Doing more with less

1. The open software alternative Arno Webb July 2009 Doing more with less

2. Finding the right blend PS OSS

3. The Good to Great Trajectory Good to great company Industry average performance

4. The Good to Great Trajectory Good to great company Industry average performance Why this?

5. How do good companies become great? Leadership The right people Facing the facts Keeping it simple (excellence, passion, value) Discipline Technology accelerators Flywheel vs doom loop Jim Collins, Good to Great

6. How do good companies become great? Leadership The right people: first who, then what Facing the brutal facts Keeping it simple (excellence, passion, value) Discipline Technology accelerators Flywheel vs doom loop (Jim Collins, Good to Great)‏

7. Cabinet said … “The Minister of Finance briefed Cabinet about the state of the economy and the fiscal outlook for the rest of the year. The report indicated a decline in revenue collection which will lead to a larger than anticipated budget deficit. Cabinet endorsed the proposed approach to maintain the current spending levels through borrowings to offset the budget deficit. ... Departments will also be required to review their spending plans to ensure effective and efficient use of the limited public resources.” Statement on the Cabinet meeting held on 1 July 2009

8. And quality of OSS software need not be an issue, e.g. “We also investigated the productivity of the employees in using Microsoft office and OpenOffice.org. Office suites are widely used and are a good test bed and representative for a comparison on issues like effort and time spent in the daily routine of work. Delays in the task deliveries may have a bigger impact than costs on the organization's management. Our findings report no particular delays or loss of time in the daily work due to the use of OpenOffice.org.” Same EU study

9. OSS quality is becoming indistinguishable from PS quality ”A group of CIOs said they started using open-source software primarily because of cost reasons, but then stuck with it because of the quality and reliability of the code.” (eWeek, 2006-02-13)‏

10. From a Forrester Report “As (enterprises’) adoption of open source software matures, they are likely to find more value beyond saving money on software license costs, low barriers to entry, and rapid evolution of successful open source projects.” (http://news.cnet.com/8301-13505_3-10118123-16.html, 09/06/23)‏

11. 87 percent of those surveyed realized the cost savings they expected from open source; 92 percent of respondents have had their quality expectations met or exceeded by open-source software. Two other salient facts from the Forrester report:

12. Status quo Rest of the world: Several examples, e.g. in “Study on the economic impact of open source software on innovation and the competitiveness of the Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) sector in the EU. South African government: Full migrations at Presidential National Commission, National Library Significant progress at a number of national departments (e.g. SARS), provincial departments, e.g. Limpopo Dept of Health, local governments, e.g. Ethikweni as well as SITA.

13. Adoption elsewhere: Examples Government policy, e.g. Brazil, New Zealand City of Munich Extramadura province in Spain French Justice Department South African business sector

14. Shifting focus “It used to make sense to talk about open source as a separate line item in the enterprise IT lexicon. However, open source has become such a standard way of delivering enterprise IT that maybe it's time to update the lexicon.” (CNET News, 3 March 2009)‏

15. Typically developed through public collaboration Available to anyone (usually at little or no cost)‏ Does not require proprietary license fees May be freely re-distributed Free access to the human readable version of the software called the “source code”, revealing the inner workings of the software and allowing its modification, hence the term “open source” Use, modification and redistribution of the source code is governed by rules specified in associated nonproprietary open source licenses. What is open software

16. Benefits Organisatins can gain benefits from FOSS in various ways, including - reduced costs; ability to customize software to local functional requirement;6. less dependency on imported technology and skills; avoiding lock-in into one vendor (Support can be provided by anyone since the code is in the public domain); affordable software for individuals, enterprise and government; Increased procurement speed so institutions can get their programs deployed faster; universal access through mass software roll-out without costly licensing implications. access to government data without barrier of proprietary software and data formats; ability to customize software to local languages and cultures; enhanced security and privacy compared to proprietary software; improved quality (Normally, supported open source products go through three times more quality reviews than proprietary software as part of community review, indemnification review, and then productizing); lowered barriers to entry for software businesses; participation in global software development networks.

17. Government policy 1) The South African Government will implement FOSS unless proprietary software is demonstrated to be significantly superior. Whenever the advantages of FOSS and proprietary software are comparable FOSS will be implemented when choosing a software solution for a new project. Whenever FOSS is not implemented, then reasons must be provided in order to justify the implementation of proprietary software. 2) The South African Government will migrate current proprietary software to FOSS whenever comparable software exists. 3) All new software developed for or by the South African Government will be based on open standards, adherent to FOSS principles, and licensed using a FOSS license where possible. 4) The South African Government will ensure all Government content and content developed using Government resources is made Open Content, unless analysis on specific content shows that proprietary licensing or confidentiality is substantially beneficial. 5) The South African Government will encourage the use of Open Content and Open Standards within South Africa. Choose FOSS Migrate to FOSS Develop` FOSS, open stds Open content Promote outside govt

18. Examples of FOSS Desktop Linux operating system OpenOffice.org (word processing, spreadsheet, presentation, database, etc)‏ Firefox web browser Thunderbird email Back end Linux Apache web interface MySQL database PHP development language

19. Sample of FOSS equivalents to Windows software http://wiki.linuxquestions.org/wiki/Linux_software_equivalent_to_Windows_software

20. Solution development in progress in SITA Back end stack ECM (Alfresco)‏ Zimbra (mail & calendar)‏ Web standards implementation Sakai elearning platform Guidelines on transversal systems Desktop

21. OSS Promotion Readiness assessments (11 to date)‏ Conferences/Workshops (1 per month)‏ Procurement policy Value proposition framework Internships R&D services Website standards Website Newsletters

22. Challenges Building the ecosystem Skills Funding streams R&D capacity Standards Balance between supply & demand of services Balance between experimentation & standardisation Capturing the landscape

23. The Good to Great Trajectory Up to 10 years Good to great company Industry average performance

24. Conclusion: More communication needed Linux forum ODF forum Capturing and publicising success stories Vendor forum Regional meetings Understanding the OSS landscape

25. OSS implementation sequence • “Readiness” assessment • As is situation • Ideal situation • Target situation • Gap analysis • Implementation roadmap • Implementation • Business processes? • Software • Skills • Project management • Monitoring & enhancement

26. There is nothing as powerful as an idea whose time has come. (Victor Hugo)‏ arno.webb@sita.co.za Thank You