[Gllug] Voluntary work

[Richard Turner]

> From: gllug-bounces at linux.co.uk [mailto:gllug-bounces at linux.co.uk] On
> Behalf Of itsbruce at uklinux.net
> Sent: 13 November 2003 12:18 pm
> To: Greater London Linux Users Group
> Subject: Re: [Gllug] Voluntary work

<SNIP>

> Add to this the fact that many voluntary sector organisations don't
have
> an IT department, just one or two staff who are judged to be "good
with
> computers" and who fill in on top of their other work.  Even in larger
> organisations, the IT department is likely to be staffed by a mixture
of
> people who moved sideways from accounts/fundraising and people who
moved
> from minor IT jobs in the commercial sector.  They tend not to be
people
> who feel comfortable with Linux and Open Source.

I'm fortunate in a way in that although I work for a small charity (the
Disabled Living Foundation) we do have an IT department.  That
department consists of myself and my line manager (both of us having
computer-related Masters' degrees and a fair amount of experience) and a
selection of volunteers (usually totally unqualified) - we're always
over-worked because we have some fairly major projects underway and very
little resources.

Since I started working at the charity I've introduced a number of Linux
servers, mostly as firewalls or for web development (one took over from
our NT backup domain controller in hosting our intranet - I've no idea
why the intranet was on a BDC).  Unfortunately I was too late to prevent
the procurement of two new servers running Win2000 Server, Exchange, MS
SQL, etc. but I've changed the attitudes towards OSS here now to the
extent where the OSS alternatives would be seriously considered instead.
I even have my manager running SuSE (or is that SUSE?!) 8.2 at home now
:)

Once I've finished my main project at the moment (developing an app for
the staff using C#) then I'll be switching to Linux as my habitual
desktop too.  I've heard that the DLF is renowned amongst
disability-related charities for having 'an excellent IT department'
(I'd like to take credit, but I've only been here 18 months!), so we're
probably unusual in our adoption of Linux - I would like to see that
change :)

Richard.
--
"Racing turtles, the grapefruit is winning..."


-- 
Gllug mailing list  -  Gllug at linux.co.uk
http://list.ftech.net/mailman/listinfo/gllug