.