Databases Toolkit

Linux taken for a ride in the Old West

Tags:
Lamp,
Public Sector,
Local Government,
Open Source

Ingrid Marson ZDNet.co.uk

Published: 20 Feb 2006 15:55 GMT

...a product called OpenOffice, so if you have basic word-processing or spreadsheet activities that don't need to be shared with someone that uses a different product, you should try OpenOffice — it's simple to use."

Basically, we are familiarising them with the idea that they can do word processing and spreadsheets in an environment that's not Microsoft. In the future, when we reduce the number of Office licence purchases we can shift people more gently.

But are people actually using the open source applications? Surely, they'd rather use the application they're familiar with?;
We have had people say, "we want to do flow charts, can you buy me [Microsoft] Visio?", so we said: "take a look at OpenOffice Draw." It's not 100 percent stable, but it's enough for what most people want to do with a flow chart. The people who asked that question are now using that application.

Someone asked me a couple of months ago for a project management tool. They didn't have sophisticated project management requirements, but they needed to share it with individuals outside the organisation. I looked for an open source tool on the Web and found dotProject. It took a bit of tweaking, but we are already seeing some success with using this. The coolest thing about it is that project managers can send members of the public a link, and they can simply log on and look at the data.

The first project I tried this with is a redevelopment project. There are many people involved in this project, including the Steamboat Ski Corporation, the city administration, members of the planning commission, the architect and business owners. If we used a commercial project management package, everyone would have to buy a licence, or I would have had to pay for the Web interface option, which is expensive — commercial vendors who sell collaborative project management packages can charge up to $30,000.

You said that you're using Firefox. Do your users still have access to Microsoft Internet Explorer?
We have a few Web sites that our users have to access that require IE, so we didn't remove it from their machines, but we have trained them to use Firefox as much as possible because it's less vulnerable — most of problems we have with spyware come in through IE.

Can you tell me more about the e-government project based on open source software that Steamboat Springs is hosting and developing?
North-west Colorado is a sparsely populated area with many small towns. As our local government organisations are so small we recognised the only way we could do Web delivery of government services was by pooling our resources.

We found an open source content management system called Typo3, which is an enterprise CMS that rivals commercial products costing $60,000. A local firm in Colorado with experience on the LAMP platform customised it for Typo3.

We currently have beta sites developed for two towns and a county — to show local government officials and city or county staff how it works. These sites will go live to the public over the next six months or so — Steamboat Springs' site will go live on 1 May, Craig and Moffat County's site will go live this summer. Over time these sites will offer the same services that you get into your town hall or county court house, for example, you will be able to pay your parking ticket, register your dog, or sign up for a recreational activity.

We're publishing the project online so it's freely available — anyone who wants to get involved right now only has to download...

For more, click here...