Posted by: Anonymous Coward
on February 27, 2003 01:21 PM
This is what I think:
Yes, U.P. is not paying for the licensing fees of proprietary software among many other expenditures, being a government institution. Yes, the money comes from the government funds. However, if you care to read the article again, or if you have read the U.P. Forum article mentioned above, you'll stop wondering why: the Philippine government has been slashing U.P. budget (and the education budget as a whole) by the millions for several years now, so the U.P. President has no choice but to turn to open source and other cheaper alternatives.
Don't be misled into thinking that U.P. is gonna trash the previous versions of licensed software. That's a lot of Philippine pesos wasted if the university's gonna do that. Of course UP will still use them. But as more and more PCs are purchased over time, the Academic licenses will have run out and U.P. cannot afford to buy new licenses for these because of the budget cut.
The point is this: if a U.P. department or unit has extra money to buy more licensed software then fine. But if not, U.P. can't just shell out funds for these as their are many departments and campuses in U.P. clamoring for new licencses or new software purchases. Again, that's because of the tight budget allotted by the government.
Thus, new PCs will have to be installed with open source or cheaper software or licensed software will have to be transferred to these PCs and uninstalled from older machines. Also, machines needing software running only in Windows will be prioritized to use the meager Microsoft software licenses. But eventually, U.P. has to find alternative software that is either open source or running on the Linux environment.
Of course the U.P. President is aware of the licensing options of Microsoft as with the past U.P. Presidents, but still Academic license or not, the prices are still much too exorbitant. As I've mentioned earlier, U.P. has existing academic licenses of older versions of Microsoft software (and put into good use) but it's just limited, compared to the growing demand from faculty, student labs and university staff - about 10 campuses, and several thousands of constituents in all.
You see it's not just about the anti-PR or political statement. It's about practicality and still getting the job done, and maintaining work efficiency, especially when the budget is a major concern. Of course when your company's filthy rich you're not faced with such issues, although your company might be several thousands of dollars richer if you switch your system to linux.
The learning curve may be a little steep but heck, over time people will learn to adapt. Training and practice is all it takes. And as for U.P., these guys are from the university, they'll be able to adjust faster than others.<nobr> <wbr></nobr>:)
And lastly, the current Linux flavors are much easier to install and configure than say 5 years ago. It's almost like installing and configuring Windows, complete with GUI. It's not only for geeks anymore.
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Re:just a question??
Posted by: Anonymous Coward on February 27, 2003 01:21 PMYes, U.P. is not paying for the licensing fees of proprietary software among many other expenditures, being a government institution. Yes, the money comes from the government funds. However, if you care to read the article again, or if you have read the U.P. Forum article mentioned above, you'll stop wondering why: the Philippine government has been slashing U.P. budget (and the education budget as a whole) by the millions for several years now, so the U.P. President has no choice but to turn to open source and other cheaper alternatives.
Don't be misled into thinking that U.P. is gonna trash the previous versions of licensed software. That's a lot of Philippine pesos wasted if the university's gonna do that. Of course UP will still use them. But as more and more PCs are purchased over time, the Academic licenses will have run out and U.P. cannot afford to buy new licenses for these because of the budget cut.
The point is this: if a U.P. department or unit has extra money to buy more licensed software then fine. But if not, U.P. can't just shell out funds for these as their are many departments and campuses in U.P. clamoring for new licencses or new software purchases. Again, that's because of the tight budget allotted by the government.
Thus, new PCs will have to be installed with open source or cheaper software or licensed software will have to be transferred to these PCs and uninstalled from older machines. Also, machines needing software running only in Windows will be prioritized to use the meager Microsoft software licenses. But eventually, U.P. has to find alternative software that is either open source or running on the Linux environment.
Of course the U.P. President is aware of the licensing options of Microsoft as with the past U.P. Presidents, but still Academic license or not, the prices are still much too exorbitant. As I've mentioned earlier, U.P. has existing academic licenses of older versions of Microsoft software (and put into good use) but it's just limited, compared to the growing demand from faculty, student labs and university staff - about 10 campuses, and several thousands of constituents in all.
You see it's not just about the anti-PR or political statement. It's about practicality and still getting the job done, and maintaining work efficiency, especially when the budget is a major concern. Of course when your company's filthy rich you're not faced with such issues, although your company might be several thousands of dollars richer if you switch your system to linux.
The learning curve may be a little steep but heck, over time people will learn to adapt. Training and practice is all it takes. And as for U.P., these guys are from the university, they'll be able to adjust faster than others.<nobr> <wbr></nobr>:)
And lastly, the current Linux flavors are much easier to install and configure than say 5 years ago. It's almost like installing and configuring Windows, complete with GUI. It's not only for geeks anymore.
- d'Janitor
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