USB-stick with free software to students

Municipal of Tønder (Denmark) hands out USB-stick with F/OSS software to all students and teachers.

Danish:
http://www.toender.dk/asp/news.asp?mnu=319&ID=2744&k=nto

Clumsy English:
http://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&ie=UTF-8&u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.toender.dk%2Fasp%2Fnews.asp%3Fmnu%3D319%26ID%3D2744%26k%3Dnto&sl=da&tl=en&history_state0=

Experiments doing screencasts

Over the last couple of weeks, I'we been experimenting with different ways of creating screencasts. It all began with a journalist that wanted me to something about the upcomming OpenOffice.org 3.0. The result can be seen here: http://www.version2.dk/artikel/7482 . It became very popular but personally I think it was pure quality. We made it with a program called BB Flashback Express from Blueberry Software. I have also tried Adobe Captivate, but thats too expensive (and proprietary) for me. Camstudio is an open source application, but it's not possible to edit the source after the take.

I ended up with an application called Wink from debugmode.

You can see a few examples
Makro recorder: http://doc.oooforum.dk/Flash/Makro.htm
Editing PDF-files (OpenOffice.org 3.0): http://doc.oooforum.dk/Flash/PDF-editor.htm

On open source communities

A small piece on open source communities in general and OpenOffice.org specific

Each time you enter a shop to buy something, this can be grosseries or a computer program, you have an expectation that it is ok and that everything works as described. You have the right to demand certain quality because you payed for what you have bought. If the new DVD player doesn't work, you can have it repaired, exchanged with another one or in the end, get your money back.

This is not the case when you use open source software from the simple reason that you didn't pay anything. Of cause you can uninstall the software. If you need a piece of software in conjunction with a guaranty, you can buy a commercial application like StarOffice from SUN Microsystems. StarOffice is a commercial version of OpenOffice.org and you can buy StarOffice with both garanties and support.

• How does the open source environment actually work ?
• How can anyone make a business when the software is free ?

From time to time I get a question from people that would like me to confirm that it actually *is* free of charge to use OpenOffice.org. "Can we use it in the company too ?" is the question.

Yes. OpenOffice.org is free of charge. Also in a company - without any limitations.

This can be true because several IT companies has found a possibility to make money on selling consulting and education. These companies doesn't make any money if the application doesn't exist, so the company is indirectly making money on supporting and helping the application development. Furthermore, several companies, organizations and governments that supports the development because they are using OpenOffice.org. By supporting the development, they make sure that the application is developed in a way that ensures OpenOffice.org to be developed in the right direction. You could call it a kind of self decided license fee. In most cases two or several companies or organization stick together and solves a specific problem in common. That way they can achieve something without each of them is getting involved directly.

In Denmark there is a lot of companies, organizations and authorities that is using OpenOffice.org, but as far as I know, only very few of them is actually giving a contribution back to the community. All members of the community are private contributers.

In the last two years of discussion on open standards and use of open source software like OpenOffice.org I have often heard that OpenOffice.org is not good enough and other programs are much better. But I have never heard from anyone that Denmark could participate and contribute to solve some of these problems. In Denmark we raise demands and criticisme, but we don't contribute.

I think this is caused by the lack of understanding for the way open source software works. And how development works.

In Denmark there is a lot of schools that is using OpenOffice.org in education. There must be some of the schools that has made some kind of education material like a syllabus or maybe even a teaching book. It would be much more effective if the schools could get together and develop this material in high quality once and release it under one of the free licenses.

The community behind OpenOffice.org in Denmark would very much like to contribute to get people together. Public schools can even get supported with fundings from the National IT- and Tele Agency.

In 2007 we started a new project in the international level of OpenOffice.org with the purpose to develop some kind of certification of users. A common goal of knowledge. The project is unfortunately partly closed for the moment, because we cant find participants.

Conclusion

Next time you wonder why something hasn't been developed yet or why you can't find a course to join or why you can't open .docx-files in OpenOffice.org or why you can't play multimedia files in presentations properly, change the question to: "How can I help to make it work ?".

You don't have to be a programmer to contribute to development. We can use anybody who can spend a few hours among friends in a wonderful community. Can you write a short how-to description or help us with graphical work or perhaps help us writing press releases. Do you know a lot of politicians or just a lot of people, you can help us promote the cause. There is always a job for everyone. And remember, its always YOU that sets the limits, so you can always say no thanks and back out for a while.

If your company uses OpenOffice.org, please remember to join the reference list on http://da.openoffice.org or http://www.openoffice.org. This is also considered a contribution.

Lotus Notes to OpenOffice,.org integration

I was trying to help my Norwegian colleges find out why our Lotus Notes to OpenOffice.org integration didn't work properly. I have used several hours figuring out what the problem was.

Of cause field mapping must be accurate and in this case it's also case sensitive. And of cause: all required data must be available in the Notes-document.

Hokus pokus. It works.


Here is a movie that shows how it works

That might be the reason for our struggles ...!

A research performed by one of the Danish IT newspapers Computerworld reveals one of the main problems:

• 56% of the answering persons has never heard of open source software.
• 38% of them answered that they have open source programs installed on their computer.

Some of the comments to the result says that there is probably people that is using open souce software without knowing that it's actually open source.

• 25% are using open source software
• 84% of those who are using it, knows that open source is free of charge
  

The research is representing 1.200 people that uses the Internet.

I think that one of the problems is, that teachers in public schools don't know about license rights and copyright law. From my point of view, all students that leaves public school should know about whats right and whats wrong and how free software can be free of charge. That's the only way to change this.

Gartner: Long term trends

In my previous post It's not enough that the IT solutions works
http://lodahl.blogspot.com/2007/11/its-not-enough-that-it-solutions-works.html I discussed the fact that open source software is challenging the traditional software marked.

In my blog post, I recommend that the declining cost is used as investments in new and valuable software like collaboration software or other software that adds value and supports the business processes.

Gartner Group has just revealed a report about Long-Term Trends That Will Radically Alter Licensing in the Software Market
http://www.gartner.com/DisplayDocument?id=533714.

This report is discussed in the computer magazine C|net

We would advise IT organizations to use BPO (business process outsourcing) and open-source alternatives to improve their negotiating power with software suppliers, as well as employing the emergence of third-party vendors as a means to reduce higher maintenance fees on older versions of software,

http://www.news.com/Software-licensing-costs-predicted-to-fall/2100-1011_3-6219263.html

According to Gartner, the software prices will decrease in the upcoming decade. The reduction is caused by several things in the marked:

1. Increased Use of BPO (business process outsourcing)
   
2. Increased Use of SaaS (software as a service)
3. Low-Cost Development Locations Combined With Modular Architectures
4. The Emergence of Third-Party Support Offerings
5. Growing Interest in Open-Source Software
6. Emerging Chinese Software Companies
7. Rapid Expansion of Chinese, Indian and Brazilian Markets Drives Demand for Lower Costs

It's not enough that the IT solutions works

-Solutions needs to add value !

Traditionally we think of laptops, servers, network, Windows operating system and pc programs when the talk comes to IT in business matters. But if you want to get the best of your IT investments, it's important that you don't make your discissions based on the amount of features and functions. Much more important things must be taken into consideration.

It's no big deal to buy a new server or to install an update to the database system. The challenge comes when we want to exchange the new technology into actual valuable working processes in the organization. One of the conditions for creating value is that the staff, customers, subcontractors and so on can and will learn how to use what comes from the investments. This can only happen if the investments has been

1. based on business needs
   not from what others do or what you think would be a nice geek. The organizational needs must be covered up front, so that the solution can help improve the collaborative processes in the right direction.
2. introduced during a successful implementation
   not only from a technical perspective, but also from an organizational perspective. Users must be involved, so the solution is set up to match the individual needs.
3. adopted in a way that suits the business needs
   This is unfortunately not always the case in real life. Education and full introduction is necessary to get a successful implementation.

Today, words like Web2.0, mobile access and on demand as well as the technology behind it, is setting the agenda. Everything must be accessible from the web and from mobile devices. For instance, users can read mail and see customer information from CRM systems. Mobile access has limited functionality, but covers most of the needs.

We are going away from the traditional computer installed program. The trend is going towards focusing less on individual features and we accept that the applications work a little bit different from what we are used to.

This is a healthy development, because it's more important that a function is adding value to the people using it, for instance by enhancing collaboration, than adding a bunch of new buttons. Many has already discovered this by changing from Microsoft Office to the free and open OpenOffice.org. With a simular investment you can both install the software (free) and develop templates and macros as well as train the users in how it works. This is because the expenses moved from licenses to organizational implementation.

By doing this, you spend money on adding value, not only on making it work

Lotus Symphony Linux Beta Review

This review of IBM Lotus Symphony on Linux http://polishlinux.org/apps/openofficeorg/lotus-symphony-linux-beta-review/ by Borys Musielak is actually quite positive:

Lotus Symphony is a really interesting initiative. There’s a great need of competition on the office suites (especially those that support the ODF format) market.

The positive outcome of the document support issue surprised me:

Testing results were quite positive for Lotus (it was a little surprise for me). Lotus viewed most of the tested documents (text documents and presentations) correctly. Documents had a little visual differences, but — and this is crucial for me — files created using Writer and then saved in Lotus, were identical after reopening them on OpenOffice Writer.

There is, on the other hand also some negative things:

In comparison to KOffice or Abiword (both can compete with OO.org on the efficiency and better graphical environments like GNOME and KDE cooperation fields) Lotus Symphony has nothing to impress us (except of few little functions).

Schools warned off Microsoft deal

Have a look at this article on BBC http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/education/7063716.stm

Schools warned off Microsoft deal
The UK computer agency Becta is advising schools not to sign licensing agreements with Microsoft because of alleged anti-competitive practices.

About time we see some concrete advise on this issue. Here is the original press release from Becta.

Open source is not about cutting down expenses

The general discussion about the use of open source software like OpenOffice.org very often comes around talking about money. And most people expect that cheap (in this case very cheap) software is poor software. In some cases this is actually true, but not in all cases. There are lots of software projects that serves high quality applications for you.

Open source is not about cutting down expenses but about spending money where you get value.

Lets take a look at one of the most popular open source projects, OpenOffice.org. Compared to Microsoft Office, this project is a little bit less feature rich. But what's the difference, when your employees haven't learned how to use the application that you bought so expensive ? Nothing. A much more valuable choice could be to implement OpenOffice.org and I say implement. Not just install it, but actually make sure that everybody who needs to know, will know. Teach them how to use it. And you will find that the actual result will be, that OpenOffice.org will increase productivity, because the number of usable features is higher. You have gained more value.

Another thing to consider is, to begin thinking about collaborative software. Take the Office thought a little bit further. How about spending money on collaboration instead of fancy features in desktop applications. Features that we use because they are there - not because we need them. If you implement OpenOffice.org and spend the license fee to buy good and solid software like Software from IBM Lotus, you will see your employees work together and find them think as a team instead of individual pieces. The jigsaw will soon show a very pretty picture: Pieces will come together.

Open source software is not about cutting down, but about spending differently.

Chinese movement (From Barcelona)

Mr. Hu Cai Yong was talking about the background for the Chinese interest in open source software and OpenOffice.org. The company RedFlag 2000 has made their own distribution of OpenOffice.org called ReadOffice. This distribution is in no way competitive to OpenOffice.org
but is more as a distribution with a Chinese spirit inside. As Mr. Hu explained:

"Other providers of office suites is trying to implement western software and a western way of thinking."

and he continued:

"Translating an application like an office suite into Chinese is far more than just translating the words in the menu".

In Chine, as an example, all letters in the alphabet is the same size. And Chinese documents should not be suppressed by western standards, just because a it's common use in North America and Europe. With open source software as OpenOffice.org, the Chinese developers can make their own version that supports the specific needs that comes from Chinese traditions and culture.

I think it was important for all participants to hear that from a Chinese point of view, open source is solving a problem that proprietary western software can never do. We from North America and Europe will never be able to solve problems that actually has its beginning in culture.

IBM Lotus Notes 8

...or ND8 as we prefer to call it, was released last Friday. I've been trying it out for some time now, and I must say that it looks great. I am looking forward to go deeper into the designer client as soon as I get some time.

I have already looked at two parts:

1. composite applications
2. productivity tools

The ability to create composite applications will be a very strong feature some day. The problem is, that Lotus Notes is no longer a so called rapid development environment. To create composite applications, you actually must be a hardcore programmer.

And I am very happy that Lotus Notes now comes with productivity tools and support for ODF (open document format).

Some day I hope to be able to ask IBM a few questions:

1. When can we expect Lotus Notes rich text to be native stored as ODF ?
2. Is it possible to import ODF documents into a Notes rich text field ?
3. Why wont IBM Lotus say, that productivity tools is actually a clone/fork of OpenOffice.org ?
   Please see my blogpost here
   
4. When can expect IBM staff to use their own applications at work, e.g. product presentations and text documents ?
   I'm tired of seeing IBM staff do presentations with an application like You-know-who Powerpoint. When are you ready to take your own medicine ?

Any way: congratulations. I believe that Notes 8 will be a success.

Project management with open source

A few days ago I saw several blogposts about an new project management tool OpenProj (www.openproj.com). The application is released as beta on Linuxworld. Solveig Haugland wrote this post (http://openoffice.blogs.com/openoffice/2007/08/openproj-open-s.html). Bob Sutor also blogs about it here: http://www.sutor.com/newsite/blog-open/?p=1780 .

I rushed to see what this was all about, thus I am a project manager and I been looking for an alternative to 'you-know-who'.

I have tried to use GanttProject (www.ganttproject.org) for some small projects in the past. But GanttProject doesn't actually solve my needs. So I was excited to see whats in this new program. GanttProject is a Java application based on the Eclipse platform. My experience is, that there is some minor problems with the graphical interface and sometimes it's very difficult to keep control with all elements in the grahical gantt view. GanttProject has several export filters, e.g. pdf and bitmap. But there is no support for ODF in any way. I tried to download and install a new beta version today, but unfortunately it wouldn't start (some java exception or what ever).

I tried OpenProj today too. Well knowing that it's only a beta release, I was actually surprised. This application is also a java program and it loads quite fast. It seems as a much more comprehensive project management tool to me, contains both resource management and also, and this is important: Financial tracking and several reporting capabilities. Thus I found several problems in the graphical display, it was rather easy to control the items on the graphical gantt screen.

I'm looking forward to see a release in the future.

I'm just a little confused about all the different names. The application is called OpenProj but in the title bar, it's suddenly called Projity. If you ask for on-line help, you are directed to a web page with help for Project-on-demand. Well, I guess that the company is Projity and the open source software is OpenProj. And the Project-on-demand must be another program.

Why is project management tools so important ?

Managing large projects has several serious issues that all have to be dealt with. We need to keep track of all the contracts and specifications. We must be able to register and maintain project roles and resources and as the project planner, I need a planning tool that corresponds with a database with all available resources (people) and their skills. My manager needs to keep track of the economy and my customers wants to know if we're late or on time.

What can I wish of OpenProj: I want to see the use of open standards like Ical and XML/ODF. As far as I can see, the file format is actually a proprietary binary file format.

Back to CSV files again

I've been working with IT for about fifteen years. I remember in 1998, when I and some of my colleagues was analyzing and testing all the application (the millennium problem - remember ?). At that time, we identified 105.000 applications in the bank where I worked. More than one hundred thousand individual applications was working together - or not. That has always been one of the biggest and most expensive problems in IT. To make applications work together. Interchange data.

Some of the applications was highly integrated. But some of the applications was either old or to complex or maybe it just couldn't pay to integrate them.

I remember on several occasions, where we needed to transfer data from one application to another. This could be ad-hoc or on regular basis. We always had to use the lowest common denominator: CSV (comma separated values) - or just plain text.

It was obvious to us, that if we needed to get better data interchange, we had to find some kind of standard data structure. I guess thats what data architecture is about. Very soon we made applications based on the same basic set of coding rules and data structures. No big deal really - as long as you do it from the beginning and as long as you stick to the one standard. If one single application didn't follow the 'rules', it would ruin the completeness of the application system.

But what if we had, lets say.... two different sets of rules for code and data? We could still keep the bank open. But it would require another set of rules... for the bridge between the two sets of application systems. This sometimes happens when two banks decide two merge. But the bridging will always be a temporary thing. It's too expensive in the long run. Eventually one of the two systems will have to give up.

Two standards is not a good solution if we look at the long run. It can only be a temporary solution. CSV is too expensive.

Oh, by the way, the big problem was the 105.000 existing applications :-)

Symfoni integrates OpenOffice with Lotus Notes

I recently wrote about integration of OpenOff.org (ODF) in Lotus Notes. Now I have made a few screen shuts to give you an idea of how it works.




This is a good example that shows that ODF-integration is possible and we will probably see more examples in the futire.

In the coming weeks I'll try to make some screen shots of how the templates and field mapping works.

Here is a single image:

Arrgh... problems with my calendar sync again

I'm using the Mozilla Lightning plug-in for Thunderbird for calendaring. This, together with Google calendar has been a very fine solution for me for a long time. Specially after I found a small sync application called GCALDaemon to sync my local calendar with Google.

Yesterday, I upgraded my Lightning plug-in to version 0.5 and at the same time I installed another plug-in called 'Provider for Google Calendar'. This plug-in should be the native Google sync application in the future. So far so good. Upgrade and install and restarted Thunderbird. I also removed the GCALDaemon from my computer.

This is where Arrgh comes in to the picture. It didn't work. I could see my calendar entries for about five seconds, and then the calendar view was empty. I tried to remove both the provider-plug-in and my calendar accounts from Lightning and then installed it again. The funny thing was, that I couldn't remove the Provider thing . I gave up after about an hour and started to plan how to reinstall GCALDaemon.

Then today, when I started my computer, I got some weird warnings from Thunderbird. I found that my calendar accounts had reappeared and I could actually see my appointments ....for about five seconds.

I tried to remove that Provider thing again. No luck. After restarting Thunderbird, Provider was still there. Double arrgh.

Then I came to remember, that Thunderbird has an irritating problem, that when you close the program, it actually continues to run as a hidden service. Yes, Thunderbird was still running, even after I closed it. Kill Thunderbird. Start Thunderbird again. The provider thing was removed. Yes !

I installed Provider again and now I could see all my accounts and appointments. I can create appointments in Lightning and they are synchronized to Google. Fantastic.

Morale: Remember to close the application and kill the process in the process window. Closing and starting is not always a complete restart. Maybe some of the Mozilla guys could look into this problem one day ? Okay, I know that I'm a part of the problem, because I'm running Microsoft Windows. Bare with me.

Anyway, I must say that the Mozilla guys has done a great job this time. Bidirectional sync works fine and the layout has got a huge improvement. And now i can print my weekly and monthly calendar and put it on the refrigerator door together with the rest of my family plans.

I have been working with calendaring in Lotus applications for about ten years now. And I know how difficult it can be to visualize a calendar on a computer screen. Do you remember Organizer ? One of the first applications, that tried to visualize a calendar by copying the design from a manual calendar. I still think that concept could win awards today.

But still, the hard thing is to keep the environment running. I remember one of my customers, who wanted to keep half the staff on Lotus Notes and the other half on Microsoft Exchange. Imagine the question: Can we get an overview of all employee calendars ? Will it be possible to invite to a meeting across the applications ?

Converters and integration ended up being a nightmare. When we solved one problem, another fire new problems occurred. That was about four years ago.

Open standards could solve the problem today. With iCal and WebDAW it would be quite easy to establish a common platform for both Lotus Notes and Microsoft Exchange calendars.

Mini conference in Copenhagen

Tomorrow evening I will participate in a small conference about open source software in the public sector. The conference is arranged by DKUUG and it takes place at Symbion. The conference will be a discussion and it will be introduced by Peter Timm, who is project manager at Nationalt Videnscenter for Software (National Knowledge Center for Software) http://www.oio.dk/software/videnscenter.

I am looking forward to this discussion because I hope to get some further information about the strategies in the public sector.

The discussion will begin at 19:00. Free access.

Alternative Freedom

I just watched the film Alternative Freedom http://alternativefreedom.org by TWILA and SHAUN on DR2. Quite an interesting film right now, in the middle of the discussion on open standards.

Maybe the film actually won't help us. I think that the film is a little bit too much 'America'. A similar film produced by Europeans, would probably show things a little different. The good thing is that most Europeans are used to see this kind of American crap. Not that I disagree with the ideas behind GNU General Public License and Creative Commons, but I don't think that the arguments in the film reached the European audience.

Anyway, I hope that as many people as possible has seen this film tonight.

OpenOffice and Business Intelligence

The OpenOffice.org community is pleased to announce plans to extend the power of the database application, Base, with Report Designer, based on Pentaho's open-source reporting engine. Scheduled to be available in the next feature release of OpenOffice.org, Report Designer will particularly interest business users, as it will give them the ability to create sophisticated business intelligence reports from various sources, including OLAP and XML, and save them using the OASIS OpenDocument format, or ODF, the ISO-approved open standard for file format, among others.

The collaboration between Pentaho and OpenOffice.org proves once again the strength not only of open source but of open standards. Unlike with proprietary applications, there are no encumbrances to getting things done, for users and developers. OpenOffice.org works for businesses.

To learn more, read
the GullFOSS blog: http://blogs.sun.com/GullFOSS
or Pentaho: http://www.pentaho.com/products/reporting

Easter eggs ...

Most users of OpenOffice.org know about a special function in Calc, =Game. The idea is to activate a small game =Game("StarWars"). No news so far.

I thought that I wanted to try this in Lotus Notes 8 (IBM Productivity tools). According to IBM this is not a distribution of OpenOffice.org but a separate application build on OpenOffice.org. Whats the difference ?

Well, I don't know. Anyway it didn't work. No game in Lotus Notes.

But then I thought of something that happened to me once I tried to activate the game in OpenOffice.org but forgot the parameter =game(). OpenOffice.org answered say what ? I tried to do this in Lotus Notes 8. Success !

In my country this is the prove that IBM Productivity tools is a distribution of OpenOffice.org. The easter eggs is the same.