Newsmaker: Rocky Mountain high for open source

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Can you tell me more about the e-government project based on open-source software that Steamboat Springs is hosting and developing?
Morrison: Northwest Colorado is a sparsely populated area with many small towns. As our local government organizations are so small, we recognized the only way we could do Web delivery of government services was by pooling our resources.

We found an open-source content management system called Typo3, which is an enterprise CMS that rivals commercial products costing $60,000. A local firm in Colorado with experience on the LAMP platform customized it for Typo3.

We currently have beta sites developed for two towns and a county--to show local government officials and city or county staff how it works. These sites will go live to the public over the next six months or so--Steamboat Springs' site will go live on May 1, (the city of) Craig and Moffat County's site will go live this summer. Over time, these sites will offer the same services that you get in your town hall or county court house. For example, you will be able to pay your parking ticket, register your dog or sign up for a recreational activity.

We're publishing the project online so it's freely available--anyone who wants to get involved right now only has to download the components from our Web site. We haven't yet developed a site on Sourceforge but will be doing this in the summer.

(Open source) costs what it costs to get started, but the ongoing costs are lower.

We would love to have other organizations using the product. For example, if a small rural community in Australia implemented the system and added an animal registration module, they could contribute that module back to the project and everyone else could use it. That's the beauty of using public money to develop open-source software. We're very grateful that our elected officials realize that's true and gave us some money to develop it.

Have you had any interest from other local governments in the U.S.?
Morrison: I demoed the software at the National Association of Government Webmasters conference in September 2005, and we had some inquiries. There are some smaller city governments that are investigating use of the product.

One of the big reasons people look at it is because they realize it's not perfect but is a strong starting point that doesn't cost anything.

Why do you think some local governments in the U.S. are reluctant to use open-source software?
Morrison: I think the main reason people don't use open source is due to lack of appropriate skills or familiarity--once the technicians or decision makers become aware of what's possible, they start to become really excited about open source. My boss was really skeptical five years ago when I told her about the direction we were going to take. But now, every month you can read in magazines about open source being used in the public sector.

Do you notice a change in attitude toward open source within the public sector?
Morrison: I believe the increased visibility and the ever-increasing environment of acceptance is helping quite a bit with open-source adoption in the commercial and government market. There is still some resistance--mainly from people who I believe are primarily motivated by fear.

There's this perception that if you buy a product and pay for a license, there's a company that stands behind it and if it breaks and lets you down you can say, "But I bought it in good faith from a big company and thought I was making the right decision." But what we find in practice is that, in terms of the system and its reliability, you are no safer spending money for proprietary products than you are spending the time and money to learn open source.

If you buy from a big company, you can get through to support people and they will answer your questions. But what if the company says it's releasing another version this year and you have to migrate to it, because in another year they will abandon the previous version. You are forced to upgrade.

For example, we have a particular (proprietary) product that we have used for a couple of years. It's a fine product, but the manufacturer told us a year ago that there is a required upgrade that will cost us $15,000. I put that in the budget for 2006, but the city council says we can't afford it. The manufacturer does its best to provide support, but I'm literally running an obsolete product because I couldn't afford an upgrade.

Aside from what you've talked about just now, what are the main advantages of running open source?
Morrison: Within the Linux environment, technicians are so much more confident and satisfied--there is so much flexibility and stability with Linux. That one element--confidence and satisfaction--is huge in this industry, as you can never afford to pay your staff as much as you want to.

Another big advantage with open source is that when you want to change it, you don't have to sign a nondisclosure agreement to get the source code, as it's there already. I wouldn't say the overall cost of operating open-source products is any lower--we still spend money on training and occasionally hire consultants to help us out--but once we know how to do it, we don't have continuing costs. Maybe that's the biggest financial advantage: It costs what it costs to get started, but the ongoing costs are lower as there are no licensing or new version costs.  

Ingrid Marson of ZDNet UK reported from Steamboat Springs, Colo.

More Newsmakers

[Jim Hubbard]

A question I didn't see.....

There is a question I didn;t see asked that may have made the article *appear* more unbiased. It is "Aside from what you've talked about just now, what are the main DISadvantages of running open source?"

Ahhhh.....but that would not skew article towards Linux, now would it?

[orfeu_niko]

No need to quetion that

The guy spoke about the disavanteges. With all the quiestions, I think he was pretty onest and never, ever said that he was absolitly pleased or that there were no drawback, or no additional costs etc.

The fact that there was question about disavanteges doesn't mean that that this articol was just about how great open source is. In fact there was no need too put it. They found what they need, some future were not that polished, but they could live with it. Some times I got the impression that they just wanted to cut costs so they used what could find cheeper and live with it.
Windows has it's uses too, and as far as read they have no plans to move to linux in desktop too or e-mail server. They actualy move to windows XP, which is typical for any conservative organization.

Have a good day.
And remember, anything is better than a Mac, even on Apple hardware (sorry, could not help myself).

[rstinnett]

I'm Sorry...

... as much as I believe in Linux and such, forcing people to use something isn't the solution. Linux is NOT ready for the desktop market, plain and simple. It is a great product, but to give it your average office worker as a daily OS? No way!

I had my own nightmare the other day with Ubuntu Linux as I documented in my blog (http://blog.360.yahoo.com/blog-EpqlBJ0hfqL8e1zQBGovQdV5TQ--?cq=1) that really frustrated me to no end. So I don't see this big switch is really going to benefit anyone.