experiences of openoffice in the lithuanian government

Baltic IT&T 2005. “Experiences of OpenOffice.org at the Lithuanian Government” Tomas Jonušas, Association “Open source for Lithuania”

Experiences of OpenOffice.orgin theLithuanianGovernment


Agenda

Who we are?

FLOSS at LT Government

Case Study MoE

Lessons Learned

To Do List

Q & A


www.akl.lt

Association “Open source for Lithuania”

50 natural persons

10 companies

> 30 FLOSS projects

Mission – stimulate usage of FLOSS in Lithuania


FLOSS at LT Government

Pilot project of using FOSS at government institutions

Survey „OSS in EU“, 2002

Software localization:

“OpenOffice“ 2002, 2003

“Mozilla“ 2002, 2003

Spell-checking software „Ispell“, 2003

Migration guide translation and adoption

FOSS software CD for schools

Government program for FOSS is in progress

Positive, open and supportive


Localization support


Free software CD

Third edition

For non Linux users


Free dictionary


Richard M. Stalman at Seimas 2004

“No softwarepatents”


Books availible


Preconditions for success

Product bundle

Competitive service available

Political tolerance

Administrative support

IT competence on site

Good project management

Slightly mad project leader


First FLOSS cases 2003

Ministry of Environment:

500 computers with „OpenOffice.org“ - 120.000€ economy

Vilnius County Administration:

~200 computers with „SuSE Linux“, OppenOffice.org, Mozilla - 50.000€ economy

Both are planning further computer purchases with FLOSS


Ministry of Environment

AD 2002

~11000 employees

~850 desktops

90% of software has no proper licenses

1M€ Investment supposed for upgrade

0.2M€ annually for software upgrades



2002 – pilot project - 7 desktops

Debian Linux

OpenOffice.org

Mozilla

Functional survey 96% - simple usage, main functions.

Conclusions:

No serious objections for migration



2003 – Phare grant for 500 computers & software purchase

Not Linux OS yet

OpenOffice.org

Mozilla mail & browser

72% (125/175) Ministry staff use OpenOffice.org,

500 OOo users in whole

To be extended soon...


Pitfalls and obstacles I

Main problem – lack of interoperability

Locked in – proprietary document formats

EU rigid on open document formats

System integration, like CMS, document management etc.


Pitfalls and obstacles II

Lack of computer literacy (80%)

Organizational viscosity and resistance to changes

Lack of project focus on client fears and problems

Sophisticated service purchase procedures

Is good to shift responsibility for all problems to someone


Lessons learned

There almost no transition period migrating to OpenOffice.org

Most users are rigid and passive, local support team is necessary

Problem accountability and statistic

Centralized bug reporting on site

No way to migrate without strong top management support

Forgotten virus attack problems


How could governments contribute? To Do list:

Open standards to be mandatory!

Embrace FLOSS IT development strategy (policy)

FLOSS supportive purchasing policy

FOSS in education at all levels!

Finance OSS competence center

Finance some FLOSS projects


Who benefits from FLOSS?Transparency, reliability, security

Stimulate competition (monopoly is evil)

Stimulate local IT industry

Create new jobs, stops brain leakage

Decrease software “piracy” rates

Lower TCO (IDA report 2004)

Independent from software vendors

Better negotiation position with software vendors

Should government contribute?


the matter of trust...

experiences of openoffice in the lithuanian government

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