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

Metric and Imperial

[AnimeFreak]

It would be funny if the rest of world used Linux while the United States uses Windows. It would be just like the current state of measurement in this world, where the United States uses imperial and the rest of the world uses metric.

Microsoft can't win by cutting prices

[silentbozo]

The more they cut prices in order to stave off linux, the more evident it is how overpriced their list prices are. Instead of trying to compete on price, they should be trying to compete on features such as easy management, and security...

Unfortunately for Microsoft, security isn't exactly their strength, and neither is easy management now that Linux has matured so much.

Software Patents

[Elektroschock]

And thanks to Munich FFII Germany has the strongest anti-swpat movement...

In Munich they demontrated together with a social democrat politician Lochner-Fischer (Member of Bavarian House of representatives) that capaigned for Linux! See this picture with her election campaign banners.

Also European MEP Wolfgang Kreissl-Dorfler hold a speech at FFII demo munich.

German Wiki page about Munich demo

Note: As a Northern German I don't like Bavarian culture, but Munich is special, less ultra-conservative than the rest of Bavaria. As an European I am proud of the leading role of Europe in the current silent Open Source revolution.

MS: Our software dies. Linux: Have it your way!

[Futurepower(R)]

Microsoft has adopted an extremely powerful public relations method, but it is a self-destructive one: Microsoft has declared that its software dies, regardless of how many users it has.

Linux, in contrast, offers software that lives forever, if an organization wants to support it. This makes a big difference to large organizations. There are many, many situations where a 350 MHz Pentium I computer running some data entry system is just fine, especially when it has been completely debugged and is giving no trouble.

When Microsoft enforces software death, those organizations must disturb something that is working well. As you can imagine, they are extremely reluctant to do so. The issue is often not money. The issue is often management capability. There is plenty of work to do without disturbing something that is working well.

From the IT World article:

"The cost of licensing Microsoft products and the lack of support for some of them, such as the NT operating system, which is still used widely in many city administrations, are among the chief reasons for the nine German cities to mull a switch from the U.S. software giant to providers of open-source products, he said." [My emphasis, of course.]

Not only do Microsoft's products regularly die, but Microsoft has a schedule of assisted suicide: Windows Desktop Product Life Cycle Support and Availability Policies for Businesses. Bill Gates has become the Dr. Jack Kevorkian of software. Mr. Gates has, for example, decreed the death of Windows 98, which is used by at least 50,000,000 people throughout the world.

Re:Will..

[Jeremiah Cornelius]

Buy a Toshiba, Sony, IBM or other major Laptop without buying Windows. Even if you can, you will expend an extraordinary effort to do so.

That my friend, is the effect of coercion - if not directly on you as the user, then certainly as a consequence of coercive pressure on the manufacturer/OEM/vendor.

But, your handle marks you 9/10ths troll already.

Energize the Local IT Industry

[TrueJim]

I think one oft-unspoken reason overseas governments contemplate wholesale adoption of open source solutions is that doing so creates a lot of high-end local IT jobs (e.g., software development and support). This offers the prospect of creating more in-country "silicon valleys" and the possibility of local "dot.boom" economies.

Open source may have the advantage of better access to legacy civil documents and lower TCO, but the real motivation of politicians is getting re-elected, and job creation is always a good way to do that.