Free software-based control centre for corporate desktops

The management tools for Andalucia’s standard corporate desktop, GECOS - Guadalinex Escritorio COrporativo eStandar, is ready for reuse by others, companies and public administrations alike, says Juan Conde, head of the free software promotion project of the Andalusian Ministry of Finance and Public Administration. “The potential user base outside of the Junta de Andalucía is huge.”

GECOS’ armamentarium of management tools, software distribution solutions and integration instruments “can speak any language”, Conde says, “Internationalisation and localisation is central in the GECOS design.” Conde is convinced that if companies and other public administrations start using GECOS, it will further improve the project. “Companies can offer commercial support, and more users would provide further evidence of GECOS’ usability and trust.”

The software was designed to run on the Debian and Ubuntu free software distribution, but can be adapted to other distro’s such as Redhat and CentOS with little effort, he says. At the moment, GECOS is of limited use for managing proprietary desktops, says Conde, “until someone adds the equivalent management policies.”

Business development

Last week, Conde presented GECOS a the LibreCon free software conference in Santiago de Compostela. “The conference brought together many IT professionals and ICT companies. These can build a business on the deployment of GECOS, supporting customers with enhanced remote desktop management, on physical, virtual or both types of desktops.”

More information:

Presentation on GECOS at LibreCon
Presentation on GECOS at LibreCon (Youtube, starts at 2:02:39)
Presentation on GECOS
OSOR news item