Vista's licensing speeds NSW govt move to Linux desktops

Linux World ^ | 2005-09-29 | Julian Bajkowski

[N3WBI3]

The NSW Office of State Revenue (OSR) is taking a tough stance against Microsoft's decision to make an enterprise edition of Windows Vista only available to companies that have signed on to its Software Assurance program. The tax collection agency has declared it would rather switch desktop operating systems than lock itself into Microsoft's licensing regime.

Delivering a presentation at the South East Asian Regional Computer Confederation (SEARCC 05) in Sydney yesterday, OSR chief information officer Mike Kennedy and the agency's manager of client services Pravash Babhoota confirmed they would start scoping for a move to a Linux desktop within six months.

The OSR collects taxes, levies and duty for the NSW government and is the second biggest revenue authority in Australia after the Australian Taxation Office. Answering directly to the NSW Treasury, OSR has about 600 staff, 200 of which it recruited during the past year.

Babhoota said the agency had already successfully bedded down open source on its back-end, running its Oracle 9i and 10g core databases and assorted other transactional applications over Citrix on Dell-based clusters and had guarantees of open source support from key enterprise applications vendors.

While the back-end migration consisted of moving off heavier Unix- and Solaris-based operating systems running on Sun hardware, Babhoota said the emergence of a new version of Microsoft Windows, Office and their commensurate licensing would naturally lead his IT shop to consider consolidating its applications on open source.

"At this stage the benefits have been in delivering [savings through] consolidation and thin clients. In a few more months the focus will shift to replacing Office," Babhoota said.

Asked whether Microsoft's Software Assurance subscription licensing regime - under which volume users pay an annual fee for support, patches and upgrades - was influencing any potential shift on desktops, Babhoota said previous upgrade offers from Microsoft had provided a less than compelling economic case to his organization.

In particular, he said early offers to upgrade from NT to XP under Software Assurance had not provided sufficient value in their initial stages, noting the waiting game had paid off because ultimately prices dropped while stability, functionality and support increased.

"As soon as support ends for XP, we will look at moving to Linux [desktops]," Babhoota said, adding the back-end switch to open source had cost 17 percent of what a proprietary upgrade had been costed at, with the agency doubling the amount of business it processed in the same 12-month period.

[N3WBI3]

Its a license that works for some people but it defiantly is not what most people want when 'buy' something. It means MS bleeds you on a release cycle basis..

[dennisw]

THanks.... This thread inspired me to download Mandriva Linux. Doing it right now. I use WinXP but doubt I will ever want to move to Vista

[N3WBI3]

I wont be putting vista anywhere for awhile the hardware requirements are significantly more restrictive than XP pro so well be waiting at least until XP falls out of mainstream support next December before talking about any upgrade..

[Halfmanhalfamazing]

^^^^^^^^^^^Because the DNC here in the US and communists the world over are backing it big time.^^^^^^^^^^^^^

That's a very valid answer.

^^^^^^^^^^^^^nor do I think that all software should be free like the radicals do^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

I'm not one of those. Proprietary software has a very important place. My problem is how microsoft has treated it's customers. Specifically me. I don't expect them to support windows 98 in 2032 but at the same time alot of features that were being built for XP weren't being built for W2k. A current OS which is not supported.

Sorry, I'll find a better product. And I did.

^^^^^^^^^^^^If you want to just be a simple user of it then fine, but don't spend every waking moment pushing it on everyone^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

Who's saying "you must use this or else"?

^^^^^^^^^^and denying these obvious ties^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

And who's denying the obvious ties?

[Halfmanhalfamazing]

His point about communist backing is very valid....

And is something I considered before making the switch. The best I could do was use american-produced linuces.

I believe I made the choice partially in light of "the lesser of two evils". Besides, given how microsoft has positioned their business strategy they are more communistic than how linux is positioned.

One empowers individuals, the other does not. One fosters inner competition, the other does not.

One is held by a central source, a very overbearing one at that. The other.... is not.

I know the types of people he's referring to..... and man... I really can't stand richard stallman.

[Halfmanhalfamazing]

You do realize that mandriva is french, right?

[N3WBI3]

I really can't stand richard stallman.

< Ditto..

[N3WBI3]

His point about communist backing is very valid....

So is my point about air... MS and others have shops in china where software is developed. MS gave the Chinese government access to the windows source code (well 97% of it). Bill gate has praised the Chinese leadership.

[Golden Eagle]

< Ditto..

Sure you can't stand Stallman, you just spend every spare moment pushing his free software on everyone out of your disgust.

[Golden Eagle]

This thread inspired me to download Mandriva Linux.

Bizarre.

[N3WBI3]

So if the logic goes, you buy x software you must 100% agree with the person who wrote the license for it 20 years ago whats youre free pass on bill gates praising the communist chinese leadership?

[N3WBI3]

No its not, we told you along time ago GE, youre the best thing that has ever happened to Linux.. You alone have driven at least a half dozen people to look at it..

[Golden Eagle]

Yes. And the telnet daemon. Not to mention telnet itself. And if winsock is still kicking, it's in there too.

Haven't used ms ftp or telnet in ages, hardly ever. And no, you're way behind on your history if you think ms tcp is still bsd. They never got it straight from bsd anyway, got it from spyder, as was pointed out already on the other thread. Guess you forgot.

[Golden Eagle]

You alone have driven at least a half dozen people to look at it..

And stopped hundreds. The lines that seperate us are becoming more clear, and they will as the DNC and commies tie themselves tighter and tighter to it. IP will become more important in the future, not less, too bad for those that have gotten used to getting it for free.

[Golden Eagle]

So is my point about air...

ROFL, when the Chinese government computers start running on free air they got from the US, you might have a point, till then LMAO.

[Golden Eagle]

And who's denying the obvious ties?

Take a look around dude, you can't be that blind. Kudos to you for admitting the obvious, which otherwise never happens.

[Reeses]

Almost all of your posts revolve around promoting Microsoft. Do you have any non-Microsoft related interests? For curiosity's sake, why the obsession over many years on a single subject?

[Golden Eagle]

Being the richest man in the world, Gates is an obvious capitalist, who wants to sell his products in China. Stallman and his worshipers are the exact opposite end of the spectrum, they want to give the Chinese everything for free, and do, at every opportunity. Puts us on opposite ends as well.

[Golden Eagle]

I also promote Sun and Apple but no one cares about them anymore, free software has already almost wiped them out completely. I've actually been using those products longer, and really hate to see them suffer like they are at the hands of this foreign clone Linux. But like I said, no one cares about them anymore, it's now all about what can *I* get for free!

[Golden Eagle]

Take a look through these, see if you can find the truth about what's really going on with open source software.


http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=102x665385

http://europa.eu.int/idabc/en/document/1736/531

http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,1759,1617712,00.asp?kc=EWNKT0209KTX1K0100440

http://ianmurdock.com/?p=54

http://weblog.flora.org/article.php3?story_id=552

http://zgp.org/linux-elitists/p05210612bb7d87639a93@[192.168.1.101].html

http://www.linuxlinks.com/portal/news/article.php?story=20050624042207848&mode=print

http://www.linuxpipeline.com/42700029

http://www.oreillynet.com/pub/wlg/5279

http://www.linuxjournal.com/article/7239

http://asia.cnet.com/news/software/printfriendly.htm?AT=39146335-39001094t-39000001c

http://slashdot.org/articles/99/11/10/1457205.shtml

http://linux.slashdot.org/linux/05/05/19/1213245.shtml?tid=106&tid=219

http://slashdot.org/articles/03/10/30/1435248.shtml

http://www.iranian.ws/cgi-bin/iran_news/exec/view.cgi/2/3822

http://linuxtoday.com/news_story.php3?ltsn=2002-08-30-011-26-NW-LL-PB

http://slashdot.org/articles/03/05/01/1148227.shtml?tid=103&tid=99

http://www.zdnet.co.uk/print?TYPE=story&AT=2133230-39020381t-10000002c

http://www.pcworld.com/reviews/article/0,aid,104039,src,ov,00.asp

http://www.usatoday.com/tech/news/techpolicy/2003-10-20-open-source-mass_x.htm

http://www.newsforge.com/business/04/02/27/2329240.shtml