Adrian

Can you accept that there are those on these lists who wish to > continue
with the non-OSS model of software provision?

Who do you think you are influencing when you immediately and repeatedly go
on and on about OSS when ever anyone on this list even dares to mention the
MS word?

Adrian, the majority of the NHS currently has NOT followed the OSS pathway
you so regularly advocate. I can understand why you advocate  it, but for
most of us it is an irrelevance, side tracking us from the really important
issues.

Adrian, unless you can singlehandedly change the NHS policy regarding MS/OSS
software (and there is no sign that I can see that you have done that at a
national level to any significant extent) then the OSS soapbox on which you
evangelise so much is not achieving anything.

In the last few weeks ago you must have posted nearly a hundred postings
about OSS on gp-uk and the PHSCG maillists. What is the point? Is it the
principle that if you repeat yourself again and again then someone may
actually listen?

I actually looked at a book at the weekend in PC-World (wouldn't buy it from
there - I'd use Amazon) and considered how in the new year I may test an
older PC with a Linux installation, if I can find the time. I am not against
OSS nor Unix/Linux. I am trying to take a pragmatic view (as are many others
on these two lists) and work with the tools which most of us have, which
currently are MS OS and MS Office.

Adrian, if you feel so strongly that OSS should be the standard for the NHS,
then why don't you set up a pressure group with this aim in mind, and invite
interested users to join?

It is completely appropriate to post about OSS on general NHS IT mailling
lists, just as it is completely appropriate to post about Microsoft software
on these lists. I should be able to post about Microsoft software without an
intimidating immediate response rubbishing everying I have said, and
immediately countering with the arguments that OSS is the best and ONLY
solution for all the NHS' woes.

I am standing up to you Adrian as no-one else seems able or willing to do
it. Let's move onto much more interesting threads that are currently running
on gp-uk and [log in to unmask]

Laurie Miles

> Adrian Midgley wrote:
>> On Saturday 06 November 2004 11:09, McKee Billy (D83082) Walton
>> Surgery IP11 9QL wrote:
>>> This is a circular never ending argument to which there is no
>>> answer.
>>
>> There is, if you step back a bit and look calmly at it, a bizarre
>> underlying assumption being pushed toward us in the hope that it
>> will slide by unquestioned.
>>
>> And it is this - the equation of a standard closed source system with
>> something that is by definition supported in our Practices by a
>> professional corps of techies...
>>
>> and of a system based on or including many Open Source components
>> with something that is not standard .... 1 that is supported for some
>> reason only by amateurs .... 2 including ourselves - the people who
>> actually suffer when it goes wrong.
>>
>> On inspection, it becomes clear that this is a bit of FUD that
>> (mainly) MS have been pushing and repeating over and over in an
>> effort to make it a catch phrase that can be spouted instead of
>> thought.
>>
>> 1)   If the argument that standardising the selection of operating
>> system, graphical interface, networking structure and application
>> layer is a good argument (and it is for certain values of
>> "standardising" and customising and localising)  then it applies
>> neither less nor more to a system based on Open Source or Libre
>>    software than it does to one based on closed source. (we can
>>     examine how the revenue and capital consequences vary between
>> those two, later.  Hint, its easier with OSS)  So that is
>> an irrelevance being presented to us as though it was a powerful
>> argument in one direction.  It isn't.  Ignore it, and take the names
>> of those who present it.
>>
>> 2)   IBM and Novell are of course ignored here, in this convenient
>> argument. They are among the firms who offer worldwide support of
>> one or more distribution of the Linux operating system, of certain
>> _standard_ applications on it, and to develop and support specific
>> implementations of combinations of those and of new software from
>> them or other sources for specific purposes.
>> www.ibm.com
>> www.ibm.com/linux
>> (note the Ogilvy and Mather TCO study referenced from front and
>> centre on that site)
>>
>> www.novell.com
>> http://www.novell.com/linux/
>> http://www.novell.com/linux/truth/
>>   Responses to the lies Steve ballmer told in his recent memo
>>   (he is a clever chap, at least as much so as a drug rep,
>>     so he isn't /mistaken/ about these things)
>> http://www.theregister.co.uk/2004/11/05/novell_get_the_truth/
>> http://www.researchandmarkets.com/reportinfo.asp?cat_id=0&report_id=33
>> 51
>>
>> www.dell.com
>> The NHS buys a lot of Dell desktops and servers.
>> The system provided by the NHS Trust locally to our District Nurses
>> is a GX270 which is running SuSE 9.0 very nicely.
>> This machine I'm using a session on is a Dell Poweredge server.
>> You can get them preinstalled and supported
>> http://www.novell.com/news/press/archive/2004/10/pr04072.html
>>
>>
>> meanwhile an Australian state gov has put out for tenders for a
>> support panel for Linux infrastructure.  THis is a smart way to work,
>> as one expects from the Antipodeans.


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