Open Source Newsletter from LGMA

1. Open Source in the LGMA
Issue 01 ISSUE
Quarterly
01
February
JOURNAL OF
Research and
Architecture Open Source in LGMA
2011
Open Source Survey
A survey of LA's attitudes carried out in late 2009 showed that LA's recognised the benefits of OS. Over
50% quoted cost reduction and vendor independence, the three main concerns were support, in-house
skills and the management of the change process to OS.
As part of the OS initiative we plan to address these concerns through the establishment of an OS commu-
nity in the local government sector through which experience can be shared and support given. Anyone in this issue
Training on your organisation who would like to become involved with this initiative should email their details to LA Open Source Open Source Opportunities P.1
opensource@lgma.ie
Open Source Forum January
Open Source Forum P.1
with the IPA In order to help focus the OS project on the areas of most interest to LA's we would appreciate it if you 25th
could take the time to complete a short follow up survey. This will enable us to establish the products and
services you feel would be of most benefit to your organisation. The OS survey is provided online at:- IT Management Tips P.2
The IPA has implemented a
16 Local Authorities attended a very
https://spreadsheets.google.com/viewform?formkey=dElFMjhtWVliNDczY1FheVFDUTNveVE6MQ
very successful training pilot interesting and constructive day at our Focus on the Tools P.3
th
on Open Office in Limerick first OS Forum on January 25 . We
Training and Familiarisation P.4
heard from a whole generation of
City. To date 60 staff have
Software Providers and Govern-
completed the training. Gerry Perceived Benefits
ment colleagues on how to harness
Grogan in the IPA would be the power of Open Source, while Exploring open source software opportunities.
very interested to hear from mitigating the risks of change.
Presentations from Mihai Bilauca -
Open Source has been around for as long as opportunity for stability. There is no Vendor
other local authorities who computers have been in use. Where people inducement to upgrade after certain periods
Limerick City, Mel McIntyre - Open
might be considering running a shared or distributed their software, solutions or versions have become end of life. Typical-
App, Richard Martin – Tascomi, Liam
and expertise. In past times sharing was usu- ly Open Source software conforms very
similar program for staff. Stewart - OPW and Fergus O'Rourke
ally localized, due to geographic constraints. closely to international, primarily Open
– Meath Co. Co. demonstrated the
standards. These standards tend to change
variety of OS product available and
With the rise of the Internet – Open Source very slowly and the freedom for interchange-
how these are being utilised by local
Software (OSS) has become a standard ability is paramount and the real “free” in
authorities and the public sector. phrase used to describe the practice of shar- open source – the freedom of choice.
Upcoming Events The current suite of products in place
ing code. More importantly the ubiquitous
internet has facilitated distributed communi- This cannot be said of most propitiatory soft-
April 12th, Cork in LA‘s will reach end of life over the
ties sharing their software with more diverse ware. Software flexibility is related to busi-
next 2 to 4 years. Participants felt the
On April 12th we will be run- end users. As a result the open source com- ness flexibility and prudent use and adoption
evaluation of alternatives should begin
ning our next Open Source munities have been established. Interestingly, of standards. Namely, if the business require-
as soon as possible to facilitate an
Perceived Issues though, successful OSS projects are not cre- ments change, then the solutions should not
Workshop, in the Council informed choice at time of replace-
ated by releasing free source code – they are be unreasonably constrained by software.
ment. Pilot projects in local authorities created through the growth of communities Open Source projects do not typically at-
Chamber, County Hall, Cork.
to examine OS products suitability and of shared interest. tempt this lock-in strategy as in most cases
The emphasis of the next scalability were suggested. there is no commercial benefit.
event will be based on the Community development and community
Based on the feedback from the par-
experiences in the deployment adoption has led to the success of Open All open source software is written as loosely
ticipants IT products in LA‘s broadly
Source around the world, with many com- coupled architectures. With the development
of Open Source, and the legal- fall into 4 main categories:- Office
mon Open Source Solutions benefitting from teams being distributed they still manage to
Productivity, CMS, Infrastructure and
ities and licensing issues relat- world wide development and support. develop and evolve a community spirit that
GIS.
maintains common interests and codebases.
ed to the use and deployment
To follow up we suggest 4 streams of
The Local Government Sector is such a com- The loose coupling occurs at two levels, the
of Open Source.
interested parties to work together to
munity and intelligent use of Open Source teams of developers are working in isolation
appraise OS solution in each of the
can offer huge benefits. There are many dif- from each other, yet aware and open to com-
ferent functions that Local Government carry munity goals within the development. They
categories. If you would like to be
out that could hugely benefit from Open also make their product-sets loosely coupled
involved in a particular stream or have
Source software. so the main quality of open source, choice,
any suggestions please email Rhoda
Res earc h & Arc hitec tu re can be the end users, they can plug in one
at rkerins@lgma.ie
in the LG MA LGMA
Open Source Software offers Local Govern- component, use it, and change it, upgrade it
Links to presentation on the day can
Phoenix House ment mitigation against vendor-push and and they know that it will still work with
be found at http://www.lgma.ie/
Dublin 8 pressure to conform to the latest vendor other components as long as they stick to the
opensource/ adopted lock-in standards. This offers us the open standards between the loose couples.
Res earc h &Arc hitec tu re

2. Procurement to In-
clude Open Source Ubuntu Wins
What Products are
On 7 January 2011, the US Gov-
out there for my LGCSB Testing
ernment issued a memorandum
instructing its information tech-
Organisation. In our usage, functionality and
technical trials Ubuntu 10.04
nology procurers not to discrimi-
This isn't an exhaustive list, but (LS) was the preferred desk-
nate on the basis of whether
top OS. Ubuntu 10.04 (LS) is
software is proprietary, open
it is a great start and can be
the most stable, supported
source or mixed source, but to added to by all registered au- OS and worked most easily
base their purchasing choices thors.
Open Source GIS
on our wide range of test and
soley on the merits of the prod-
development hardware. The
ucts. In the last few years there has As well as the development of greSQL object-relational data-
Here is a list of Products, primarily from Microsoft with Open runners up were Fedora 12,
The ‗technology neutrality‘ mem- ―Open Office now been a major shift in the exciting and robust products base http://openlayers.org/ Suse Linux, Mandrake and
Source equivalents. Each of the Open Source projects are availa- world of free and open source there has been a parallel and OpenLayers
orandum from the Office of Man- Owned by Oracle—
ble for Open and Free Download, usage rights will have to be es- RedHat. While each OS has
geospatial software. For in- arguably more important shift OpenLayers is a pure JavaS-
agement and Budget(OMB)
tablished. Libre Office, a stance, the website Open- with the establishment of or- cript library for displaying map merits, Ubuntu was the Over-
urges Government agencies to Sourcegis.org currently lists ganisations such as OSGeo data in most modern web all Preferred Desktop.
―analyse alternatives that include Proprietary Products Open Source Equivalents ―forked‖ product 100s of Open Source GIS relat- Foundation has been estab- browsers.
ed projects. These include lished to offer a point of OpenTripPlanner
proprietary, open source, and now available‖
products to fill every level of contact. The Tools here form OpenTripPlanner is a multi-
mixed technologies. This allows Business / Productivity the spatial data infrastructure the Backbone of Open311 , modal trip planning engine
Microsoft Office Open Office
the Government to pursue the
Oracle Now own Open Office
stack. An example of each OpenMuni and NY Transit http://opentripplanner.org/
Monthly Picks
product follows. With an ad- Data, GeoExt
best strategy to meet its particu-
In their recent Purchase of Sun, herence to Open Standards, GeoServer GeoExt is a JavaScript toolkit Share your experience!
lar needs.‖
Libre Office
as existing products are rapid- A map server that publishes for rich web mapping applica-
the Open Office Suite came with
ly refined and enhanced they data from any major spatial tions. http://geoext.org/
Star Office Let you colleagues in the
the bundle. A quick check of the can be seamlessly plugged in data source using open stand- GeoWebCache
Interestingly, this topic came up
or out. Open Source software ards. http://geoserver.org/ GeoWebCache is a cache for local government sector know
Oracle Website sees Open Office
at our recent LA Open Source Microsoft Publisher Scribus can provide a feature- PostGIS WMS tiles implemented in about the OS initiatives and
for Sale at $49.00 and Enterprise
Workshop. The main issue be- complete alternative PostGIS adds support for geo- Java. http:// implementations in your Local
Versions available at $99.00 per to proprietary software in graphic objects to the Post- geowebcache.org/
ing - does our procurement prac- Microsoft Visio Dia Authority.
user. The Enterprise Versions of almost every Geo Situation.
tices have to change in order to
Microsoft Project OpenProj 1.4 Open Office include support for the
not discriminate against open
We would like to feature local
source? Or, conversely, if I
Open Workbench MSOffice .Doc and .XLS formats, This Month‘s Q&A Technology Tips
authorities experience of OS
Adobe PDF Viewer SumatraPDF Support for SharePoint, Alfresco
decide to use a downloaded tool,
products and would invite
and Oracle. Op en Source
without cost to the organization Q: What are Portable Apps
PDFCreator 0.9.5 A ―Forked‖ or branch of Open Of- Portable Apps are very handy. PortableAp p s.com p rovid es a tru - contributions for our next
can I then procure just the ser- ly op en platform th at works with
Www.portableApps.com newsletter.
fice has been established and
vices I require to make my Adobe Photoshop GIMP 2.6 / Gimpshop 2.2.11 You can carry software any hard ware you like (USB flash
Please forward any articles to
Libre Office 3.0 has been d rive, iPod, E ven a Network
choice a reality? p rograms alon g with all
Share, etc). Th e en tire p latform is Rhoda at rkerins@lgma.ie
Launched. Libre Office is very of your bookmarks,
Microsoft Outlook TrustedBird op en sou rce bu ilt around an op en
similar to Open Office and has the settin gs, email an d
If you would like to join the con- more with you . Use format that any hard ware or soft-
Media Player VLC same features and functionality. ware provid er can u se.
versation, please add your com- th em on any Wind ows
computer. All with ou t Th e Platform is free. It contain s
ments to www.lgma.ie/ n o sp yware. Th ere are no ad ver-
Internet Explorer Google Chrome / Mozilla Firefox leavin g any p ersonal da-
opensource ta b ehind. tisemen ts. It isn 't a limited or tri-
Virtualisation XEN al version. It's 100% free to u se,
free to cop y and free to sh are.