Posts in NZOSS OpenChat: NZOSS Online Groups

On Fri, 31 Jul 2015, Daniel Reurich wrote:
> I can't see what's so compelling about Office365 really - so ho hum.
>
> The question that I'd have for any Government Dept that dared to use it is
how
> they've managed to satisfy the requirements to keep their data within the New
> Zealand jurisdiction given that office 365 is essentially a product
> fundamentally tied up with a cloud storage service.

What I'd like to know is how the Auckland Council gets away with using
Microsoft's hosted email platform (outlook.com or whatever it's called
today).

-Martin

Wow Brett, Long time no see!

I can't see what's so compelling about Office365 really - so ho hum.

The question that I'd have for any Government Dept that dared to use it
is how they've managed to satisfy the requirements to keep their data
within the New Zealand jurisdiction given that office 365 is essentially
a product fundamentally tied up with a cloud storage service.

As for me I find the various open source tools such as Libreoffice
perfectly compelling in that I can run them on all the platforms I need
them to run (Linux which Office365 doesn't run on) and with work well
underway for a web enabled version and mobile versions of Libreoffice.

And the best part is I get to choose where and how I store my data and
have no concerns about my information ending up in some DC in a
jurisdiction I never approved of where some nameless spook gets to drool
all over it in the hope of finding some scrap of information that might
link me to some supposed terror network.

I just don't see what the fuss over Office365 all about except that
Microsoft seems desparate to get everyone onto a subscription model and
no doubt at some point they'll just start demanding every citizen pay
their weekly Microsft tax regardless of whether even have a device
capable of using it.

Frankly I think Microsoft is on the slow decline, and having to give
away Windows10 shows just how low they've sunk.

Cher

On 31/07/15 16:00, Brett Roberts wrote:
> Judging by the feature list below it would appear that Feng Office is an
entirely different product offering to Office365. As far as I am aware there is
no credible FLOSS Office365 competitor so for all the anguish there might be on
this mailing list about evil Microsoft bleeding NZ taxpayers dry via
all-of-government licensing the reality is that the government are probably
paying a few dollars per user per month (Joe Public pays $13.50) for what is
the gold standard in office productivity software.
>
> Office365 pricing FWIW:
https://products.office.com/en-nz/business/compare-office-365-for-business-plans
>
> Tim's point about the barriers to entry to a web service being very low
assumes there is a viable, scalable, reliable (FLOSS) web service on offer and
in this particular situation I don't believe one exists.
>
>
> * Task Management
> * Document Management
> * Project Management
> * Time Tracking
> * Knowledge Management
> * Gantt Chart
>
> Cheers....... Brett
>
> Sent from my iPad
>
> On 31/07/2015, at 3:30 pm, Richard Hector
<<email obscured><mailto:richard@walnut.gen.nz>> wrote:
>
> On 31/07/15 10:26, Tim Uckun wrote:
> Nobody answered my question about hosted open source office type apps. Are
> there any that might compete with office360. I ask this because barriers
> to entry to a web service is very low.
>
> There's Feng office, formerly OpenGoo, which I think aims to compete in that
space. I don't know anything more about it - I certainly haven't tried it.

Rest of post

It's somewhat difficult to have a comparative TCO conversation when the
competing FLOSS offering is (apparently) nebulousware.

Sent from my iPad

> On 31/07/2015, at 4:12 pm, Dave Koelmeyer
<<email obscured>> wrote:
>
>> On 31/07/15 16:00, Brett Roberts wrote:
>> Judging by the feature list below it would appear that Feng Office is an
entirely different product offering to Office365. As far as I am aware there is
no credible FLOSS Office365 competitor so for all the anguish there might be on
this mailing list about evil Microsoft bleeding NZ taxpayers dry via
all-of-government licensing the reality is that the government are probably
paying a few dollars per user per month (Joe Public pays $13.50) for what is
the gold standard in office productivity software.

Rest of post

Amazingly, Brett, I agree with you. :)

I've done a search, and there aren't currently any credible *web-based
and open source* MS Office 365 alternatives.

That said, there is a major change we can and must make. We must insist
that all gov't documents, both internally and used for external
collaboration by the citizens not use MS proprietary formats like the
(not-nearly-as-open-as-advertised -
http://www.adjb.net/post/Microsoft-Fails-the-Standards-Test.aspx) OOXML
formats (DOCX, XLSX, PPTX, etc.) or the earlier fully proprietary DOC,
XLS, PPT, etc. formats. We must insist on vendor-neutral (not controlled
unilaterally by a single vendor), royalty-free, patent unencumbered open
standards. I would recommend the Open Document Format options - ODT,
ODS, ODP, etc.

Amazingly, MS Office supports (or claims to) these properly open formats
already... they just seldom get used because MS have succeeded in making
their default the de facto (but proprietary) standard.

That's the approach that the UK gov't have taken and I think we can do
the same - I recommend you consider signing this: http://openstandards.nz :)

If you don't understand this whole open standards vs. proprietary
standards thing, here's a convenient online learning resource:
http://openstandards.nz/open-standards-presentation

Once the NZ gov't mandates open standards for digital communications,
then there will be a level playing field, on which open source will
eventually prevail (as it has on the open standards focused World Wide
Web).

It'd be great for the gov't to have the option of procuring non-MS
software to meet its productivity software requirements if it chose to
do so. Then they'd no longer have to pay monopoly rents like they do now
(despite the fictitious "savings" they claim to have made:
http://www.computerworld.co.nz/article/579771/nz-govt-extends-microsoft-licensing-agreement-by-three-years/#comment-2150174124
) - you can't make "savings" when you've gifted a monopoly to a single
supplier. You can only pay less than some arbitrary price they told you
to pay, but then agreed to reduce. That's not 'savings', that's a
powerless consumer over a barrel grateful for charity.

Cheers,

Dave

On 31/07/15 16:00, Brett Roberts wrote:
> Judging by the feature list below it would appear that Feng Office is
> an entirely different product offering to Office365. As far as I am
> aware there is no credible FLOSS Office365 competitor so for all the
> anguish there might be on this mailing list about evil Microsoft
> bleeding NZ taxpayers dry via all-of-government licensing the reality
> is that the government are probably paying a few dollars per user per
> month (Joe Public pays $13.50) for what is the gold standard in
> office productivity software.
>
> Office365 pricing FWIW:
>
https://products.office.com/en-nz/business/compare-office-365-for-business-plans

Rest of post

On 31/07/15 16:00, Brett Roberts wrote:
> Judging by the feature list below it would appear that Feng Office is an
entirely different product offering to Office365. As far as I am aware there is
no credible FLOSS Office365 competitor so for all the anguish there might be on
this mailing list about evil Microsoft bleeding NZ taxpayers dry via
all-of-government licensing the reality is that the government are probably
paying a few dollars per user per month (Joe Public pays $13.50) for what is
the gold standard in office productivity software.

It would have thought it goes without saying, but I guess not: there are
initial costs (the per user/month cost for your "gold standard", for
instance), and there are hidden and exit costs. The per-user cost is but
one part of the TCO.

Rest of post

Judging by the feature list below it would appear that Feng Office is an
entirely different product offering to Office365. As far as I am aware there is
no credible FLOSS Office365 competitor so for all the anguish there might be on
this mailing list about evil Microsoft bleeding NZ taxpayers dry via
all-of-government licensing the reality is that the government are probably
paying a few dollars per user per month (Joe Public pays $13.50) for what is
the gold standard in office productivity software.

Office365 pricing FWIW:
https://products.office.com/en-nz/business/compare-office-365-for-business-plans

Tim's point about the barriers to entry to a web service being very low assumes
there is a viable, scalable, reliable (FLOSS) web service on offer and in this
particular situation I don't believe one exists.

* Task Management
* Document Management
* Project Management
* Time Tracking
* Knowledge Management
* Gantt Chart

Cheers....... Brett

Sent from my iPad

On 31/07/2015, at 3:30 pm, Richard Hector
<<email obscured><mailto:richard@walnut.gen.nz>> wrote:

On 31/07/15 10:26, Tim Uckun wrote:
Nobody answered my question about hosted open source office type apps. Are
there any that might compete with office360. I ask this because barriers
to entry to a web service is very low.

There's Feng office, formerly OpenGoo, which I think aims to compete in that
space. I don't know anything more about it - I certainly haven't tried it.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feng_Office_Community_Edition
http://sourceforge.net/projects/opengoo/

Richard

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On 31/07/15 10:26, Tim Uckun wrote:
> Nobody answered my question about hosted open source office type apps. Are
> there any that might compete with office360. I ask this because barriers
> to entry to a web service is very low.

There's Feng office, formerly OpenGoo, which I think aims to compete in
that space. I don't know anything more about it - I certainly haven't
tried it.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feng_Office_Community_Edition
http://sourceforge.net/projects/opengoo/

Richard

Tim, check out https://www.rollapp.com/apps It hooks into web based
storage services. I checked it out a year or 2 ago, had no need for
it and not used it, but I think it would be pretty good. Perhaps let
the list know what you discover? Rob

Rest of post

On Fri, Jul 31, 2015 at 10:26 AM, Tim Uckun <<email obscured>> wrote:

> Nobody answered my question about hosted open source office type apps.
>

Possibly because you tacked it onto an existing thread that may not be of
interest to those who have an interest in office 365 style apps

Rest of post

Nobody answered my question about hosted open source office type apps. Are
there any that might compete with office360. I ask this because barriers
to entry to a web service is very low.

On Fri, Jul 31, 2015 at 10:01 AM, Dave Lane <<email obscured>> wrote:

> Imagine if a country - even a tiny one like NZ - invested 10% of the
> money it would normally pay for MS licenses on, for example, helping the
> open source web-based LibreOffice conversion or perhaps a suite like
> Calligra Office (part of the KDE project) would be better suited.
> Anyway, there are a number of advanced office suites, who comply with
> open standards already, which would be ripe of adaptation.
>
> I think the idea of gov't's putting up grants or funding open source
> community projects for the greater good is inevitable, but will require
> changes to the gov't procurement processes, and a mandate for open
> standards (thus http://openstandards.nz)
>
> Cheers,
>
> Dave
>
> On 30/07/15 08:26, Tim Uckun wrote:
> > Is there an open source alternative to office 365 or Google Apps either
> in
> > the cloud or self hosted?
> >
> >
> >
> > On Thursday, July 30, 2015, David McNeill <<email obscured>> wrote:
> >
> >> It's not just Police updating and renewing.
> >>
> >> Microsoft's NZ distributors are resting their staff now in preparation
> >> for a frantic August & September when Govt Depts have to update their
> >> licences.
> >>
> >> /"substantial discounts apply for agencies purchasing or renewing before
> >> 30 September with further discounts for enrolments or renewals before 31
> >> August.//"
> >> /
> >> <
> >>
>
https://www.ict.govt.nz/programmes-and-initiatives/software-acquisition-strategy/microsoft-licensing-agreement-2015-g2015/

Rest of post

Imagine if a country - even a tiny one like NZ - invested 10% of the
money it would normally pay for MS licenses on, for example, helping the
open source web-based LibreOffice conversion or perhaps a suite like
Calligra Office (part of the KDE project) would be better suited.
Anyway, there are a number of advanced office suites, who comply with
open standards already, which would be ripe of adaptation.

I think the idea of gov't's putting up grants or funding open source
community projects for the greater good is inevitable, but will require
changes to the gov't procurement processes, and a mandate for open
standards (thus http://openstandards.nz)

Cheers,

Dave

On 30/07/15 08:26, Tim Uckun wrote:
> Is there an open source alternative to office 365 or Google Apps either in
> the cloud or self hosted?
>
>
>
> On Thursday, July 30, 2015, David McNeill <<email obscured>> wrote:
>
>> It's not just Police updating and renewing.
>>
>> Microsoft's NZ distributors are resting their staff now in preparation
>> for a frantic August & September when Govt Depts have to update their
>> licences.
>>
>> /"substantial discounts apply for agencies purchasing or renewing before
>> 30 September with further discounts for enrolments or renewals before 31
>> August.//"
>> /
>> <
>>
https://www.ict.govt.nz/programmes-and-initiatives/software-acquisition-strategy/microsoft-licensing-agreement-2015-g2015/
>>>
>> The amount spent on the Microsoft All-of Government agreement would
>> employ hundreds of open source developers, more than enough to tune
>> LibreOffice and every other category-equivalent application to NZ Govt's
>> requirements.
>>
>> Someone in NZ is obviously already working on the cloud space...
>>
>> /Agencies under the GCIO mandate are still under the Cabinet directive
>> to only use *on-shore* office productivity services and government IaaS
>> for compute and storage. We are planning for public cloud facilities to
>> be available through government IaaS suppliers.///(Microsoft's local
>> thunderstorm is based on Australian data centres)
>>
>>
>> David.
>>
>> ――
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>> Leave group mailto:openchat@groups.nzoss.org.nz <javascript:;>
>> ?Subject=Unsubscribe
>>
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Rest of post

Hi All,

You can appeal to the Ombudsman but due to the volume of OIA complaints and
underfunding of the office it will take a long time for your complaint to be
processed. I've often found that after your requests starts to be processed
that the Minister's office will then allow more documents to be released but
agree with Mark that this will probably not happen in this case.

One other source of information for govt contracts is select committee
documents. Each year there is a financial review process and a budget process.
Select Committees ask questions and the answers are eventually published on the
parliament website. I haven't looked at police before but for the Ministry of
Environment and Department of Conservation all contracts are listed along with
cost.

You might be able to dig up something if there was an individual contract here:

http://www.parliament.nz/en-nz/pb/sc/documents/evidence?Criteria.Keyword=police&;Criteria.Author=&;Criteria.Parliament=-1&;Criteria.Timeframe=&;Criteria.DocumentType=Financial+review+-+SC+evidence&;Search=Go

Regards

Luke

> -----Original Message-----
> From: NZOSS OpenChat [mailto:openchat@groups.nzoss.org.nz] On Behalf Of
> Mark Harris
> Sent: Thursday, 30 July 2015 12:01 a.m.
> To: openchat@groups.nzoss.org.nz
> Subject: Re: [NZOSS OpenChat] OIA request for costs of Police migration from
> Windows XP.
>
> On 29/07/2015 4:21 p.m., Danyl Strype wrote:
> > Personally, I don't think that vendors who supply to government should
> > be able to claim "commercial sensitivity". That is public money -
> > *our* money - which they are being paid for goods and services, and
> > we, the people, have the right to see how it's being spent.
>
> This is a little naive, I'm afraid. You do get to see how much agencies have
spent
> when you see the annual report presented to Parliament. To have every
> transaction continually open to public scrutiny would a) cost more than would
be
> saved, as someone has to maintain that information, as well as process and
> publish it through the bidding process, and b) deter perfectly honest
businesses
> from putting in bids as the market would see them and make judgements about
> their profitability which may not be justified but could have deleterious
effect on

Rest of post

Is there an open source alternative to office 365 or Google Apps either in
the cloud or self hosted?

On Thursday, July 30, 2015, David McNeill <<email obscured>> wrote:

> It's not just Police updating and renewing.
>
> Microsoft's NZ distributors are resting their staff now in preparation
> for a frantic August & September when Govt Depts have to update their
> licences.
>
> /"substantial discounts apply for agencies purchasing or renewing before
> 30 September with further discounts for enrolments or renewals before 31
> August.//"
> /
> <
>
https://www.ict.govt.nz/programmes-and-initiatives/software-acquisition-strategy/microsoft-licensing-agreement-2015-g2015/

Rest of post

It's not just Police updating and renewing.

Microsoft's NZ distributors are resting their staff now in preparation
for a frantic August & September when Govt Depts have to update their
licences.

/"substantial discounts apply for agencies purchasing or renewing before
30 September with further discounts for enrolments or renewals before 31
August.//"
/
<https://www.ict.govt.nz/programmes-and-initiatives/software-acquisition-strategy/microsoft-licensing-agreement-2015-g2015/>
The amount spent on the Microsoft All-of Government agreement would
employ hundreds of open source developers, more than enough to tune
LibreOffice and every other category-equivalent application to NZ Govt's
requirements.

Someone in NZ is obviously already working on the cloud space...

/Agencies under the GCIO mandate are still under the Cabinet directive
to only use *on-shore* office productivity services and government IaaS
for compute and storage. We are planning for public cloud facilities to
be available through government IaaS suppliers.///(Microsoft's local
thunderstorm is based on Australian data centres)

David.

On 29/07/2015 4:21 p.m., Danyl Strype wrote:
> Personally, I don't think that vendors who supply to government should
> be able to claim "commercial sensitivity". That is public money -
> *our* money - which they are being paid for goods and services, and
> we, the people, have the right to see how it's being spent.

This is a little naive, I'm afraid. You do get to see how much agencies
have spent when you see the annual report presented to Parliament. To
have every transaction continually open to public scrutiny would a) cost
more than would be saved, as someone has to maintain that information,
as well as process and publish it through the bidding process, and b)
deter perfectly honest businesses from putting in bids as the market
would see them and make judgements about their profitability which may
not be justified but could have deleterious effect on their share value.

Cheers

~mark

Kia ora koutou

On 29 July 2015 at 15:07, Bruce Clement <<email obscured>> wrote:
> "The cost of upgrading these is commercially sensitive and will not be
> given out"
>
> Is this decision capable of being challenged?

Personally, I don't think that vendors who supply to government should
be able to claim "commercial sensitivity". That is public money -
*our* money - which they are being paid for goods and services, and
we, the people, have the right to see how it's being spent. If that
discourages certain shady businesses from supplying to government,
then it would open up opportunities for businesses who aren't afraid
of being transparent in their dealings with the public service. So
much the better.

Ma te wā

Rest of post

> On 29/07/2015, at 3:07 pm, Bruce Clement <<email obscured>> wrote:
>
> "The cost of upgrading these is commercially sensitive and will not be
> given out"
>
> Is this decision capable of being challenged?

This is the cost of work that the Police are having done to their systems to
upgrade them for a later version of Windows. I expect that to be commercially
sensitive because they are probably still to let all the contracts for them and
want to preserve a negotiating position with their suppliers.

You could ask the Ombudsman to rule to overturn this on the grounds that public
interest exceeds the normal commercial requirement, but frankly I can’t see it.

Disclaimer: I have nothing to do with the Police or anyone involved in this, I
am simply reasoning from past experience as a public servant.

Colin

Rest of post

On 29/07/2015 15:07, Bruce Clement wrote:
> Excellent work
>
>
> "The cost of upgrading these is commercially sensitive and will not be
> given out"
>
> Is this decision capable of being challenged?
>
> It seems weird that this could be commercially sensitive. The Police are a
> legislated monopoly and have no competitors for their core business.
>
Could it be challenged? Sure. Would it succeed? Almost certainly not.
The Police might be a monopoly but their suppliers aren't, and it's
supplier contracts for which they will be using the "commercially
sensitive" justification.

Rest of post

Excellent work

"The cost of upgrading these is commercially sensitive and will not be
given out"

Is this decision capable of being challenged?

It seems weird that this could be commercially sensitive. The Police are a
legislated monopoly and have no competitors for their core business.

Rest of post

Much as anticipated, nothing much useful out of this, but after about 2 months
- I finally got some answers... basically:

1. NZ Police are incurring no internal costs for the extended support of
Windows XP while they manage the migration to Windows 8.1 (due Nov 2015). 2.
There are still 401 applications used by NZ police that will not run on a later
version of Windows than XP.3. The cost of upgrading these is commercially
sensitive and will not be given out.

Note that Windows OS costs for NZ Police are covered by the AoG agreement with
Microsoft - so are not an internal cost. I'm not sure NZ Police would even know
what they are.

Cheers

Brent Wood