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UK Councils May Dump Windows For Linux
An anonymous reader writes "Local authorities in Newham and Nottingham are expected to migrate more than 10,000 desktop computers from Windows to GNU/Linux.
ZDNet has the story. "If this is seen to work in Newham, it has the potential to be a significant project, changing the perceptions of other councils," said Tim Dawes, director of local government technology consultants Nineveh."
The highly applauded switch of the city of Munich to Linux had an order volume of 30 millions of Euros over a couple of years. That's just about nothing in M$'s budget. (They have fighted so heavily for it just for it's symbolic and psychological value.)
What has happened to Linux zealotry on /. The actual article title clearly and totally ignores the fact these councils are only doing feasability studies, not actually switching.
/. header actually notes this fact that these councils may switch to Linux. What happed to the good old days when /. would report them as having already switched with lots of interesting anecdotes about how shit Windows is and how brilliant Linux is.
UK councils dump Windows for Linux
Most bizaarly then the
I just dont know what the world is coming to
Do not try to read the dupe, thats impossible. Instead, only try to realize the truth
What truth?
There is no dupe
I disagree. I have used Linux as my desktop since 1994 and when I set up my company I put it on everyone's destops too. I recently offered to switch to Macs but was resoundingly told that we should stick with Linux as they liked it. We have no trouble working with other companies, OpenOffice is fine for all our documents which are the vast majority of what we need an office suite for. We can share those with others as PDF as generally they should not be changing the content of our docs, and if we need to work with others OpenOffice is free so I give them a copy. And if totally unavoidable, we have Office2K under crossover on one machine but it is rarely used. Even if we were using Office2K primarily, docs sent out should be in PDF unless there is a specific reason. Word itself has trouble rendering docs correctly when done on another copy so PDF preserves the formatting better and should be used instead.
Well we are 3aIT have for the last four years been moving sites from Novell and Microsoft Servers to OPen Source Applications such as Linux, Samba, Exim, HylaFax etc . Weve moveed appx 500 seats so fa. Weve saved these companies an estimated 100k in license fees and support costs over the last 4 years. We are a 6 Man team , growing in numbers each year, and we have experience and case studies on moving people to Linux...
And thats why Firecrackers and kittens don't mix.
I was reading about the switch in Munich yesterday in a German publication (no link, it was paper) based in the City.
It was a political decision and as such, it carries the implicit rider: 'if this is feasable'. The IT department has started on the detailed planning for the switchover. If they decide that in is not possible or cannot be completed within budget - and this involves retraining costs - then large parts of the administration there will continue using M$ products.
Reading between the lines of that article, some participants were willing to go for it and some looked to be trying to torpedo the decision.
The City of Munich has more than one HW/SW platform at the moment, it looks very much as though this situation will continue, with linux and windows both being present.
The article also considered the figure of â30 Million to be ludicrous - the M$ final offer was less than 25% of that (that was self-defeating, it demonstrated their profit-margins) and SuSE's offer (allegedly â34 Million) was also much lower.
The city is also currently migrating to SAP (no idea what from) which is taking up a lot of time/money, they were considering hiring students from the local University to help with the work.
Mielipiteet omiani - Opinions personal, facts suspect.
First, yes the story says they are considering the switch, second, the header dosen't contain the word "may".
I wonder about pressure that local governments can apply externally on businesses. People resist moving from Windows and MS Office saying it will be too hard to convert to something else because file formats are a problem. Yet San Francisco can mandate that any company that deals with the city must have gay friendly policies in place across the entire corporation at the local, state and country levels.
Why can't this same pressure be used to ensure that documents sent to local governments must be readable by freely available packages like Openoffice.org or the companies can not continue doing government business? Make it a requirement and watch the barriers to free and opensource software drop. Then if a local government is having a financial crunch, let them convert older systems to linux/freebsd/whatever without worrying that common document formats can't be read. This way governments could cut computing costs and hire another teacher or policeman, heck maybe even fund youth baseball for a season ( not cheap).
Kindness is the language which the deaf can hear and the blind can see. - Mark Twain
I hope the consultants are working on these lines rather than just doing the "can we do everything we do not with a different technology".
The biggest problem is likely to be user retraining - and this is where educational policy needs to be looked at. Schools don't teach Gallimard French or General Motors physics. We expect school subjects to be vendor-neutral. Yet IT is often far from it. Hardware has to be made by somebody, but surely education software should be fully standards compliant and vendor neutral. Potentially, this should level the playing field for students, employers and vendors, and allow companies and local authorities planning long term strategy to make market-independent assessments of needs. I believe that UK local authorities share some responsibility for education with the central government. If so, that's an area of policy they might want to influence.
Panurge has posted for the last time. Thanks for the positive moderations.
I keep hearing this criticism of Open/StarOffice, that it does ok with Word docs but doesn't work with most of the other MS Office file formats. I got curious about this so I've been forwarding various Word docs, Excel spreadsheets, and PowerPoint presentations to my home email address from work just to test opening up files with OpenOffice. (If you're reading this, Boss, don't worry I delete everything right after the test!)
While there are some very minor little anomalies that I've noticed, I've been able to read and manipulate the data for every file that I've opened (and I've opened them all right from the email that they were attached to). So I'm wondering if my lack of problems is isolated to Red Hat 9.0 being my distro or if it's something else? Just last night, I opened up two PowerPoint presentations (the second even had sound transitional effects that played) with absolutely no problem. I don't mean to suggest that anyone reporting problems is spreading FUD; I'm just curious as to why I haven't experienced those problems.
--K.
Sig: Bad people happen. Try to avoid being one of them.
The story doesn't say that the final decisions have been made. A feasibility study is being mounted to replace Windows systems by the end of the year. Microsoft will be pulling out all the stops against this. A May 14th Slashdot discussion on the topic quotes Orlando Ayala, head of sales at Microsoft, as saying: "Under NO circumstances lose against Linux." They're going to practically give Windows away to avoid these setbacks. Even if they do prevail, though, the die is cast against Redmond.
I think that Microsoft has "jumped the shark."
Longhorn is two years away. Palladium-Next Generation Computing is alarming large segments of the IT community. Microsoft's latest licensing scheme antagonized its business customers. It is a convicted monopolist; its options against future challenges aren't what they were before that conviction and they face antitrust action in Europe and elsewhere. Viruses and worms spread by and through Windows IIS, Hotmail, Outlook, Outlook Express and Internet Explorer create weekly embarrassments in the face of Bill Gates's call for improved security. The strategy to impose a Microsoft-powered Digital Rights Management regime on users has been hurt badly by Apple's iTunes Music store. Economic conditions have slowed the adoption of Windows XP because new machines aren't being bought at rates anticipated before the technology industry nosedive. Millions of Windows 98, ME, and 2000 customers see no need (and have little incentive) to upgrade.
And now, the growth of Open Source has crippled Microsoft's ability to "embrace and extend" critical standards. The first big mistake in that battle is their recent announcement that there will be no more standalone versions of Internet Explorer. Open Source alternatives will be able to develop and implement improvements in browser technology at a much more nimble rate than will Microsoft while maintaining compatibility with current standards. New versions of IE that cripple functionality will drive customers toward alternatives rather than toward IE (and the requisite release of Windows that delivers it).
Microsoft's stated goal of "Windows on every desktop" is no longer practical. Steve Ballmer's recent memo to the troops admits as much. I've been in the computer industry for over twenty years now and I assure you that that is a HUGE victory, but the advantage has to be pressed now or Microsoft will catch up like it has caught up so many times before. Open Source has to continue its emphasis on better, faster, cheaper, safer, and more reliable.
But for now? Bravo!
Merrill Lynch research shows that deploying Linux internally that could save the company millions of dollars, an executive at the investment banker said.
During a presentation Friday at the Enterprise Linux Forum, Mark Snodgrass, vice president of Merrill Lynch's in-house technology provider, the Global Technology & Services group, said that the company has found that re-architecting its information infrastructure using Linux can reduce administration costs dramatically.
In fact, Snodgrass found that, while the software licensing costs of Windows was higher than Linux, the highest cost was in managing traditional Windows infrastructure.
"It's the people that cost the most," he said.
Merrill Lynch's new plans for its information infrastructure call for running much of its Linux applications not on their own physical machines but in virtual machines running on high-end servers. Such a scheme simplifies management and allows for rapid deployment of new Linux "servers" by activating a copy of a stored pre-configured image in as little as 2 minutes 14 seconds.
"We are not trying to promote Linux," Snodgrass said. "We are just trying to reduce the cost of ownership."
Using such virtual Linux servers to store files could cut costs dramatically, he said. Keeping their file systems on Windows servers would have cost the company $600,000 in hardware and five times that to pay for the personnel to manage the servers.
"We know that Linux is not for everything," he said. "But there are not many applications that require more than Linux can give us."
Snodgrass's group proposed replacing the company's Microsoft Exchange servers with a Linux-based solution that would have all the same collaboration features and have a cost savings of 70 percent to 80 percent. However, for other reasons that Snodgrass wouldn't discuss, the company's executives decided to stick with Exchange but outsource the management of the groupware to save money.
Not everyone agrees that Linux saves money, however. Last year, market researcher IDC released a report, heralded by Microsoft, that indicated that the five-year cost of ownership for four out of five applications would be lower if Microsoft software was used. The sole Linux winner was Web server software, according to the report. (and for the slashdotters/windows users hanging on this bit of hope, note that this study was decimated when it was examined and certain facts, like license renewals being omitted, the timeline favoring unrealistic (over 5 years for the same release) use of windows, no hardware upgrades for newer versions of windows, no accounting for the fact that linux/unix admins can run more systems per admin, no patching/crashing problems with windows, downtime costs, and more).
Snodgrass said he wasn't familiar with the study, but his own data indicated that running virtual Linux servers saves a lot of money compared with running those same services under Windows.
"We've done our numbers, and we are a bank, so we know our numbers," he said.
Other companies apparently have crunched the numbers and come to the same conclusion.
Telecommunications provider Verizon disclosed that it saved nearly $6 million in equipment costs by moving its programmers to Linux from proprietary-Unix and Windows workstations. In October 2001, Amazon.com revealed that it had replaced Web application servers running on a proprietary-Unix platform with Linux, saving millions of dollars.
Snodgrass said the next target for deploying Linux could be on the desktop. The company plans to do a pilot project that will allow thin clients--computers with minimal hardware requirements--to be used as workstations. The applications would actually run on Linux and Windows terminal servers. To the user, the result would be the same, but to the company's
Personally I can't evaluate ROI, it's not my job. But Linux and Windows isn't like comparing a hammer to a screw driver. They are one in the same. Multiple server platforms are hell to administrate. Frankly any company worth it's beans only goes with one server platform.
Going FreeBSD for the web box, Oracle and Linux for the application server, and Windows for the file servers, just isn't piratical. When you choose a system unless there is very unusual circumstances you only go with one platform.
Which that the particular platform must do it all. Personally I am a little partial to Windows Servers, they have made huge leaps and bounds. Domains makes administration a breeze, DFS is great for large companies managing websites (even if you are not using the Sharepoint extensions), and frankly it will always be easier to train the help desk people to do basic user administration on Windows any day of the week.
To me that would be like comparing a cordless drill versus a cordless screwdriver.
As a long term unix developer who tried a job where windows was mandated:
.NET, yes, cloning Java is a good idea if you can't bring yourself to actually use something not invented here. But people still have to deal with the utterly brain dead attitude of windows, and Windows.Forms is still the absolute worst GUI toolkit in use... You still end up having to use COM, and anyway, why the hell wouldn't you just use Java unless you are a complete MS donkey?
It is an absolute nightmare to do anything on Windows that isn't explicitly allowed by Microsoft.
Have you ever tried to debug some random piece of crap VB dll or vbscript ( two of the four current VB dialects... vb.net, vb6, vbs, vba )? Its a fuckload harder than a horrible shell or perl script. Python scripts are pretty hard to make truly horrible, so those are usually even easier to debug.
COM is really just a horrible hack to make people think there is a C++ abi on Windows. It is an absolute disgrace to actually use. This is the reason so much is done in VB on Windows. Microsoft have made C and C++ into a completely useless platform for doing anything quick. There are over 30 different types of string used in the MS apis... what does that tell you?
Every api seems to have from 9 to 35 arguments. Nobody knows what they are for... its a cut and paste job from MSDN, yet again... and then we get on to business processes.
People start off with a spreadsheet or a word document. They add macros to it. They expand it. They go fucking insane. The next thing you know you are expected to work out what a fucking idiot has created in the worst language known to man, VBA. There are so many random limitations in this crud that even the bog standard excel user hits them on his first macro, and starts making up crazy work arounds, each different than the other. Fuck you, Joel Spoelsky..... . I can't believe that guy is proud of his "Excel macro strategy".
And before you say
On unix, the first thing is that I have choice... I don't have to go with Apache, or Tux, or publicfile, or roxen, or zope, or roll my own with twisted , my current favorite trick. On windows, if you don't use IIS, you are likely to get screwed over at any point.
Now, be honest. You tried to use unix but you got scared. "Mummy, theres no drive letters! I'm lost!!!!! Waaaaaah!!!!". You didn't want to know what was going on. Windows protects you from knowing what the hell you are doing by restricting you to do only what their focus groups tell them. Have you ever actually worked out what was happening when something broke on Windows? Or did you just give up and abandon that functionality, and blame it on Microsoft? Microsoft, in their incompetence, provide a great scapegoat for Windows developers. If they had to use an Open Source system, this excuse would become fairly hollow...
Anyway, when you have a problem on Unix you don't ever reach some inscrutable, impenetrable barrier. You can look at what every component does, and if required, dive into the source and fix it. There are no artificial limits. The fact that anyone can look at the source means that people are less inclined to publish crappy code... And this effect increases with time.
To your "advantages":
DFS - please. This is a dodgy hack of SMB - it is not "distributed" in any real sense. OpenAFS is about as good as gets there, maybe Coda when it gets stable...
User administration: Huh? Can your helpdesk staff not learn a web front end to do this? Its not very hard to find one.... eg webmin, linuxconf. And this kind of thing is easy to customise - ie force your staff to put the required info..
and frankly it will always be easier
As soon as someone uses the word "frankly", it means "I'm going to say something completely unsupported and expect you to believe it."
Comparing windows to unix is like comparing a swiss pen knife to a fully equipped machine shop, with almost every tool available to you to use. Except you can fit it in your pocket....
Down in florida a couple of years, a city converted. Jefferson county, CO runs Linux on desktop. Apparently, they did it the intellegent way some time ago. They let the user decide, by giving them choice. runninng NT/2000 with the current MS office OR upgrading their hardware and using Linux of which these were about the same costs. I understand that first year the offer was taken up by a small percentage, but the next year quite a few ppl took it up as the MS ppl were getting starved on CPU cycles. Apparently, the top hardware was 586's with 64 and 128 M rams. Hard to get things done when MS keeps demanding more, but the group is not going too fork out the increase in hardware and support costs.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
Why is this a problem ?
They will be looking at a smooth transition, not a big bang, some people may continue with Windows boxes for a long time. These and those moved to Linux are still going to want to arrange meetings/... with each other. The trouble is that the MAPI protocol used in not known and there are no open source clients/servers.
We need to reverse engineer the current M$ MAPI protocols so that open source clients/servers can be written. The key to the success of this project is going to be seamless continuity of end user work while desktop and server machines are migrated one by one.
Does anyone know of tools other than ximian connector and bynari ?
OpenOffice does the .doc, .xls & .ppt well enough.
Evolution/kmail does the email well enough (smtp).
``Well enough'' means can interoperate in terms of protocol and file/wire formats.