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Henry Bremridge wrote: > Was planning on sending a Freedom of Information Act request to Devon County > Council (and maybe the local council) > > Asking "In the light of the general desire to reduce 'waste' in government, and > ensure that as much assistance is provided to the needy as possible: could you > please advise > > - When was the last time a review was done in switching from Microsoft Office to > OpenSource equivalents (please see Birmingham City Council and Bristol City > Councils eg at http://www.opensourceacademy.gov.uk) > > - If the review has NOT been done in the last 5 years and no budget is available, > could you please advise why not given > - Microsoft Office costs a great deal of money to purchase > - The documents produced are not in ISO standard > - The underlying operating system requires significant hardware > > - If a review is being planned, then could you please advise when an interim > report will be published on your website " > > Any comments? > > > -- > Henry > Fri Oct 12 12:36:35 BST 2007 > > If only life where that simple. Take the example of TC, with the transfer of staff to Torbay Care Trust, we have a surplus of Microsoft Office Licenses that we have accumulated over the years. When we purchase new machines we get an MS Office licence "bundled" with the price, as a consequence, the only way that OO.org can compete with MS Office is on functionality, stability and standards. Stability - no one cares because MS office gives them an excuse for not having done there work on time, functionality - well Excel now offers well beyond the "standard" 256 columns on a spreadsheet (OO doesn't yet from what I understand and despite the numerous other advantages the OO.org offers this is the most important ?) and so the only thing in its favour is ODM compliance - "whats that ?". But that's not the scariest thing ... Have you heard of Government Connect ? http://www.govconnect.gov.uk/faq/one-faq?faq_id=146799 Its funny that there is no mention of the encryption standards used on the expensive DIS (black) boxes that will be a compulsory purchase by all government agencies. That maybe because to my best knowledge they are not using any .... because its all going to be transmitted over "secured" lines. Given the trend for local government to seek "out sourcing" partners to act as service providers, the number of "agencies" will proliferate exponentially ... all needing their own DIS box to do the "business" of government. I will leave your own imaginations to work out what sensitive bits of your information will be banded around this "secure network" in "plain text". Tom. -- The Mailing List for the Devon & Cornwall LUG http://mailman.dclug.org.uk/listinfo/list FAQ: http://www.dcglug.org.uk/linux_adm/list-faq.html