hi all all is not doom and gloom on the UK Govt front, despite the NHS deal. It's really a case of 'horses for courses' and last place that you would currently see M$ disposed is on the desktop. Like any customer (or school) Linux and open source wins where it is currently 'better' that its alternative. Subscribers of this list are biased but be realistic. Had the NHS just spent £70m on web servers running exclusively M$ then i would be worried. In most schools using Linux, this does not go down to the desktop (ok, ok i know there are exceptions), but open source runs the cache, web server, DNS, routing, firewall etc In fact, the UK Govt (like the French and German's) has recently tendered for an open source PKI entrant to its current interoperability trials (did Suse respond Roger?) and has recently commisioned a Linux TCO pilot with Red Hat. They have learnt from the Gateway fiasco. The only way Linux and open source can succeed is to provide better solutions and focus on education and public sector. I see Suse have recently announced a dedicated public sector / Govt business unit, which is good news. Malcolm On Monday 03 December 2001 15:30, Jonathan Bacon wrote:
-----Original Message----- Good luck. It took my MP over a week just to send a reply acknowledging my letter. Since then..... Nada!! Time for my second barrel I think.
Maybe there is some way we can pull together on this. I don't know exactly what we could do, but if we all maybe pull together and put in a little work we could help things somewhat.
What might be good is to get some kind of meeting organised with a representative of the government and maybe some representatives of some Linux companies. If we could formulate some kind of report on educational use of Linux and then discuss these issues with them it could present some postive press.
Cheers,
Jono