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ProposalToUseFreeSoftware


Here are some basic ideas for using Free Software at Dartmouth.

The macintosh software isn't so bad right now (EULA is pretty reasonable, etc..) The windows software has many issues. (grrrrr)

> > There are going to be a number of points raised, with some basic sections that I'll research and write about. Here are some of the basic points (which will undoubtedly be reorganized and combined into a nice, readable list for the final proposal papers).

Okay. On with the sections:
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Why Dump Windows? (and some other pieces of software)

There are a number of reasons, including initial costs, TCO, uptime, reliability, and ease of management.


Ethics/Business practices of MS:

Microsoft Windows has a near monopoly on the desktop OS market, and has been involved in many questionable business situations. Clauses in several EULAs for MS products have done such things as restrict free speech using or reviewing the product, or granting MS unfettered access to your computer.

We're currently paying $75 for each computer sold through the computer store for a MS 'tax'. Someone somewhere agreed to pay a large sum of money for a reduced rate on Microsoft software (for the entire campus). More on that in the topic "MS Tax" (see below).


Why Linux? (vs. MacOS, or other free options like xxxBSD)

MacOS only runs on Macintosh hardware, and does not have all of the free software available, partially because it uses a modified version of BSD, and partially because it does not use X11 for its graphical display.

the BSDs are nice, but are not as fully developed as Linux. Linux is very nice for the desktop, although running BSD on servers, especially servers that must be very secure, might work better than running Linux.

Linux runs on many different types of hardware.

Aside from those of us that do software development or who run the latest 'unstable' beta-versions of the OS, Linux is extremely stable. I've had computers run for months of uptime. And not only servers, but workstations as well.

There is some software that is only now breaking onto the scene for Linux, such as the playing of some video codecs, etc... But most of those are proprietary formats (which I think that Dartmouth should Eschew anyhow!).

Nearly everything in Linux supports Open File Formats. Basically that means that the underlying structure of the file is documented and released to the public, so that anyone can write a tool to read those files. Using open formats, you can be assured that even if the company who writes the software goes out of business, you will always be able to read the data in your files. Also, open formats allow anyone to write a tool for a different computer platform, so you aren't forcing people to use a certain OS (they're free to use Windows, mac, linux, BSD, OS/2, etc....)


What's TCO for different options?

* Big part of the Proposal. Let's try to get some numbers (on both sides of the equation), and try to find as much 'bad' information (again on both sides) to shoot down.

That way we'll be really well informed and can answer a lot of questions that can come up.


Why would linux make sense for the administrative desktops?

Linux is a great operating system that is free, secure, powerful, and runs on lots of different hardware.

For the administrative desktops, admins could easily make sure that each computer was running the proper software and could effortlessly 'clone' that software onto each of the computers.

Even if different machines needed slightly different software, those differences could be noted in the server that managed all of the software for the computers.

Linux is secure. Imagine this:

Administrator/Secretary/etc... sits down at their desk. They log in, then they can get access to their email, transfer files from their computer to other desktops or servers, etc...

They can "lock their screen" with a mouse-click if they need to get up and go to the bathroom.

Or maybe they need to run a number of different programs that are rather huge -- then they can just "tunnel the X connection to another machine over ssh", and the program can be run on another machine and pop up on their screen as though it were running locally on their desktop. The "ssh" part refers to the encryption process whereby all of that data is kept secure while going over the network.


Why Linux/BSD on servers?

It's low-cost and easy to maintain. Software patches come out very quickly, and there are thousands of tools that can be used FOR FREE on as many servers as we want. eat that, redmond!


Why Linux on the desktop?

Lots of faculty used to use Unix -- and a number of professors are using Linux now! Professors in the Physics and CS departments (from what I can gather), as well as a few other profs around campus, all use Linux as their primary OS.

Unix is very powerful, and Linux has made the use of nice GUI interfaces (like KDE or Gnome) a part of that experience. They power of the command line is really nice, and for people in Computer Science, UNIX-like systems are useful for learning how to program.

In fact the CS department has multiple labs of Linux systems (we should ask Wayne Cripps about running Linux labs, maintenance, etc....)

If faculty were to use Linux systems, not only would there be a costs savings, but the ability for support staff to help the professors would be much easier.

If we stored most of the data on a networked storage space, then computer failure would not result in data loss --- professors could go to pretty much any computer on campus, and access their files effortlessly. If a prof's computer had issues, we could remotely reinstall the OS (or walk the prof. through the process) and have them working again in 20 minutes. Or we could just lend them a machine -- remember: if the files are stored remotely, then the local machine can just be replaced :)

Students? wow. yes, aside from the coolness factor of having all of these students using linux, there's a great draw.

Take $75 MS tax, times 4000 students on campus, and you get $30,000. Sure, it might be nice if we did business with RedHat or Debian or someone, and got some support contracts, but the thing is that we can do a lot of that in-house, and hire/train people to know a lot about Linux, so they can go fix things that have problems. $30,000 can be part of the salary for those people (and we buy lots more computers than 1 per student.. :)

So take WindowsXP?, which under our current plan costs $20, then plus $20 for Word, $20 for Excel, and $20 for PowerPoint?.

That gives us $80. Again, times 4000 students, that's $32,000. (and that's a low estimate.)

OpenOffice, which can read Word and Excel documents, does a great job of replacing MS Office. It even has Presentation and Drawing software, too.

Speaking of which, The GIMP isn't too bad of a piece of software, and it's free as well. There's also Blender3D, which does animation and 3D graphics, which is GPLed.

With free software products like these, we don't have to keep track of them with the keyserver or whatnot. We just spent a few thousand dollars licensing Xserver products for faculty to work on UNIX servers remotely. The amusing thing is that they could run linux + Xfree86 on their current hardware and get better performance with the remote connection, and not have to pay a dime for software.


What software choices should be made?


Why open-source projects? (including blitz)


What is the Microsoft Tax we're paying? (how much is it really costing us?)

good question. we want numbers!



RobinsonTryon - 11 Dec 2002