= Copy of the email sent to the SW Police =
To whom it may concern, <
><
>
Hello, my name is Chris and I am contacting you on behalf of the
Ubuntu-Cymru team[0]. It has been in the news lately that the police
departments of Swansea and Neath Port Talbot are under pressure from the
current financial crisis and are planning a merge of both departments
which could lead to a dilution of police resources. <
><
>
Of late, you may have heard about the French police departments who
have managed to save €50,000,000 (~£46,000,000) by switching their
computers[1] to a free operating system, namely Ubuntu[2], instead of
Windows XP/Vista. There are also instances of changeovers in the UK and
other countries where the benefits have assisted in adoption[3]. It
should be noted that the cost of a single Windows XP professional
license[4] is £90, with the Microsoft Office 2007 Professional
license[5] costing £345. <
><
>
Ubuntu is a Linux distribution founded by a UK-based company; it is not
unlike the Windows operating system yet with more advantages including;
easy of use, advanced security (there are no known active Linux
viruses), networking and has a integrated package manager that allows
for the installation of near 27,000 software applications. This
includes; OpenOffice (a free Microsoft Office competitor) which supports
many file formats. GnuPG, which is an application that encrypts files so
that they cannot be read by those who do not possess the decryption key,
as well as LUKS which encrypts hard-drives preventing them from being
read by unauthorised parties. With most of the applications licensed
using the General Public License (GPL)[6], they are easily accessible
with the software package manager which is by default inaccessible to
non administrating users. Ubuntu also can be updated at any point
without the need to restart the workstations in the majority of cases of
software upgrades unlike Windows which may have updates that could
result in more than 10 minutes of downtime in one day. <
><
>
As you can see there are many advantages to using Open-Source software
such as Ubuntu, however it is likely that you may have questions
regarding Open-Source software and Ubuntu, if so then please email back
to this address.<
><
>
We look forward to hearing from you,<
><
>
Ubuntu Cymru<
>
<
>
<
>
[0] http://wiki.ubuntu.com/WelshTeam <
>
[1] http://arstechnica.com/open-source/news/2009/03/french-police-saves-millions-of-euros-by-adopting-ubuntu.ars - "Moving from Microsoft XP to Vista would not have brought us many
advantages and Microsoft said it would require training of users. Moving
from XP to Ubuntu, however, proved very easy." - Lieutenant-Colonel
Xavier Guimard<
>
[2] http://www.ubuntu.com/products/whatisubuntu - "Ubuntu is and always
will be free of charge. You do not pay any licensing fees. You can
download, use and share Ubuntu with your friends, family, school or
business for absolutely nothing."<
>
[3]
http://www.articlesbase.com/careers-articles/police-career-linux-computer-systems-in-law-enforcement-148535.html <
>
[4]
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Windows-XP-Professional-Service-Pack/dp/B00061H58I/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&s=software&qid=1237060422&sr=8-2 <
>
[5]
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Microsoft-Office-2007-Professional-PC/dp/B000HEV6ES/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&s=software&qid=1237060453&sr=8-2 <
>
[6] http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/gpl.html <
>
<
>
-- <
>
Christopher Swift<
>
http://launchpad.net/~chris <
>
<
>
PGP Key: 0x10A0B8E<
>
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CategoryWelshTeam