Doing more with lessThe open software alternative

Arno WebbJuly 2009

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Finding the right blend

OSS PS

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The Good to Great Trajectory

Industry average performance

Good to great company

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The Good to Great Trajectory

Industry average performance

Good to great company

Why this?

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How do good companies become great?

Leadership

The right people

Facing the facts

Keeping it simple (excellence, passion, value)

Discipline

Technology accelerators

Flywheel vs doom loop

Jim Collins, Good to Great

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How do good companies become great?

Leadership

The right people: first who, then what

Facing the brutal facts

Keeping it simple (excellence, passion, value)

Discipline

Technology accelerators

Flywheel vs doom loop

(Jim Collins, Good to Great)

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Cabinet said …

“The Minister of Finance briefed Cabinet about the state of the economy and the fiscal outlook for the rest of the year. The report indicated a decline in revenue collection which will lead to a larger than anticipated budget deficit. Cabinet endorsed the proposed approach to maintain the current spending levels through borrowings to offset the budget deficit. ... Departments will also be required to review their spending plans to ensure effective and efficient use of the limited public resources.”

Statement on the Cabinet meeting held on 1 July 2009

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And quality of OSS software need not be an issue, e.g.

“We also investigated the productivity of the employees in using Microsoft office and OpenOffice.org. Office suites are widely used and are a good test bed and representative for a comparison on issues like effort and time spent in the daily routine of work. Delays in the task deliveries may have a bigger impact than costs on the organization's management. Our findings report no particular delays or loss of time in the daily work due to the use of OpenOffice.org.”

Same EU study

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OSS quality is becoming indistinguishable from PS quality

”A group of CIOs said they started using open-source software primarily because of cost reasons, but then stuck with it because of the quality and reliability of the code.”

(eWeek, 2006-02-13)

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From a Forrester Report

“As (enterprises’) adoption of open source software matures, they are likely to find more value beyond saving money on software license costs, low barriers to entry, and rapid evolution of successful open source projects.”

(http://news.cnet.com/8301-13505_3-10118123-16.html, 09/06/23)

87 percent of those surveyed realized the cost savings they expected from open source;

92 percent of respondents have had their quality expectations met or exceeded by open-source software.

Two other salient facts from the Forrester report:

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Status quo

Rest of the world: Several examples, e.g. in “Study on the

economic impact of open source software on innovation and the competitiveness of the Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) sector in the EU.

South African government:Full migrations at Presidential National

Commission, National LibrarySignificant progress at a number of national

departments (e.g. SARS), provincial departments, e.g. Limpopo Dept of Health, local governments, e.g. Ethikweni

as well as SITA.

Adoption elsewhere: Examples

Government policy, e.g. Brazil, New ZealandCity of MunichExtramadura province in SpainFrench Justice DepartmentSouth African business sector

Shifting focus

“It used to make sense to talk about open source as a separate line item in the enterprise IT lexicon. However, open source has become such a standard way of delivering enterprise IT that maybe it's time to update the lexicon.”

(CNET News, 3 March 2009)

Typically developed through public collaboration Available to anyone (usually at little or no cost) Does not require proprietary license fees May be freely re-distributed Free access to the human readable version of the software

called the “source code”, revealing the inner workings of the software and allowing its modification, hence the term “open source”

Use, modification and redistribution of the source code is governed by rules specified in associated nonproprietary open source licenses.

What is open software

Benefits

Organisatins can gain benefits from FOSS in various ways, including -

1. reduced costs;

2. ability to customize software to local functional requirement;6. less dependency on imported technology and skills;

3. avoiding lock-in into one vendor (Support can be provided by anyone since the code is in the public domain);

4. affordable software for individuals, enterprise and government;

5. Increased procurement speed so institutions can get their programs deployed faster;

6. universal access through mass software roll-out without costly licensing implications.

7. access to government data without barrier of proprietary software and data formats;

8. ability to customize software to local languages and cultures;

9. enhanced security and privacy compared to proprietary software;

10. improved quality (Normally, supported open source products go through three times more quality reviews than proprietary software as part of community review, indemnification review, and then productizing);

11. lowered barriers to entry for software businesses;

12. participation in global software development networks.

Government policy

•1) The South African Government will implement FOSS unless proprietary software is demonstrated to be significantly superior. Whenever the advantages of FOSS and proprietary software are comparable FOSS will be implemented when choosing a software solution for a new project. Whenever FOSS is not implemented, then reasons must be provided in order to justify the implementation of proprietary software.

•2) The South African Government will migrate current proprietary software to FOSS whenever comparable software exists.

•3) All new software developed for or by the South African Government will be based on open standards, adherent to FOSS principles, and licensed using a FOSS license where possible.

•4) The South African Government will ensure all Government content and content developed using Government resources is made Open Content, unless analysis on specific content shows that proprietary licensing or confidentiality is substantially beneficial.

•5) The South African Government will encourage the use of Open Content and Open Standards within South Africa.

Choose FOSS

Migrate to FOSS

Develop` FOSS, open stds

Open content

Promote outside govt

Examples of FOSS

Desktop Linux operating system OpenOffice.org (word processing,

spreadsheet, presentation, database, etc) Firefox web browser Thunderbird email

Back end Linux Apache web interface MySQL database PHP development language

Sample of FOSS equivalents to Windows software

http://wiki.linuxquestions.org/wiki/Linux_software_equivalent_to_Windows_software

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Solution development in progress in SITA

Back end stackECM (Alfresco)Zimbra (mail & calendar)Web standards implementationSakai elearning platformGuidelines on transversal systemsDesktop

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OSS Promotion

Readiness assessments (11 to date)Conferences/Workshops (1 per month)Procurement policyValue proposition frameworkInternshipsR&D servicesWebsite standardsWebsiteNewsletters

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Challenges

Building the ecosystemSkillsFunding streamsR&D capacityStandards

Balance between supply & demand of services

Balance between experimentation & standardisation

Capturing the landscape

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The Good to Great Trajectory

Industry average performance

Good to great company

Up to 10 years

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Conclusion: More communication needed

Linux forumODF forumCapturing and publicising success storiesVendor forumRegional meetingsUnderstanding the OSS landscape

OSS implementation sequence

• “Readiness” assessment– As is situation– Ideal situation– Target situation– Gap analysis

• Implementation roadmap• Implementation

– Business processes?– Software– Skills– Project management

• Monitoring & enhancement

Thank You

There is nothing as powerful as an idea whose time has come. (Victor Hugo)

arno.webb@sita.co.za