[Nottingham] Evangelism

[David Aldred]

On Sunday 26 June 2005 14:15, Michael Leuty wrote:
> I've previously mentioned my project to infiltrate FOSS in general and
> Linux in particular into the Church office where I am (faute de mieux)
> more or less in charge of IT.

> This made me realise that I had to be a bit more careful. I have
> successfully moved everyone from IE/OE to Firefox/Thunderbird on all
> the Windows clients, and everyone is happy about using these. I am
> currently slowly introducing OOo 2.0, in the hope that this can become
> the standard WP in the office. Clearly this is an area where a lot of
> support for the secretaries is required.

How have you found OOo2.0?   I tried a beta not too long ago, and found the 
database prone to crashes, and the mailmerge functionality still a long way 
from the main competition: I use both quite a lot (specifically for label 
production: I haven't found any really efficient way of producing a catalogue 
under OOo from a database). 

>
> I am therefore wondering what the advantages are of converting the
> clients to Linux, rather than leaving them as Windows boxes. I realise
> that there are some. I imagine they would be less prone to malware, and
> we could save on antivirus subscriptions. It would also prevent
> well-meaning people from popping in and installing software or
> hardware, just to be helpful. 

I think the main ones I'd identify fom a Church point of view are:

1.  Savings on costs - usually important to churches! - in three areas: (a) 
time lost dealing with malware / unauthorised additions; (b) direct costs of 
virus protection; (c) longer term, upgrade costs;

2.  Certainty of ethical software use: how sure can your church be that at 
present all Windows software in use is correctly licensed (especially if 
people have been in the habit of popping in and installing things)?  FOSS 
doesn't have this problem.

3.  Security: are you holding personal data on your systems?  Probably: if you 
have a management system for donations etc then you are likely to have some 
such data.   Given Windows' security record, you (and your 
donors/congregation) are better protected under Linux. 

-- 
David Aldred