Open Source Blog

Techworld has the scoop. According to its interview with Glyn Evans, he said: "This project is still very much ongoing, and now that a stable image... has been developed, we would expect significant movement forward."

The Techworld report continues: “He admitted the council's original plans were over-ambitious, with rollouts of Linux-based staff and public PCs originally scheduled during the one-year trial period. In reality, ongoing testing of the desktop configuration means no Linux desktops have yet been installed. Instead, 96 public desktops and 134 staff desktops are running open source applications such as the OpenOffice.org office suite and the Firefox browser. The council does plan to begin migrating those desktops to its Suse Professional 9.3-based desktop OS, however, a plan that should go into action in the near future, according to Evans.”

A study by iMpower had suggested that Birmingham had failed to make a case for its Linux desktop move, and that the trial had cost £534,710, compared to £429,960 for a move to Windows XP.

Evans said the extra Linux costs were down to project set up costs, technical definition and design, development and testing, and training, and that the council still expected to make cost savings in the long-term.

For a full explanation of the ins and outs, see the Techworld article.

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