Comment Just had my license renewed last month... (Score 1) 394
Colorado has an interesting system... They do not print licenses at the individual offices anymore. Entire process took around 10 minutes from door to door... Paid the $16, took eye exam, did fingerprint verification, and had my picture taken. Got a piece of paper indicating my license was renewed and recieved the actual license in the mail about 5 days later.
The problem with moving to linux is moving all of the data/software to linux. I somehow doubt that there is a linux software solution that has out of the box functionality that will meet the needs of a DMV. Using WINE or some other sort of software to run the existing software under linux raises questions about compaitibility/etc...
Many government operations type centers could utilize linux/openoffice to provide a fairly seamless transition, but the DMV requires lot of specialized functionality to operate. These systems will also have to interact with other existing systems in different areas of public service (Police, etc).
Granted, future software could be developed for doing license/title/etc registrations, renewals, etc... but that will incur cost even if it is built on a free platform such as linux.
They definately need to migrate the systems to a modern OS that is more secure/updated (In looking at the screen, it appeared they were using a WIN9X version)... But for the aforementioned reasons, it appears that linux would end up costing the same or more than migrating the existing systems to win2k or winxp continuing to using existing applications.
The problem with moving to linux is moving all of the data/software to linux. I somehow doubt that there is a linux software solution that has out of the box functionality that will meet the needs of a DMV. Using WINE or some other sort of software to run the existing software under linux raises questions about compaitibility/etc...
Many government operations type centers could utilize linux/openoffice to provide a fairly seamless transition, but the DMV requires lot of specialized functionality to operate. These systems will also have to interact with other existing systems in different areas of public service (Police, etc).
Granted, future software could be developed for doing license/title/etc registrations, renewals, etc... but that will incur cost even if it is built on a free platform such as linux.
They definately need to migrate the systems to a modern OS that is more secure/updated (In looking at the screen, it appeared they were using a WIN9X version)... But for the aforementioned reasons, it appears that linux would end up costing the same or more than migrating the existing systems to win2k or winxp continuing to using existing applications.
