[Klug-general] How does Kent County Council select software?

[Dan Attwood]

Bloated

A fresh imaged version of windows 7 will cotain the based os, the browser,
notepad a caculator and some bit and bobs. Not really what I'd call
bloated. They probably won't have much more software installed on them
either.  Given the that the machines are in a public they will also almost
certainly be creating and destroying user profiles at each login so they
won't cruft up much over time.

Buggy

I've used windows 7 for about 4 years now full time at work. I've had
a handful of blue screens and crashes over that time. I've probably had
ubuntu lock up about as much. This is on machine that runs virtualbox,
encodes videos, runs full adbobe suite and programming tools and has me
constantly fiddle with things. On a clean library machine any potential
bugs will be even less

Virus prone

True but, they will be behind a firewall and internet filtering system
which will cut out a lot of these problems. They will almost certainly have
local antivirus on them

Cost

This is a one you really have to be careful on. The cost of the OS is only
one part of the puzzle. You have to factor in the cost of employing linux
skilled people and the cost of managing linux maxchines en mass.
For example we use SCCM here at work to manage around 2000 devices. It
enables all software installs and updates to be done automatically pushed
out to machines. the systems that do this for linux (landscape, satellite,
chef entrpirse etc ) can actually be very expensive by comparison.

As Nathan points out you actually have to point out the cost of user
acceptance. the first time a member of the public opens a word file in
libre office and gets back garbage you're' going to meet a lot of
frustration.


I make these points as an ardant Linux fan boy who would love to see more
Linux being used. Projects like Limux, Udine and the French Police are
awesome. But if you're going to be approaching the Council about this you
need to make sure you have very sound reasoning and not just 'Windows is
rubbish and Linux is awesome' or you will just be pushed aside as a zealot.

Natahn suggestion of putting in a FOI request is a really good one.

you'll fine info here:

https://www.gov.uk/make-a-freedom-of-information-request/the-freedom-of-information-act

make the request and any answers also end up on here:



On 19 September 2014 08:40, Jonathan Kaye <jdkaye at riseup.net> wrote:

>  Dan Attwood wrote on 19/09/14 08:17:
>
> ok i'll bite:
>
>  " Why someone would buy proprietary software of extremely poor quality"
>
>  why is Windows 7 of extremely poor quality?
>
>
>  Bloated, buggy, virus prone. There's extensive documentation on this
> topic. For a more extensive treatment from a former MS employee I'd suggest *After
> the Software Wars* by Keith Curtis. I wasn't referring to Windows 7 in
> particular (sorry if I gave that impression) and perhaps the most obvious
> objection is the cost. I'm mainly concerned with who makes the decisions
> about software for publicly funded institutions and what arguments are
> given for the choice in question.
> Jonathan
>
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> Kent at mailman.lug.org.uk
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