Proposed Letter Text to Decision-makers

The following is a letter I'm drafting.  I propose that it be sent to
non-technical decision-makers in Government.  I would very much welcome
your views on how to improve/refine it.

DRAFT

I'm writing this letter to you to forecast a few things that relate to
software usage in Government:

2003 will be the year that Open Source software will start to make
increasing headway into Government.  The usability, stability and
explosion of top-notch, free(!) software is going to be looked at
seriously.

Here are some of the programs which are on the near horizon or
currently available:

Kroupware  - www.kroupware.org -

The Government of Germany has commissioned an open-source version of
Microsoft's Exchange Server called Kroupware.  It is designed to have
all the functionality of Microsoft's Exchange Server.  Version 1.0 is
in beta testing and should be completed soon.  This means that the
software that provides email, calendaring and contacts will be
available for download at no cost.

I understand that Microsoft Outlook Clients will be able to connect to
Kroupware as well open source clients and web browsers...

Mozilla - www.mozilla.org -

The Mozilla web browser.  It has features that Microsoft's Internet
Explorer does not have, such as the ability to stop those annoying
pop-up windows.  You can also open multiple windows inside a single
browser window using the tab function.  Mozilla has a full featured
Mail, Chat and News client built in.  Mozilla runs on just about every
operating system including Windows and Linux.  It is FULLY standards
compliant (unlike Internet Explorer).

Linux - www.linux.org - 

2003 will bring Linux in from the server rooms and out to the desktop. 
Redhat - www.redhat.com - and SuSE - www.suse.com - (to name a couple
of major vendors) have released versions 8.x of their software.  It is
still not quite as user-friendly as Windows, but with the Kroupware
Client, Mozilla and now OpenOffice [See Below] there is very little you
can do in Windows that you can't do in Linux.  Most importantly, Linux
is very stable.  It comes with a superior, journaling file system and
it is completely configurable.  I have been using Linux servers for
over two years now and have had very few problems.  They just go and
go...

I use Linux on the desktop here and at home and I am amazed at it's
versatility and stability. [Insert your own testimony here - ED.]

OpenOffice - www.OpenOffice.org - 

Open Office ver 1.x is out.  It has very good compatibility opening and
saving Microsoft Word documents (it's not 100% perfect and doesn't do
macros).  Most importantly, you can create documents directly in HTML
which means that ANY web browser can open them.  OpenOffice matches
just about every feature of Microsoft Office except Access.  To date,
there is really no equivalent to Access although Sun Microsystems sells
a database with its version of OpenOffice called StarOffice -
www.sun.com -.  Open Office is a good place to start looking at open
source software.  Download and install it on your current machine at
see for yourself - it runs on Windows as well as Linux (the Mac version
is in beta testing).

MySQL - www.mysql.com -

Speaking of databases, MySQL is becoming seriously mature.  It is not
as industrial strength as Oracle, DB2 or SQLServer, but the new
features that are in version 4.x allow it to do many of the things the
big, expensive databases do.  I have even been able to connect Oracle
Forms to MySQL (for example) though an ODBC connection and it works
just fine.  Set up correctly and backed up properly, this screamingly
fast little database is becoming more and more valuable.

Apache - www.apache.org
Apache is a web server (like Microsoft's Internet Information Server
IIS) which actually rules the web.  It is being used to back-end more
than 60% of all web sites.  Combined with MySQL and the PHP language,
your web-site can inform, not to mention capture and dispense data
using completely open source software.

Samba - www.samba.org -
Lastly, in the background of the network is Samba.  Version 3.0 is
coming out soon.  Samba is the glue that securely links computers and
users together in the office network.  Version 3.0 will have the
complete functionality of a Windows2000 Domain Controller.  In other
words, it will be able to handle all the user accounts, file serving,
printers and authentication that Windows2000 currently does.  This free
software is being developed and supported by IBM and eliminates the
need to purchase expensive Windows2000 Server licenses.  It runs on
Linux servers.  Windows 95, 98, NT, 2000, XP and Linux clients connect
to it as though it were a Windows Server.  

I'm using Samba version 2.x here in our offices and it has been running
smoothly for months without re-booting. [Insert your own testimony here
- ED.]

The thing about all of the above is that most people use computers to
create documents and send them to each other.  A few store or retrieve
data.  90% of people use 10% of most software's features.  My question
is, why spend vast sums of money on licensing software that most people
hardly use when free versions exist?  

The answer is two-fold: the first aspect is familiarity.  The second is
the cost of change.  Making the jump will take education, time and
money, but once it's made, the returns will pay for themselves in short
order and improvements in ease-of-use and functionality will make
everyone wonder about what they used before...

Currently, governments such as Peru, Germany, France, England, the
State of California and the Feds in the U.S. have either mandated or
are looking to mandate the use of open source software.  China has even
created it's own Linux-based Open Source operating system called Red
Flag - www.redflag-linux.com.

Because there are no licensing restrictions, having open-source
software means you can legally tailor all of the above to suit your
specific needs and offer it for download or make copies and distribute
them to anyone.  Take for example, schools.  Teachers can legally give
copies to every student.  Less advantaged children would only need to
purchase a machine, not the software that comes with it.  

Your constituents, customers and suppliers  could all receive or
download copies on request.  Because the source code is available,
there is nothing 'hidden' about how the software works - meaning that
it is fully compliant with any freedom of information requests too.

You might wonder how companies like RedHat and SuSE make money.  They
do it by providing support.  They also build tailor-made solutions. 
RedHat, for example, makes an industrial strength version specifically
to optimally run Oracle.

I wrote this because I'm on a mission to inform Government of stable,
secure, free choices available out there.

I hope to impress upon you that choices are opening up.  There is an
ability to make sound business decisions which engender additional
opportunities:  access to information, free distribution, software
re-design (for example) while at the same time saving taxpayer's money.

There is one last factor:  think of all the programmers the world over.
 Imagine if some of their time was devoted to improving the above
'products'.  Well, that is already a reality.  People the world over
are contributing to this vast body of software.  It is constantly being
improved, updated and documented. This is the new software paradigm.  I
hope that my message today makes you to take a second look!

______________________________________________________________________ 
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