More Linux Activity in German Government

__past__ writes "The decision of the bavarian capital city Munich to switch their desktop systems to Linux has caused a lot of discussion, and has been widely regarded as an important step for Linux on the desktop. And even if Microsoft tried hard to make their offerings more attractive since, including a special license contract that could save the public sector 'a lot of money' according to interior minister Otto Schily, it looks as if Munich was only the beginning."

"9 more cities in Rheinland-Pfalz, including the capital Mainz, are seriously considering to replace most, if not all of their Microsoft software with Linux after their current contracts expire in early 2004, noting that there are many other cities in a similar situation, and with similar plans.

Meanwhile, the police in Niedersachsen (german) is busy rolling out RedHat Linux on 11,620 desktops and 120 servers, running both standard Linux software and a custom information system called "Nivadis" based on WebLogic and Oracle running on Itanium servers, citing savings of about EUR 20 Mio compared with a Windows-based solution.

In a less desktop-related project, the state Mecklenburg-Vorpommern started a project with SuSE, IBM and others porting a mission-critical system called ProFiskal from Reliant Unix to Linux on zSeries, again citing cost as the primary reason, but also noting the benefits of using open standards for both software developers and users."

Comments

and SCO...

[Anonymous Coward]

Making a killing from "licencing fees" on all those illegal Linux boxes

Just my stab at SCO for the day.

More Communist Activity in German Government

[Anonymous Coward]

AC writes "The decision of the bavarian capital city Munich to switch their political systems to Communism has caused a lot of discussion, and has been widely regarded as an important step for Communism in Germany. And even if the Nazis tried hard to make their offerings more attractive since, including a special license contract killing that could save the public sector 'a lot of money' according to interior minister Bill Gatez, it looks as if Munich was only the beginning."

It's easy when you know how.

Savings?

[nacturation]

...citing savings of about EUR 20 Mio compared with a Windows-based solution.

Is that 20 M Euros or 20 Mibi-Euros? Either 20.000.000 EUR or 20.971.520 EUR. It's important to know these things.

Re:Metric and Imperial

[azzy]

That's not entirely true. Think for a moment what 'imperial' actually means. They are the system of measurements spread by the British Empire. Though the UK has moved over to using many metric units, we still use miles and pints, indeed with the level of drunk driving we use both at the same time. Also many here still use pounds (lbs) as a measurement and farenheit for temperature.

It would be speculation on my part, but I woldn't be too surprised if many other former members of the British Empire also use imperial measurements to this day.

Re:Metric and Imperial

[pnot]

> In the US, they are more commonly referred to as English units .

... which makes the whole mess even more hilarious, given the discrepancies even between U.S. and U.K. measurement. So, for example, an imperial pint (as used in England) is 568 ml, but an *English* pint (as used in the U.S. but, of course, never in England) is 454 ml.

Mind you, if you were in England and mentioned an "English pint", people would generally assume you meant an "Imperial pint" (568 ml), whereas if you wanted to refer to an "English pint" as defined above, you'd probably call it an "American pint".

Apoologies for using metric units in the above. A purist might have gone for the thoroughly intuitive original definition of the imperial pint, i.e. one-eighth of the volume of 10 lb of pure water at 62 degrees Fahrenheit. (And if you're going to ask whether that's a Troy, Avoirdupois or European pound, piss off.)

Bleaugh. I think I need a pint now.

Re:Microsoft can't win by cutting prices

[Bastian]

Unfortunately for Microsoft, security isn't exactly their strength

I dunno. .. the 8-bit XOR model used for the password encryption on Win95 was pretty impressive.

I still remember the day I decrypted the passwords on my computer in a few minutes using a pencil and paper. I thought to myself, "Damn, THAT's the company I want to trust with keeping MY important and often confidential business information safe!"

Domino Effect Proven! Munich Redeemed!

[puzzled]

A simple economic motion and the entire domino theory is proven, only the trouble starts in Western Europe this time instead of repeating itself in Eastern Europe.

One wise little action and the entire connotation of the word 'Munich' changed. I'm sure Chamberlain's descendants are breathing a collective sigh of relief.

If we continue marching backward through time what else do we see happening in Munich?

Germany was hundreds of principalities with no sense of nationalism until the fire of the French revolution followed by Napolean drove them to it. Perhaps we should all be seeing Darl McBride in a triangular hat feather and his hand tucked into his pants?

One has to look at Micrsoft's behavior in the same sort of manner as the German barons of the East Elbe during the beginning of the 19th century. Tax farmers, they are, treating the peasants as chattel. And the end of this whole mess is started by one rebel in the Baltic. Isn't the German/English meaning just delicious - those East Elbe tax farmers were known as "Junkers".

The parallels are there - history DOES repeat itself, although in this case instead of a GNU like recursion we're seeing a strange sort of historical palindrome metaphor.