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Campaign for Free Software in the Bundestag

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the click-here-to-renew-your-license-to-govern dept.

mpawlo writes: "According to Swedish IDG.se, the president of Microsoft Germany is outraged over the Bundestux campaign. The campaign aims to put Linux in the Bundestag (German Parliament). He has sent a letter to the campaign workers - some of them members of the German parliament - stating that Microsoft is not a threat to democratic values (as argued by the campaign). Kurt Sibold also states that the only thing achieved through the campaign is a public slander of Microsoft." Also reported by the Register, if you prefer English.

9 of 313 comments (clear)

  1. Every government.... by MrBandersnatch · · Score: 4, Insightful

    should be using open source software. Yeah Germany. Apart from the fact that open source software IS of good enough quality now to be practicle to use and deploy it would save the tax payer MILLIONS of (£$E) every year, create a host of jobs AND improve the very software that was being deployed.

    Time to hassle my MP ;)

    1. Re:Every government.... by radja · · Score: 5, Insightful

      >In the light of the fact that governments tend to need to interact with other bodies, I would say they need to use what most other people are using. Which is MS Office.

      Wrong. They need to use the format that most people can use, which is NOT MS Office, but a standard. it's the document format that counts, not the software. There are still people who prefer to use WP, StarOffice, etc or use a "non-ms-compliant" OS . Governments should not force people to use certain software, ESPECIALLY commercial software. Pick a format that can be read by WP, StarOffice, and Word.

      //rdj

      --

      No one can understand the truth until he drinks of coffee's frothy goodness.
      --Sheikh Abd-Al-Kadir, 1587
    2. Re:Every government.... by Jason+Earl · · Score: 4, Insightful

      We are not talking about maintenance jobs. Linux, properly deployed, should actually lower maintenance costs. We are talking about programming jobs. Linux would allow the local software market to flourish instead of being tied to a handful of companies in the United States. Why should the Germans spend their money on U.S. software when they can get Linux solutions from a local German vendor (at a lower price).

      For far less than a Microsoft solution the Bundestag could get a custom solution based on Linux and other open standards. This money they spend will even stay in their own economy (meaning that they will get the bulk of it back in taxes).

      Let's face it, the reason that this appears to have actual supporters in the Bundestag is because it makes good political sense. Not only would using Linux lower the cost of running the government, but it would support the German economy.

      I don't think that many government workers are likely to lose their jobs. There will still be plenty to do, the difference will be that much of their work will no longer be wasted caring for fragile Windows PCs. However, if I worked in IT for the Bundestag I would brush up on my Linux skills right away just in case.

  2. Microsoft is the same as ever by pubjames · · Score: 5, Insightful

    The arrogance of Microsoft is just amazing. They keep trying to make us believe that they have changed their ways, but they really haven't.

    What will it take for them to get it into their heads that they are just a supplier? If I found out that one of my clients was seriously considering an alternative product, I would be there grovelling, pointing out the benefits of staying with my company, maybe try to negociate a discount. But no, Microsoft are outraged! They've been slandered!

    You would have though they would have learned from the Licence 6.0 fiasco. It's nice to see that the europeans (at least France, Germany and the UK) have the guts to stand up to Microsoft and consider alternatives. Why isn't this happening in the US?

  3. Re:They can't afford it by Rentar · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I shouldn't feed the trolls, but ...

    An important factor in Linux' cost is its maintenance. Linux requires a *lot* of maintenance, work doable only by the relatively few high-paid Linux administrators that put themselves - of course willingly - at a great place in the market. Linux seems to be needing maintenance continuously, to keep it from breaking down.

    Well, Windows doesn't require any less maintenance ... except when you run it on a single desktop. But Windows Server really require a lot of maintenance (as do Sun, HP-UX, ...). Theres no real difference here ... of course you can run a windows server unmaintaned, but then it will ... well, let's say "open".

    Add to this the cost of loss of data. Linux' native file system, EXT2FS, is known to lose data like a firehose spouts water when the file system isn't unmounted properly.

    "Stuff is known to break when you hit it with other heavy stuff" Nothing new here... every non-journaled FS breaks when not unmounted correctly (besides, it never lost so much data on me, but that might have been luck).

    According to Linux advocates, an alternative to EXT2FS would be ReiserFS.

    So you don't like ReiserFS? How about XFS? Thats definitely not Beta and has been used for years in IRIX now ... (besides, reiserfs has definitely been in productive years for quite some time as well, but never mind)

    All the drawbacks of the ancient EXT2FS file system remain in EXT3FS.

    Which drawbacks would that be? The one you mentioned before? No ... ext3 is journaled, so it doesn't break so badly, when not unmounted ...

    I'll just skip the part that has has no whatsoever arguments. it is left as an exercise to the reader.

  4. freedom by daniel2000 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I guess the Germans understand "free market" better than the Americans, without a viable alternative there is no freedom of choice, if there is no alternative to choose there is no free market.

    The free market needs maitainance, if it gets dominated by colluding huge companies that can kill competition (or just purchase it) then the term free market is just an advertising jingle.

  5. I can't understand why they even consider Windows. by Krapangor · · Score: 5, Insightful

    It's not about Linux or Windows being better or cheaper.
    The US has admitted that they spy their allies. So why using an US system ? That's a raving security problem. You never know how much backdoor-infested such a system might be. And even code audits won't help with a system with millions of lines of code. They won't never find any decent hidden backdoor.
    The Linux question is about security not about money. However nobody admits this because they don't want to piss off the US.

    --
    Owner of a Mensa membership card.
  6. Re:there is a good point in there by Black+Parrot · · Score: 5, Insightful


    > Choosing software JUST because it's open sourced is just as bad as choosing software just because it's closed.

    Perhaps "just because it's open sourced" is merely shorthand for "just because of several things that immediately follow from being open sourced", namely -

    • auditability (for spyware), and
    • maintainability (for when you need something the vendor doesn't care to offer, or when the vendor isn't quick enough to close a known exploit), and
    • not having to go down with the ship if the vendor enrons.
    Those sound like excellent reasons for choosing a product in the current business environment.

    --
    Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
  7. Doesn't ext3 still statically-allocate inodes? by emil · · Score: 4, Insightful

    XFS can create inodes on the fly if you run out.

    AFAIK, Reiser and XFS both have tremendous speed advantages over ext3 as well.

    I've only installed Red Hat 7.2 a couple of times, but it suffers from the same problem as SUSE-Reiser in that it places the file system driver in a module in the initrd.

    I much prefer the SGI install "shim" for Red Hat which has compiled XFS in the kernel. I like having a kernel that includes the filesystem support - putting it in a module is just a stupid idea. Any distribution should have its native file system compiled into the kernel, no questions asked.

    Red Hat's big reason for not adopting a JFS earlier was the lack of userland repair utilities. I think that they really shafted both the Linux community and SGI, who has released a great and much-needed product. With Red Hat's support, XFS might be in the Linus kernels by now.