[Wolves] Open Source successes at work

[Adam Sweet]

Hi all,

I've been meaning to mention this for a week or 2 now
but I've been a bit too flat out to write it.

I'm feeling rather pleased with myself because through
my influence I've managed to infiltrate several pieces
of OSS into my one-stop-Windows-shop workplace. It's a
6th form college.

As of the Autumn term we will be giving away copies of
OpenOffice.org to any student that wants an Office
Suite.

Remember me mentioning Moodle, an Open Source Virtual
Learning Environment? Well I set it up and after a
weeks trial, we've ditched the proprietary solution we
were trialling for 18 months. It saved us several
grand in the process and is significantly better.

I am also struggling with a Linux firewall, MNF, IPCop
and Smoothwall. Alas I can't get any data out onto the
net as yet, but I'm working on it and I may come back
for advice later on.

Unfortunately, I couldn't get Moodle to work on my
Debian box in the office, so no Linux servers yet
though it is running on Apache, PHP and MySQL, nor
could I persuade my bosses to hide IE and replace it
with Firefox as the default browser despite the
promise of fewer security holes. Also my attempt at
demoing Squirrelmail as a replacement for our ageing,
cranky, proprietary webmail system fell flat when I
couldn't manage to log in.

Nevertheless, it represents a significant mind-shift
from "don't touch it with a barge-pole" to "see if
it's better" for which, as the primary instigator and
in many such cases, the primary admin, I am rather
pleased with myself.

Ad - smug

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http://www.drinky.org.uk


	
	
		
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