German Parliament Considers Linux

daramannen writes ""The committee is examining whether switching the Bundestag's more than 5,000 computers to open source would improve stability and security, as well as save money, Schroer said. By the committee's estimate, implementing open source software throughout the federal government could result in savings of 250 million marks (US$116 million)." "

Comments

Microsoft will come to its senses

[tsa]

With all this news about large organisations thinking about switching to Linux, I predict that Microsoft will reconsider their new licensing scheme and go back to their 'old' way of doing business. They're digging their own grave if they don't. One thing that interests me is that the 'the main cost is in the maintenancei, not in the price of the licences' argument against Linux doesn't seem to work anymore.

Re:Microsoft will come to its senses

[motherhead]

I would like to think that Microsoft will come to it's senses and reevaluate it's licensing policies, but you have to remember the main driving force behind Microsoft's greed and avarice.

Microsoft is not self-destructive or blind with arrogance. They are just screwed by their own success. The sins of the past have come to haunt them, Microsoft has a hell of a lot of shareholders that depend on them to maintain to some degree of the same meteoric levels of growth and prosperity that they have enjoyed in the past. We all know how dirty Microsoft has been in the last fifteen years and that evil business model propelled them to the most important tech stock in most people's portfolio. The reason that they are fighting so hard to be allowed to maintain these bullshit business models is that they need them to survive. Lets laugh together at the notion of Office's success if it was denied access to the OS division (and visa versa to some degree).

So now it's 2001 and what do they have? They have an oversaturated market, there is almost no compelling reason for any offices to upgrade Office, there are scant reasons to upgrade to Microsoft XP. Microsoft is banging it's head into every area it can find (ie. Xbox, PocketPC, DirectTV, etc etc...) trying to build new revenue models, but at this point the money is not coming in yet.

When I found myself explaining to my brother the other day (a longtime Microsoft shareholder) how the OfficeXP and WindowsXP EULA worked his response was, "why the hell are they nickel and dimeing now?".

He understood that there is a huge difference between the guy that installs WindowsXP on both his desktop and his laptop and the huge duplicating plant in Malaysia that is duping knockoffs replete with holograms at 100,000 units per day.

My response was that I am starting to think they have to.

Patriotic?

[squaretorus]

Even if they need 5x the number of support techs to run on Open Source, this has to be A Good Thing for the German economy. Why spend all that money on a foreign product when you can spend it on your own engineers? Quality jobs instead of low quality imports.

Any government could use that as a driving reason for change - especially with a downturn happening around us. Every little helps!

Re:Patriotic?

[dgroskind]

The private sector can usually do the same job better, cheaper, and faster.

Now is a peculiar time to be making this assertion.

One need only look at the issue of airport security before 9/11 for an example of how delivering services at a low cost is not a relevant consideration.

Apologists for corporate efficiency simply slough off the recent dotcom debacle as the price one pays for a free market.

Government certainly has failures but all organizations do. Bankruptcy is endemic in small businesses. Virtually none of the original Dow Jones 30 companies, the strongest companies in the economy, are still in business.

The idea that corporations deliver services better than government is mostly a product of selective use of evidence, bad cost accounting and corporate propaganda.

Good for them!

[einhverfr]

I think that it is great that foreign governments are considering Linux seriously. It makes it harder for legislation in America, such as the SSSCA to kill the OS and makes it more likely to succeed in the long run.

And it will probably save them a bundle of money for as long as they get decent support contracts or have the people in house. This will be a great thing for SuSE...

Microsoft vs. Germany?

[Bonker]

Steve Ballmer Says: 'So, you think you can get avay vith abandoning the reich, eh? Don't be so sure. Ve haff vays of makink you upgrade...'

NSA Backdoors

[isa-kuruption]

Among the arguments in favor of Linux: reports that some versions of Windows contain backdoors designed to grant the U.S. National Security Agency access to users' data.

You mean.. the NSA isn't gonna be able to figure out how the Germans engineer such wonderful cars anymore? This is an outrage! What else does the German gov't have to offer, anyway?

Re:NSA Backdoors

[Rogerborg]

• What else does the German gov't have to offer, anyway?

Information on all European Union internal policies and planning? Incriminating evidence of them cheating on trade deals?

The US and the EU are of comparable size in population and economy, and are in fierce competition in many areas. Things like banana trade wars might sound like a bad comedy sketch, but it's a serious multi-million dollar dispute, and there's plenty more of them out there.

So, how would you feel about Germany monitoring your financial dealings through their own version of Echelon? Wouldn't you want the NSA to protect you from that? There's a valid (though specious) counter-intelligence excuse for putting in back doors in popular products, to spy on those who might be spying on you.

Not that I'm buying that this is actually going on, but there's plenty of reasons why it might be, and why it's better to be Open than sorry.

Consider that the new generation of US warships will be running Windows for Warfare. You can damn well bet your life that the US Navy is going to want to evaluate every line of code that goes into those systems. They aren't just going to take Microsoft's word for it, especially as MS subcontract work out to third parties, some of them in countries where a little bribery would go a long way.

Similarly, no sensible government (including the US!) should be using closed binaries for critical functions.

The german govt. is already OSS friendly

[steve.m]

the German Federal Ministry of Economics and Technology help fund the development of GnuPG.
Check out the press release.

Re:consider the costs

[oddjob]

If the tech support costs are paid to German IT workers, that's much better than paying a US company for software from a political standpoint even without any overall savings.

Transatlantic OS Split

[dackroyd]

If the Germans lead the European governments into using Linux (or any other Open Source OS) and the US goverment makes it illegal to own any non-trusted (non-Microsoft) OS through the SSSCA, then it is possible that people on different sides of the Atlantic would be split to using different computer systems.

Personally I think this would be great for European software companies as they would have opportunities that US companies would normally go for.

Not so great for any non-Microsoft software companies in America though, if they aren't allowed to write non-secure software for Europe and M$ keeps forcing other companies out of the market place by bundling features with the OS.

no suprise that Govt is looking at linux

[Lumpy]

Consider the history of government computing, They still run old mainfraimes because of the software they built decades ago, Tax and voting software is still running on hardware fom the 1970's and 1980's. Why? because re-writing something that works is economically dumb. Plus they have the source code so if a modification is needed, hire a programmer or use the in-house programmer to change it, no vendor needed, no more "at the mercy" of other companies. you can impliment changes and new projects in-house without having to spend another $2.9 million in order to upgrade the OS again.

Linux has that advantage... The source code, and you OWN it. Hey, I have linux and noone can take it away from me,
Linus cant stand up and say "everyone with the last name that starts with A can no longer run linux" like microsoft can, or IBM can or Apple can, or SCO, etc....

This isnt about the software, it's about the licesnes' The german govt cant tell everyone to "go to hell in a handbasket" if they use a open source system. Noone can sue them for contract breach, charge them millions for illegal search and seizure (Microsoft audit) or be blackmailed (Microsoft audit)

Any company or Government that has any brains would see that geting out from under the control of another entity will save thousands and even millions. and hiring Linux guru's at a paltry $60K USD each saves even more money.

as for user training... XP is coming out and will require the SAME amount of training... so that point is only typical Microsoft FUD.

Don't think so.

[einhverfr]

The basic problem is that the PC market is saturating. Perhaps the server market too but that is not so sure. If Microsoft continues in their "old way" I think that they will have to raise prices substantially. This is why they are going to the new scheme. It is not so much a lack of competition as it is an inability to meet their current revenue needs as the market shifts.

This is the great strength of open source. Proprietary software requires that one company absorb all the R&D costs and then distribute that cost on to their customers. Fewer customers means higher overhead, and this is a very steep trend because R&D is such a large cost. Open source on the other hand, distributes the cost of development by distributing the development and thereby passing the cost on to the consumer without needing to rely on sales. In essence, it is a strategy where needs are met at a price, and any need can be met.

OK. So how is this on topic? If the German government wants to save money and retain quality as this industry continues to saturate, they have no reasonable alternative than to go to open source solutions. FreeBSD is great and all, but my experience is that the Linux Documentation Project is far enough along to make Linux a real compelling buy. And much of the material is either available in German or could be easily translated. And Linux is to the Windows desktop at least what DOS was to the Mac desktop (since when has ease of use really been a defining factor, and I have found that when properly set up, Linux can result in less reliance on tech support than a new version of Windows when given to beginners).

Linux is the obvious choice.

Governments have a way with things...

[Svartalf]

For the longest time, if you want to work with the US Armed Forces, you couldn't submit anything but Wordperfect documents to them- if you did, it got filed in the bit-bucket. Same goes now for the Legal profession. Most courts will not accept anything but Wordperfect documents. An MS Word document will get a request for a resubmission in Wordperfect format.

All it would take is the German government insisting that they don't accept Word/Excel 2000 documents from ANYONE and the people will have to deal.

Work for the advocates

[mAsterdam]

Yes. Linux for the german parliament. That is a Good Thing (TM). But wait. There is no decision yet. It is under consideration. Under consideration only. No doubt the party who's not gaining from such a deal (now who would that be) will put much effort into convincing the german parliament that it should decide otherwise.

A few months ago there was talk of Linux for educational institutions in Mexico. Where are we now?
So ... advocates: Do your thing and do it well. And hurry!

Re:Probably the result of consideration is determi

[Rogerborg]

• If the Bundestag administration is not able to print .doc documents as they were shown in someone else's Word 2K (with correct table dimenstions, bullets, idents and images), it would make people laugh hard at them

Have a look at StarOffice 6 beta. I'm having no issues at all moving .doc documents between it and MS Word 97 and MS Word 2000. My company IT department is currently taking a serious look at StarOffice as a drop in replacement for Microsoft Office. It really is a lovely piece of work.

Also some cities in Finland

[magi]

Also my city, Turku (in South-West Finland) is seriously considering switching all city computers to Linux and OpenOffice. This would mean about 3000 computers. The topic has been discussed in many news.

The simple reason is that with new Windows and Office licensing, the software costs would be about 1-2 million euros per year.

"The Microsoft has changed its licensing policy from stealing to plain robbing. Cities simply can't afford to make such contracts," says the information management officer of the city.

"Finland is nowadays a Microsoft nation. This sort of changes would create certain kinds of problems."

Turku will not pay any licensing fees to Microsoft before the examination about Linux is finished before the end of this year.

At least 20 other cities are waiting for the City of Turku decision, and will follow its strategy. Turku has about 160,000 citizens.