COMHAIRLE CONTAE ÁTHA CLIATH THEAS
SOUTH DUBLIN COUNTY COUNCIL

south dublin county council crest

MEETING OF SOUTH DUBLIN COUNTY COUNCIL

Monday, December 12, 2011

QUESTION NO. 19

QUESTION: Councillor D. Looney

To ask the Manager to outline the Council's utilisation of open source software at present; the planned roll-out of open source in the future; and the projected savings to this Council from current and future use of non-proprietary software options?

REPLY:

Outline the Council's utilisation of open source software at present:

South Dublin County Council uses a number of Open Source technologies and continues to research the further implementation of FOSS (Free Open Source Software). The Council’s commitment to the use of Open Source Software stems from it’s commitment to open standards and open data as well as taking cost into consideration.

While Open Source Software is free to download and use, the TCO (Total Cost of Ownership) can be effected according to the level of expertise required to set up and maintain systems. For this reason very careful consideration is given to any open source roll-out prior to implementation.
Below are a number of examples of FOSS used within the organisation and a brief explanation of each.

fixyourstreet.ie - http://www.ushahidi.com/
The technology underpinning South Dublin County Council’s FixYourStreet project is an open source GIS (Geographical Information System) called ushahidi.

Drupal - Library Website - http://drupal.org/
Many of the Councils websites including County Library’s Website are hosted on the open source CMS (Content Managment System) Drupal.

Mambo - Internal Intranet - http://mambo-foundation.org/
This is another open source CMS and is used to host the Council’s internal Intranet.

Joomla - http://www.joomla.org/
Joomla is considered by many to be a superior open source CMS to Mambo and the Council are actively researching the move across from Mambo to Joomla.

Postgres - http://www.postgresql.org/
Postgres is a FOSS alternative to SQL Database. It has spatial functionality present in a very few proprietary alternatives. Postgres handles the FixYourStreet backend.

Android phones, OSS Operating System - http://www.android.com/
Mobile access to data is a must for Senior Managment within the organisation. The Smartphones provided to senior personnel within the organisation run on the Open Source Phone Operating System Android - this achieves significant cost savings compared to similar proprietary offerings - the Android handset comes at approximately 50% of the price of an equivalent iphone.

Ubuntu Linux - http://www.ubuntu.com/
Ubuntu Linux has been the default operating system in South Dublin County Council’s Connect School Project in St Aidan’s Community School, Brookfield, Tallaght. In addition to Ubuntu Linux the entire software suite used in St Aidan’s is FOSS based, including the laptop repair and managment utility  - Clonezilla.
Many of the lessons learned through the Connect School Project have helped inform the Council’s Open Source Strategy.

Outline the planned roll-out of open source in the future.

The Council’s ‘Information Services Research and Development Officer’ is tasked with researching and making recommendations on the use of FOSS (Free Open Source Software) within South Dublin County Council.
To this end the Information System R&D Officer is developing an “Operating System + Software Stack” open source alternative for recommendation to managment for limited testing at clerical level within the organisation.
The IS R&D Officer has attended the LGCSB’s (Local Government Computer Services Board) Open Source Workshop in Limerick City Council to better understand how this might be achieved. Limerick City Council has already rolled out a ubuntu linux based desktop open source alternative. SDCC envisages working closely with the LGCSB and Limerick City Council in preparing for and rolling out FOSS within the organisation.

Outline the projected savings to this Council from current and future use of non-proprietary software options.

Current cost savings to the Council are achieved through the use of free licences and open source alternatives. While these costs are difficult to quantify, the savings achieved through the use of the above-listed software runs into the tens of thousands.
Proprietary software systems are typically paid for on a per seat, pre server basis. Many of our CMS Systems, for example, have now been running for in excess of 5 yrs without any of these associated costs.