Fundecyt is now using its experience of deploying LinEx to help other government agencies across the region to deploy open source software. The Ministry of Culture is part-way through a migration, having migrated around 60 percent of its 380 desktops, while the regional Ministry of Health will eventually run all medical applications on Linux servers and is migrating 14,000 PCs at health centres to the open source operating system.
The Ministry of Health project will result in the "largest Linux-based IT system in Spain", according to IBM, which is partnering on the implementation. Started at the end of 2004, the mammoth deployment is expected to take four years and involves the re-engineering and integration of various systems involved in healthcare. Fourteen thousand healthcare professionals based in 14 hospitals and over 400 primary care units across Extremadura will eventually have access to the system.
Last month IBM completed the installation of the servers that will eventually run the new healthcare system. The 28 IBM xSeries, and six p5-570 servers are all running Linux. Luis Javier Bonilla, the programme manager for the project at IBM, says the first primary care centre will start running parts of the new Linux-based system in June 2005.
At present, the health centres are primarily reliant on manual processes to transfer patients to hospitals and are unable to access patient records and lab results held at hospitals. From June, the pilot primary care centre will have access to the hospital legacy systems, allowing doctors to have digital access to patient information such as lab results. Doctors will also be able to carry out some administrative processes, such as discharging patients, using the new integrated system.
Eventually all processes will be transferred from the legacy systems to the integrated system, which will give every healthcare professional access to all the patient data, such as lab results and prescription information from any portal. All 400 primary care centres across the region will have access to the system by September 2006, after which the system will be rolled out to the 14 hospitals, according to Bonilla.
The completion of this system is likely to help sway critics of open source, who claim that Linux is not suitable for mission-criticalapplications. As Bonilla succinctly put it: "Medical systems cannot go down, ever, because people will die."
Following Extremadura's lead, a number of other Spanish provinces have started migration projects including two of the largest provinces Andalusia and Valencia, as well as one of the smaller provinces Castile-la-mancha. The government of Extremadura is also working with various regional authorities in South America to help the Spanish-speaking organisations migrate to open source. With this kind of momentum, President Rodriguez' predictions that the region's salvation lies with technical innovation seems increasingly likely to come true.
Talkback
Extremadurian kids now hate Linux
Being myself extremadurian and having talked with kids and teachers all I can tell you is that they really really hate Linux.
With no preparation nor support of Linux the teachers cannot use it for regular classes. And the kids hate it because nor MSN nor many ad-fulled toys work on this crappy computers. And the worst part is that their desks are now half-size because of it.
That is what is called Touch Love. They will get used to it and will reap its benefits and see its value in the future. Hay, wait a minute, Linux has some very nice games for kids (Frozen Bubbles, Tux racer, etc.) And why do they need MSN? they can use Koepte, Gaim. Don't worry, they will find many things to enjoy it once they dig into it.
Well, that sounds like a typical "Oh no, it looks different, I don't want to touch it!" attitude. People will learn; in fact this is an opportunity to learn more and find the goodies that they're missing. On the other hand it is pretty poor to suddenly put a different system in front of the teachers because things aren't 100% the same. But to me, this is yet another demonstration that people are learning the wrong way. Instead of learning how to use a word processor to create a letter by making the header, salutations, body, signature, they have all been trained to push the buttons on a single type of word processor. There is absolutely nothing in the typical classroom which cannot be handled by free software today. I think one of the Linux platform is so much better is that you often have many choices on how to do one particular task; this usually encourages people to try different things then settle on the one they like best, rather than being trapped with the first solution that they were ever introduced to.
Certainly Extremadura is one of our poorests regions and Linux and open source can help the companies in the region to be more competitive than could be with a propietary software.
Linux cuts down the overall TCO on IT.
A well developed strategy to put Linux in every company will be a "must do" for the goverment of the region. Sponsoring open source projects centered in the day-to-day company management could be the cornerstone for a quick acceptance.
Open source developers (or companies) should put in the market applications such Accounting, Company Management and the like. He should put the apps as GPL. I understand that software development companies needs to earn some money for survive in the market. Instead of make money with their developments can earn the same money offering services such as customization of their developments (many, many companies needs this, really, believe me) wich can have another licensing type.
The use in schools of Linux and open source is another question. The president is setting a base for the future and the benefits will come in some years.
But currently Extremadura is one of our poorest regions. If the goverment don't take measures that help companies, such I described, the future will be uincertainly and the current efforts in the schools today will be lost.
Un Extremeño.
- Oye, ¿y tu de donde eres...?
- Yo...De Extremadura
- pero...¿De Caceres o de Badajoz...?
- Que va...del mismo Extremadura!!
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