Linux, Unix, and Open Source in Poland

That's your opinion ela and you are entitled to it, but I work for four scientific institutes here in Puławy and I was speaking to the IT guys and not one of them wants to use Linux because Government policy doesn't allow them to. This is mirrored in the Universities that I work for in Lublin.

Over eight years of living here I have been to many tax offices and other state offices in Poland and not once have I seen an Linux OP working there.

Your quote "Linux taking the government by storm in Poland" is a bit of a stretch of the imagination I believe, the same goes with, "Many countries are now opting for this alternative", if you call investigating the possibility as 'opting', then you can be classed as an influential proofreader... some people might even go as far as to say BS, but not me :)

Or every machine either.


Personally I put a value on my time. But I can see why you don't put any on yours.

Really? Then why has Kraków, Poland, a city much larger than Puławy or Lublin already made the move to Open Source. See osor.eu/news/pl-krakow-migrates-to-openoffice-considers - Kraków migrates to OpenOffice, considers expanding Linux use.

Quotes:

- The Polish city Krakow will this year begin using OpenOffice. The Open Source suite of office applications will replace the proprietary equivalent Microsoft Office. The city's switch should save some 120.000 euro.

- The city council also decided to expand its use of GNU/Linux servers.

- IT staff in Krakow has been considering OpenOffice for quite some time. However, switching to the Open Source alternative for Microsoft Office became a City Council topic earlier this year only after Jerzy Polomski, a city council member, proposed a complete switch to Open Source.

- Polomski had proposed that the city use not only alternative office applications, but also to use an Open Source operating system for the desktops. The council decided against this, citing lack of support and the high cost of training.

- The city council did note that some of Krakow's departments were already using GNU/Linux server distribution Red Hat and desktop distribution Fedora. Krakow now wants to expand on this, and will consider Linux for several new IT projects expected to begin in 2009.

The 'city' and 'city council' of Kraków are part of the 'government'. So please tell me, how does "Government policy" not allow the use of Linux when a large city such as Kraków (and many others, I can quote them for you) has already made the switch to Linux and Open Source?


It is not. I attended the "itgiants.org/itg2009 - IT Giants Conference in Kraków" (Open Source and Linux Conference) on January 14, 2009, and Waldemar Pawlak who is Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of the Economy and supporter of new IT and Internet technologies as well as of free software, was a special guest and speaker. He is encouraging the use of Open Source and Linux in Poland right now. It was in his speech. He is part of the government of Poland.


I do value my time, very much. How do you come to the conclusion one doesn't value their time? Open Source is a tremendous time saver.

When viewing cost, having over 20 computers in the office, I prefer not to pay 2,000 zl. per computer (over 42,000 zl.) to install Photoshop on each one. Now that's only one piece of software. Not very cost or time effective. With Linux / Open Source, no lengthy paperwork or licensing required...just download and install. This saves time, and money. Each pc in the office has: OpenSuse Linux, KDE 4.2, GIMP, Inkscape, Xtuple Postbooks Accounting software, Lyx, Scribus, OpenOffice, Skype, xPDF, Firefox, Pidgin Chat, Xchat, GNU Cash, GNU Octave, KOffice, and much more. To install the Microsoft equivalents wouldn't make financial sense at all. There are huge financial (and time) savings with using Linux and Open Source. Do the Math.

You both should have attended this conference in Kraków. Very informative and Mr. Pawlak spoke in detail of the Polish government's plans to enourage and use Open Source.

You can paint it with any brush you like ela, but I am just drawing on personal experience not a personal crusade.

It's not a personal crusade at all, only my recommendation based upon my experience using Linux / Open Source.

Since when is commenting on a forum the equivalent of a crusade, or attempting to defend and justify the use of a certain computer technology? If I held and funded public symposiums in large halls on promoting Linux / Open Source, and had a website devoted to it, then that would be considered a 'crusade'.

By the way, is it possible for you to provide an online source of your claim, that:


If this is true, can you kindly provide me with some objective online source for this law? My assistant has looked through several volumes of legal case studies and couldn't come up with it.

lol well it's true. how can I provide you with some online source when the guy told me personally...dear oh dear!
And for a supposedly legal person don't you know the difference between policy and Law as I made no mention of Law.
Definitions of policy on the Web:

* a plan of action adopted by an individual or social group; "it was a policy of retribution"; "a politician keeps changing his policies"

* a line of argument rationalizing the course of action of a government; "they debated the policy or impolicy of the proposed legislation"
* written contract or certificate of insurance; "you should have read the small print on your policy"


Again you don't get it do you.... there is virtually no reliable scientific analysing software out there devoted to Linux that has been used for a consistent long time.

Scientists need consistent results that are in keeping with using the same testing software and methods that are in sync with previous scientists' results.

erm... the three closest people that fit that description that I know use MS and Apple (2,1 respectively). I'm a girl, my friend (the one who helped me get it working at first, since before this i'd never worked with anything BUT MS) is skinny and OMG you don't wanna mess with him (strong as hell), and cute. Of the two other girls I know who use it one is a gamer, but also on her way to being head of her sorority next year-take from it what you like.

And yes, I'm skinny as well, with a body to kill. I use that to attract some of my clients. :-) I'm a Linux addict, what can I say?

There is a cure I'm sure;)

I battled an addiction to assembler and even machine code for many years. I gradually weened myself from their deadly embrace. Today I'm 010100001 0101010 10101010

Haha! I Love it Szarlotka! :-)

BTW, C++ is my favorite programming language.

Anyone ever tried counting in binary on their fingers?
You can reach 31 on just one hand, 1023 on both hands and a ridiculously large number if you start to use your toes and other appendages.

ela dear.... now you are getting even funnier, if you want, you can troll through these publications and try and find some usage of Linux in scientific research; however, I very much doubt that you will find any because as I said, and I will repeat again because you are still too blinded to see reason, scientists need consistent results that correlate with previous scientific research.

Using different software than previously used increases the risk of discrepancies therefore they must use the same bloody software "rozumieć" ? at-wits-end!!!


No I didn't, I said it is not well-known which is a fact and hardly used another fact.
I cannot use it as I have translators who all use Trados and therefore I must use Trados as the protected Tags do not translate to other CAT tools.

ela I applaud your righteous crusade in promoting linux... and in a lot of things I agree with you, however not all things crossover in linux and some never will do.

Not everything free in life is good for you :)

I'm happy for your good health girls ;)


That's the problem with Linux, it's hard to approach, you can spend hours on installing it, if you don't have another pc plugged into internet, it can be really hard to go through the installation process. You just dunno why smth is not working until you skim through boards and forums just to discover that you have to edit some txt file in a random location on your hdd.. The only thing I like about linux is the way its firewall works, possibility to edit redirection of every kind packet that comes to your pc (probably that's why various versions of linux with cli are beeing installed in routers). If you have a lot of pc having a router-server pc with linux on board can be a nice idea, but you need to have some knowledge first..

As for GIMP, it has a pretty steep learning curve, I really like it, and I'm using it on my WinXP, but most friends I talked to about it were fed up with how it works and how it is hard to do anything. Besides for professional use Photoshop or Corel can't be replaced. The same with other freeware apps like Blender, it's ok for a beginner and probably it opens possibilities in front of kids and student who can't afford Autodesk apps, but still big companies will use 3dmax or Maya.. and again it's difficult to use. Software developer companies pump a lot of money into user interface, introduction and help desk for their software. It's a different thing about open source...

I'm happy nobody is attacking MS and Windows yet, you're just focusing on linux, that's good, the worst breed of linux fans is the kind that goes into "windows is crap" ;)

One of my friends is a real believer, in every possible discussion he always adds some weird linux phrases like "linux is like sex it's best when it's free", always quarrels about why linux is better then windows, always carries an auto-bootable distr cd, and jokes about blue screen of death a lot.. that's the type of a linux user I don't like : o

Please find exactly where it states that Linux / Unix cannot be used.

You know, even if you were able to provide proof that the research institute is unable to use Linux because "Polish Governmental Policy" forbids it, you are talking about one research institute in all of Poland, in the small city of Puławy. This is a needle in the haystack in Poland. This does not compare to the many local governments of every gmina, powiat, wojewodzko of Poland (and perhaps numerous private businesses) that might eventually use Linux one day. This is thousands of pc's compared to perhaps 'several' in one single research institue in Puławy. How can you even compare? I already pointed out that the "city" of Krakow is has made the conversion, and is going further with it? How can this little research institiute in Puławy even compare numerically?

I'm not on any 'crusade' as you enjoy describing. Keep on hallucinating. You seem blind on the entire subject and aren't worth debating because your technical knowledge seems to low for any worthwhile discussion.


Who ever said everything free in life is good? Who even implied it? Open Source and Linux are not only free, but efficient, time saving, easy to use and implement, source code open to change by anyone, stable, and secure. In Linux, everything is a file. There is no bloated registry and too many other positive aspects to describe.

Nobody is asked you specifically to change your ways. I've only pointed out that many governments and private businesses in every country around the globe are now switching to Open Source. Again, nobody is asking or trying to convince you to use it. Please, continue using Microsoft. When I make a post about Open Source, just keep in mind, it doesn't refer to you. You are not worth the time for this discussion.

There's matlab for Linux ; )


Well.. I wouldn't be so sure about this one, most of open source software is created by home programmers - do-it-yourself people. They don't have a gui specialist - their application can be free but really hard to approach, so it's not so time effiecent.. there's a smaller amount of testers so there's a bigger chance to encounter a bug. It also might be hard to find a real gem in all the rubbish that fills sourceforge and other open source portals..

Sorry I have to jump in here, most of these home programmers are not hobbyists as you are implying. I would guess that the majority of them are specialists and professionals. An example is Doug Cutting who wrote the open source Nutch and Lucene projects which are used for searching and indexing. He now works at Yahoo. To tinker with this stuff requires a lot of in-depth knowledge.


Again not sure I agree - how many people does Microsoft employee to test product X? Pick a number, 50? 100? 500? Now compare that with the potentially thousands of people who use an open source product and report back problems to the developers. The result is that the quality might be lower for a newly released product but after a couple of releases it's usually fine. But that's why open source projects usually come out at version 0.9 so they have time to incorporate feedback.


I read an academic article that talked about peer review for software once. Microsoft or other proprietary software is closed and therefore can't be scrutinised unlike open source stuff, so the logic goes that a major bug is less likely to go unnoticed in open source. That's why architects use peer review for their plans. They don't want to build a new suspension bridge and then realise later they messed up their maths somewhere...


Yep, there is a lot of crap out there too. Lots of projects are started and not maintained, or badly organised etc.. But the good ones bubble to the top. But the great part is that if you have a problem with the code or functionality you can always fix it or modify it yourself (if you are so inclined), and help is usually available on the net.

Microsoft releases free beta versions for a reason too, I'm talking about real testing by professionals. Using apropriate tools they can find bugs that would go unnoticed by your average user.

The thing is that open source projects don't have the same amount of money - and it will always be a problem and compromising certain aspects. Of course there are big projects with big budgets, but I don't think that they are "that open".

And open source.. there's a lot of open source for windows too, there's bloodshed gcc, you don't have to buy Visual Studio to create good applications for Windows pc or mobile. Lots and lots of free libraries... Don't make Windows sounds like Symbian.

Linux would be probably much more popular if it supported more games that it actually supports. Its only youth "attractor" right now is the 'haxy' envelope - you wanna be a hacker use linux.. luckily most of them gets discouraged by the installation process.

Better yet, there is "Scilab" for Linux / Unix, a complete "Matlab" replacement.


I find the installation process of most Linux distributions like OpenSuse, Fedora, etc. to be quite simple and straightforward. It's not complex at all.


Again, GIMP is easy to use as well.

Well they don't seem to be doing that good a job - the bugs list in windows is always huge. Every few months some spotty teenager in China manages to break something open and Microsoft issues security patches and offers a reward. That doesn't happen on linux.

Personally I quite like open source stuff. I now use Ubuntu 90% of the time and use a lot of open source projects for work. I used to be 100% microsoft though so am not anti-microsoft, but I do find linux more usable.

But I still hang on to Windows XP on one computer because there alway seem to be one or two programmes that just won't run on anything else...

Errrm again you fail again ela, as this 'little' research institute is the National Veterinarian Research of Poland and one of the most famous in Europe, far surpassing anything that Krakow can come up with lol

Also you seem to have very little information about your own country and if you knew anything about Puławy you would know that this is not the only National institute here as we also have National Institute of Soil Science and Plant Cultivation (where my wife works as a research PhD), as well as two other research institutes: The Institute of Artificial Fertilizers and The Research Institute of Pomology and Floriculture, Division of Apiculture.

This town has a population of 45,000 and in comparison has more academic facilities than the whole of Poland pro rata, and I work for them all so I do have a little insight into their practices.

Stop throwing your rattle out of the pram ela, and do a little bit of research about your own country; strange that an Englishman has to teach you to be proud of one of your, quote, "small city of Puławy"

Have a good evening ela :)
P.S.


Last time I checked I found that this is a public forum where people have a right to post and comment, but I see you are getting angry, so I will consider your request. :)

What are you talking about? We are speaking of the number of computers (PCs) which can potentially be using Linux-Open Sources in Krakow and the rest of Poland (in government localities and even in private industry) versus Puławy, and not the number of 'research institutes' pro rata. You have much to learn and have failed in all of your arguments on this thread. You have made yourself look like a complete fool already.

You are comparing the small, insignificant town of Puławy which has 45,000 people, with Kraków, one of the largest cities in Poland, and every other city? How ridiculous and what a joke. Better educate yourself more.

Oh well keep on believing ela


Here you go again getting wound up over a computer program.. quite amazing really and your derogatory language towards one of your own towns is outstanding. :)

Yeah, tell that to all these people who wasted time on it. Its gui ain't really straightforward at all. Not everyone have enough time to plough through all the controls placed - sometimes - in really unapropriate places. It's not taken from thin air, I actually heard that from a lot of people. I actually like GIMP and use it as an enhanced paint.. for game textures and such, you can create bump-maps with it and tiled textures pretty easily.. I can see its cons and pros. It's not the best choice for people with bad time management ;)


It depends really, I remember that there are types of packet flood attacks that can end as a DoS that only Linux is prone to - because Windows doesn't answer to them ( some types of packets ) and on Linux you need to know how to configure your firewall which ain't easy for a beginner. Besides, it's pretty easy to find lots of articles on the internet that will tell you that linux is less secure then windows - and we can probably spend hour talking about how much MS spent on those ;) I think it's fifty fifty, truth is always somewhere in between. More users, more software - a bigger possibilty to find a bug or a software incompatibility.

About the installation, sorry if I was wrong, when I was using Linux it was always cli installation.. ;)

You are saying, Linux/Unix and Open Source represents "one computer program"? Try again. It consists of hundreds of Operating System Distributions (Suse, Fedorea, Ubuntu, etc), over 25 Desktop Environments (KDE, Gnome, Xfce, etc), and over 30,000 open source applications. We aren't talking about 'one' program here.


Is a citizen of a given country required to praise everything about their country? The city of Puławy isn't considered to be one of the more attractive cities in Poland.

Well..to be more precise there's only one linux kernel; )

Yes, one Linux Kernel. However, a Linux distribution such as OpenSuse, Fedora, Ubuntu, Gentoo, etc. uses the Linux Kernel to function. On top of the actual distribution, you then have the thousands of applications and desktop environments, which are all source compiled binary files.

For example, you have the distribution (Fedora) which uses the Linux Kernel, then you have your desktop environment (KDE), and as many applications (binary files) as you wish to run on top of that. There are many components and not just one.

You are contradicting yourself :) There is still ONE linux kernel.. what was incorrect about my statement?

Am I? Where?

not "kernels", one Linux kernel, ONE LINUX KERNEL, one linux kernel to find them and in the darkness bind them, in the land of Torvalds where open source apps lie..

what was incorrect about my statement?

Please show me where I said "kernels", with an "S" ? Also, show me where I am contradicting myself?