For that reason, we have created the special FLOSS In A District wiki page [in Polish]. We aim to collect the information about districts and their offices using Free and Open software. The most noticeable deployments we will try to have described at our jakilinux.org vortal (and translated here on PolishLinux.org, for all our international readers). If you are aware of a FLOSS deployment in your district or other state office, you’re welcome to add the information to the Wiki (everybody can edit the content, no need to register) or send us an email to michuk@jakilinux.org.

And now we’d like to turn your attention towards Mr Radoslaw Czyzewski, the IT manager from Łeba City Hall, who is campaining for the Free and Open Software in his city for years now, and has recently deployed the OpenOffice.org suite and other open-source applications in the City and District Office.

Who’s idea was to migrate to OpenOffice.org ? What were the reasons (were they only money-related)?

Radosław Czyżewski

It was my own idea. It appears, that just when I started working in the District Office, there were lots of hardware failing - because of ageing - and we needed to buy them all anew. To make things worse, all the stations had an illegal copy of MS Office 97 installed (the office has had the box version purchased, which can only be legally installed on one station, according to the license). My predecessor seems to have been adventurous So I got my hands on this opportunity. There were 20 stations to be replaced. I presented my idea and the prospect of savings over the migration, to the Office Secretary, adding, that this should be done as soon as possible, because we could find ourselves in some software legal status audit just out of the blue, and the outcome of it would be quite grim. We have selected the publicly avaliable version, downloadable for free from the Internet.

What did the migration look like ?

Radosław Czyżewski

The migration was all like :
- “Mrs Wendy’s” computer was taken away from her, a new one was given instead, with the new software and the documents copied over
- “Mrs Wendy” was all happy - having the new kit, 10 times faster than the new one (this is important, because the OO wouldn’t run as smooth as the MS Office on the old computer, and “Mrs Wendy” would “smell the rat”)
- “Mrs Wendy” was all astonished with new Windows XP functions and its stability, comparing to Windows 98, that she didn’t care for the differences between MS Office 97 and the Open Office suite - thinking OO is the new Office (by the way, most women employees at our office cannot tell the difference between Windows and Office, MS Office and Open Office… for the majority, if there is Windows installed on the machine, then everything is in order… I suspect, if I have installed Linux for a few of them, and put the bootsplash to show the Windows graphics, and put MS Windows-like icons and descriptions, then they would suddenly say, that Linux is The New Windows )

Have there been any problems regarding compatibility of documents you’re receiving in MS Office format(s) ?

Radosław Czyżewski

I tried to convert .doc to .sxw initially, but it turned out to be not-too-wise. The standard OO 1.x converter couldn’t cope with many documents (it is not the home office where you get properly written documents). You cannot possibly imagine the level of negligence to creating documents by the office workers. The best solution that turned out in the end, was to leave old documents in old format(s), and the new to be created in the new. Regarding the compatibility of text documents we receive (.doc, .sxw, .rtf, .odt) there are no problems at all. I only came about 2 or 3 documents (outsourced) containing large amounts of drawings, tables and charts [that turned out to be a headache - translator's note]. Law-wise (the minimum-requirements for IT systems bill [?] ) these were not compliant to specification, because the embedded graphics were encoded in a forbidden format, so we don’t regard them as major problem - it is the author who is responsible for the mess (and nothing really stood in the way to encode them properly - it doesn’t cost anything)

I was afraid, that the Accounts sending spreadsheets via RIO could be problematic, but then it emerged, that even the macros do work. Just after that it emerged too, that the RIO website is hosting the spreadsheets in OO compatible format too.

What format do you save in for internal office use, and what do you use to send out ?

Radosław Czyżewski

There are no procedures with regard to sending documents. Our office has no problems at all opening close to 100% text formats being used, so it doesn’t really make sense to force some particular format (and by the way, the .odt is the default now). If it emerges that somebody from outside has problems reading documents we sent, I advise to convert to .pdf (using the OO’s built-in function). If somebody from outside calls us with this sort of problem, I tell them, that there is OO.org and it is free-for-everybody.

Any other problems have you experienced during migration?

Radosław Czyżewski

The biggest problem is people’s being customized to use one tool. I’m not going to hide the fact that some employees have spotted, that they now work on some ‘minor’ office package. What you need, is individual approach, then you could convince them as time passes. Women are simpler to change their habits. At the moment, there are three stations left in the whole office, where MS Office is still installed (with OO alongside). One of them users is keen to migrate and could be convinced all-right, but the remaining two are used by men - fairly advanced users. When changing other software (e.g. IE to Firefox, or MS Office to OO) a good idea is to exchange the icons between the old and the new programs and their tooltip too. Some users had problems to find the “Internet” icon (the blue “e” with an “Internet Explorer” tooltip). After a small cosmetic surgery, the problem was rectified.

Do the office computers use any other FLOSS software ?

Radosław Czyżewski

Regarding other software, we use the Firefox+Thunderbird+a few useful plug-ins, GIMP, Inkscape, Vim, TightVNC, putty, MySQL Query Browser (and a few other small utilities, the last 6 I think only on my own computer, except VNC :-)). The servers that use Linux : the router with IPCop, the intra net www using apache, MySQL, ssh, samba, backup using Ubuntu Server Edition. The www server hosts a small informative website and the address book (with php, MySQL). The extranet web server uses Joomla, DokuWiki, WebCalendar, CMSimple, Gallery.

Did you need to organize any special training for the employees ?

Radosław Czyżewski

The two office packages are practically similar with regard to functionality and usage. So there was no training necessary. In an office with about 30 employees - 1 (one) IT manager can help and train everybody individually.

Interviewed by Borys ‘michuk’ Musielak

PS. If you can reveal any information with regard to other FLOSS deployments within Polish governing offices, do post it on our special page : FLOSS in the District WiOO w Gminie at our wiki !
Translated-by : el es