New Organisation directory tool

[Paul Boddie]

On Thursday 9. January 2020 22.07.24 Carsten Agger wrote:
> 
> "OS2mo keeps tabs on the hierarchical links between units, manages lists
> of employees, per unit, project and task. It provides a management
> interface that shows for each unit, department, project team and person
> who is responsible for what, who else is involved, and which IT systems
> are being used. The information is easily exchanged with access
> directories and other IT management systems, helping to create, change
> and manage roles in an organisation, and manage user rights and access
> rights. And then, OS2mo can also work as an organisation’s address book,
> displaying contact details and presence information."

Sounds like a useful tool. Things like rights management made me immediately 
think of technologies like LDAP, and I see that Active Directory features in 
the architecture diagram. Also, with things like payroll system integration 
(which is also in the diagram), I imagine that such a tool would have 
applications in quite a few organisations of a certain size.

I am reminded in particular of a similar system at a former employer where the 
developers presumably face similar challenges (although an apparently 
exploitative workplace culture around that particular system made me wonder 
how sustainable that effort actually is). Maybe there are organisations whose 
needs might be met through broader collaboration around common infrastructure 
projects such as these, but for some, they would first need to learn how to 
work nicely with others and to recognise the value of external influences (and 
probably also appreciate their own employees as well).

> What is also interesting is that as small as this tool is, we also hope
> it can serve as a door opener for other free software, which has *not*
> otherwise been a priority for Danish local authorities. In order to run
> this system, based as it is on PostgreSQL, Flask and Python (and some
> frontend stuff) the municipalities need to provide a GNU/Linux server,
> and for many of our customers this has been a first and a struggle with
> their own IT departments.

I guess the Danish public sector is like that in a lot of other European 
countries: a fixation on Microsoft technologies perpetuated by service 
providers who pretend that GNU/Linux doesn't exist. Naturally, people are then 
content to adopt cloud services that do run on GNU/Linux, but maybe only if 
they are Microsoft-branded. All of this is very lucrative for these vested 
interests peddling churn-inducing products that need refreshing every season.

> I'm sorry if people find this announcement off-topic for this list, but
> I can't help but be a bit excited to see a project I've been working on
> for so long getting ready to go out there - and hopefully open more
> doors for free software in the municipalities, as they see that it works
> and is much cheaper than the proprietary systems they normally use for
> these things.

I think this kind of thing is exactly what should be discussed on this list. 
So thanks for telling us about it!

Paul

P.S. I was also slightly reminded of the Kolab WebAdmin tool which is a simple 
user manager Web application that edits LDAP attributes, if I remember 
correctly. That was/is something that should probably have been a separate 
project with broader applications, maybe intersecting with things discussed 
above, but broader collaboration has not exactly been a strength of the Kolab 
project, perversely.