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Tamil Nadu state departments asked to switch over to open source software

thehindu.com

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Re: Tamil Nadu state departments asked to switch over to open source software

#81

Post by webreac »

dijit wrote: post #64
donniezazen wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think Microsoft Office is any better than LibreOffice for general users. Most of the Indian government officials are tad computer illiterate. They would not know what they use.

even basic things in Excel are not supported in libreoffice, such as validations. I recently attempted to move everyone in my office to libreoffice where possible and was met with a very large resistence from people who's spreadsheets simply did not work. it's hard telling people that they have to edit functions/macros that were set up by someone smarter than them 10 years ago.

That is commpletely my point. I think there is more resistence for word, excel, outlook, powerpoint than for windows.

Re: Tamil Nadu state departments asked to switch over to open source software

#83

Post by keithpeter »

gphilip wrote: post #21
aviraldg wrote: post #3

Not many people know this but Linux is already quite popular in the South (esp. in schools and government offices)

In particular, the Department of General Education of the state of Kerala (more than 12,000 schools, about 6 million students, and about 200,000 teachers [1]) heavily promotes FOSS software both as a medium of teaching (all subjects, not just ICT) and as a tool for administration. This initiative is called the "IT@School Project" [2], and they develop and use their own customized version of Ubuntu (called "IT@School…

In the downloads section, the most recent ISO I can see (the one with the highest version number) is 3.8 and that is a Debian Lenny based system. Anything newer available for public download?

Re: Tamil Nadu state departments asked to switch over to open source software

#84

Post by S4M »

noisyboy wrote: post #76
S4M wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What can they possibly do to prevent the state department to switch to Linux (except bribing some people)?

Your "except" is pretty big to be put in "except". Apart from that, simply resistance from users, who are not really "computer people" and basically know that clicking the "w" icon launches the application on which letters can be drafted, is not a small matter. I hope the training programmes are well planned to cover that aspect.

Resistance to change from non "computer people", as you put it, has nothing to do with something Microsoft can do. And concerning the bribery, yes, I wouldn't be surprised if it was one of the main reason linux and free software in general didn't get more adoption.

Re: Tamil Nadu state departments asked to switch over to open source software

#85

Post by donniezazen »

aniketpant wrote: post #65
donniezazen wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think Microsoft Office is any better than LibreOffice for general users. Most of the Indian government officials are tad computer illiterate. They would not know what they use.

I think you should not club the two points together. Your first point makes a lot of sense because even if you say that the Indian government officials were "tad computer illiterate", LibreOffice is still not an acceptable replacement majorly due the UI and the loss of basic features.

I think LibreOffice UI falls into acceptable category. It might not be the most polished UI but it gets the work done efficiently. There is not much difference in productivity in two acceptable UIs.

A UI can be thought of being easy-to-use with the frequency of usage. I have been using Linux for many years. Now, whenever I use Windows the only thought in my mind is how can someone use a software so clumsy.

Re: Tamil Nadu state departments asked to switch over to open source software

#87

Post by fzltrp »

dredmorbius wrote: post #26
cycnusx wrote: post #10

OSS, the order said, “is almost free of virus. Hence loss of information, hacking, phishing can be prevented… there is no need to spend on expensive anti virus software.” I disagree with that statement.

The general threat model for Linux systems is outdated installations with extant security holes, often remotely exploitable. This is in contrast with Windows in which a huge class of exploits are by way of content placed by users on their own systems, more often technically trojans than viruses. This isn't to say that Linux is wholly immune to security exploits. It's not. But it's hugely more manageable and securable…

To be honest, it is possible to configure windows (starting from XP) with a minimal set of enabled capabilities. The system policies mechanism is quite featurefull, and you lock a system down to minimal rights. It is also possible to deploy system patches and updates locally to a domain from the server (what they call a domain controller) comfigured to do so. In fact you can pretty much control any client associated to a domain relotely with the right access token.

Imho, the main issue is more in:

- setting up the right set of policies, it's a difficult task. On a unix system, the problem is probably easier to tackle because the first (simpler) layer of security implemented through the file system (linux for instance provides a more elaborated capability mechanism, many others unix also each have their own implementations of a policy/capability mechanism).

- letting end users having too much control on their computer, because often time they wish to install all sort of products on their own (this is especially true of developpers, but usually computer literates are more security minded than the lambda user). With web apps, this problem is nowadays shifted toward the browser, so maybe this problem isn't as much of an issue as it was 10 years ago for system wide policy enforcement (but as I said it is now one at the browser level).

Re: Tamil Nadu state departments asked to switch over to open source software

#88

Post by esdailycom »

patja wrote: post #73
gphilip wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If I may ask: Did you find such errors in the linked article? Is this what prompted your question? "The Hindu" (linked in the post) is one newspaper which takes these things seriously. They even have an "ombudsman" of sorts (whom they call the "Reader's Editor") and they encourage readers to write in to this person pointing out all sorts of mistakes, including grammatical [1]. Constraints of the printed page would al…

I did find some errors in the article, albeit many of them were in the quotes from government communications. My question was prompted by this as well as the experience I've had reading newspapers and magazines in India during visits I've made. The tone and language used in the Indian press is often quite striking when compared to other English language press. Many of the errors were in the quotes, but there are some…

That sentence is indeed grammatically correct.
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