OpenOffice.org Newsletter in Danish

The monthly newsletter is again on the street. This time with a breaking story about the Municipal of Tønder.

All elementary schools have changed to the use of free and open source software and the municipal has actually made a financial benefit analysis showing cost reduction DKK 410.000. If we project this amount of money into national level, we are talking about DKK 55 mio. that could be spend on more valuable project, teach books etc.

Newsletter: http://doc.oooforum.dk/Nyhed/2008Marts.pdf
Municipal of Tønder: http://www.toender.dk
Comments on Version2.dk: http://www.version2.dk/artikel/6450

Office in schools

British Educational Communications and Technology Agency (Becta) has released a report http://publications.becta.org.uk/download.cfm?resID=35275 that recommends schools in Great Britain not to consider upgrading to Microsoft Vista and Office 2007 unless they can upgrade all computers at once and has a direct benefit of such upgrade.

The report from Becta has been referred to in the Danish media over the last few days. (http://www.version2.dk/artikel/5884 and http://www.computerworld.dk/art/43644)

A journalist from the Danish computer magazine Computerworld.dk has asked about such report in Denmark. Vice President Per Thorbøll of UNI-C http://www.uni-c.dk/generelt/english/index.html explains that they don't have money nor authority to do a similar report in Denmark, but as he says:

The conclusion is of cause from Becta, but the computers are the same and the Windows versions are the same. So I think that the situation in Denmark is quite close to the British.

This is as close as he can get to a confirmation without confirming.

UNI-C is the Danish IT Centre for Education and Research and hosts and supports IT for almost all the Danish schools and universities.

Certification for OpenOffice.org

I joined a new project lately. We are working on a certification program for OpenOffice.org.

I hope that you will be able to call you self Authorized OpenOffice.org user or Authorized OpenOffice.org Specialist some day. Wouldn't that look great on your business card and in your CV ?

Over the last few days I have been reviewing the syllabus (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Syllabus) for Writer and Calc. It's hard work and it takes a lot of time. So far we have been using plain text documents. Today I tried to use MindMapping (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mindmap) with FreeMind http://sourceforge.net/projects/freemind/ and that has makes the syllabus much easier to overview.

We are not trying to make the training material as it should look. We are only working on the certification, but I expect that learning material will be developed with our syllabus as the outline.

We need people to help us in this work. Teachers and experts. Any one who knows about teaching, certification and people who knows everything about OpenOffice.org.

The original issue still contain much of the work:
http://www.openoffice.org/issues/show_bug.cgi?id=56980

The Spanish native project made a syllabus some time ago. This has been great inspiration to us:
http://wiki.services.openoffice.org/wiki/OOo_Certification_Syllabus

We use the mailling list (under the documentation project):
http://documentation.openoffice.org/servlets/SummarizeList?listName=certification

I just created a few pages on the Wiki (Not much content yet):
http://wiki.services.openoffice.org/wiki/Certification

OpenOffice.org on school computers

The municipal of Tønder ( http://www.toender.dk ) has installed OpenOffice.org as the only office suite on all 1.500 computers in public school.

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.

Whats up duck ?

I haven't been blogging that much lately. Sorry, but I feel rather busy at the moment.

• Busy trying to catch up with all the information floating around, both in the community but also regarding ODF and in the NOOOXML world.
• I have spent the last couple of days on a small travel to Aarhus ( http://www.findvej.dk/,8000 ). You know, I also need bread on the table ;-)
  
• Translation of 2.4 is going slowly forward. But we are still missing several hundred strings.
  
• Also preparing the next (December) edition of the Danish newsletter (expected to be out one of the first days in December). Sign up for it here: http://da.openoffice.org/servlets/SummarizeList?listName=nyhedsbrev (if you understand Danish)
  
• I am also trying to contribute to the new certification project and today I have submitted my comments to the Spanish syllabus (http://wiki.services.openoffice.org/wiki/OOo_Certification_Syllabus). Please join the project here if you think you can contribute in any way. Sign up here: http://documentation.openoffice.org/servlets/SummarizeList?listName=certification
• And then I have been trying to plan how to approach the new Parliament after the election this month. Hmmm. I think we have to act on this very soon. I better get on with it, eh ?

And then of cause

• I promised my family to be present once in a while. On Saturday I think we will all go to the movie theater together. Perhaps I should ask my wife out for dinner too. Yes, this is a high priority task on the list :-)
  

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

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.

Trade unions - take a stand !

I have previously written about trade unions. Or the lack of commitment from the trade unions (blog post here: http://lodahl.blogspot.com/2007/05/where-is-trade-unions.html ).

Lately I have seen two Danish trade unions take a stand: They will provide their members with Microsoft certified courses. First it was HK/Samdata http://www.version2.dk/artikel/3857 that are dumping the marketplace with almost free Microsoft certification. This week I could read that another trade union is about to take up competition. The union is Prosa http://www.prosa.dk/News/index.php3?story_id=2989 who is also 'selling' Microsoft courses. This latest initiative is quite surprising, because Prosa has been very active in the work for open standards from a competitive point of view.

Why offer a Microsoft course to the members ?

Why not offer courses in game development ?
Why not offer courses in Java ?
Why not offer courses in XML ?
Why not offer courses in ITIL and Prince2 ?

By offering courses in vendor specific products like Vista and .Net, the trade unions becomes a part of the problem: We all think that a Microsoft certificate is needed to get a job and because of that we actually need it. Not because it's relevant, but because everybody agrees that this is a must-have certificate. As a result, all decision makers is schooled by Microsoft and partners.

I don't mind that the trade unions are offering IT courses to the members. I think it's a good idea. But the education should not be a part of the Microsoft strategy: Take over the education. We have seen that in public school and universities. This strategy makes Microsoft products de-facto needs in business.

Danish IT Society supports OOXML as ISO

The Danish IT Society (called Dansk IT) has announced that they will support OOXML being an ISO certified standard. Source is the computer magazine Version2. This is actually no surprise, because the same society is already known as being very friendly to you-know-who. The society claims to be independent from single vendors but earlier this year they commented very positive to dual standards on one of thew reports from The National IT and Tele Agency here (in Danish).

The Society says, that they will ask for a Yes with comments because they find it very important that some of the serious faults in the specification from you-know-who are corrected.

The Danish IT Society is one of the members in S-142/U-34 technical committee under Danish Standards.

This position has already been criticized by another organization OSL (The Danish Open Source Business Association) in the same magazine. OSL is also member of the technical committee. OSL makes some kind of a fool of the Society, when they says:

You have misunderstood the rules for voting

And it is a fact, that it is possible to vote Yes with comments but in the fast-track the comment will be trashed.

The Society is also the managing institution in Denmark behind the European Computer Drivers License witch has actually become a M$ Drivers license in Denmark. Today it's not possible to take that drivers license without being tested in the use of products from you-know-who.

I don't mind that people, companies and organizations takes a stand on subjects like standards and so, but they shouldn't claim to be neutral when they are not. The society enjoys a virtual monopoly on the marked for certification and education and shouldn't use their own marked position to support another monopoly.

Certified OpenOffice.org user ?

Solveig Haugland (http://openoffice.blogs.com/openoffice/) is blogging from LinuxWorld about the lack of a certification program for OpenOffice.org.

First of all, I agree that we need a certification program for open source and OpenOffice.org. The question is, if there are customers for end-user certification ? Unfortunately I don't think so my self. I have some years of experience from Lotus Notes education. My experience is, that there is very little request for end user certification, but there is a marked for end-user education.

There is a tradition in the IT-department, that everybody should get as many certificates as possible, and I think that on the expert level and for programmers, it would be a good idea to make some kind of certification.

As I see it, there are tree levels of education:

1. End user
2. Expert (power users or what ever we choose to call it)
3. Programming and integration

End users
In Europe we have something called 'PC drivers license' (http://www.ecdl.com/publisher/index.jsp). There is also a 'Junior PC drivers license' and a 'Truck certification' for experts. Unfortunately this has actually become a 'Microsoft drivers license' over the last ten years. A few years ago I tried to find sponsors to establish an alternative open source certification, but I had no luck then. Times might have changed since, and I could try again.

For end users, I think the most important thing is to provide them with a qualified education program. Whether they get a test or not, I don't find important. It will be possible use approximately the 'syllabus' from the drivers license for that purpose.

Power users
Certification it is !

Programmers
I would find it natural if Sun Microsystems could provide that. Most of the content is from StarBasic anyway. We most certainly need a certification program.