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Rome Moving to Linux
fmstasi writes "La Repubblica, one of the main Italian newspapers, reports shortly about an interview (in Italian) with Mariella Gramaglia, Communication Councillor at the Municipality of Rome. They are planning to start soon trying Linux on the desktop: 'The first tests will concern e-mail, address book software and sharing systems', she says. The Councillor also says that motivations are political rather than economic: 'In the short term, the money saved on license will have to be spent on training'. It seems that there haven't been any reaction yet from Microsoft: 'At Microsoft they know how much we esteem them', she says; 'for example, they are sponsoring a campaign to spread the use of computers among the elderly. And we'll keep on cooperating with them on other projects'. Maybe Microsoft also appreciates that there is (yet) no project of migrating all the clients? The Municipality has about 9,500 clients, so an eventual migration project would be slightly smaller than the one taking place in Munich."
that some large organization moving to Linux on the desktop is not considered news anymore.
A horse will be appointed governer!
...
They are planning to start soon trying Linux on the desktop:
The subject would suggest that it has been chosen to switch to Linux, but as we can see they are just going to be 'trying it'. How many people have 'tried' switching and given up under pressure from Micro$oft?
print 'Hello world!';
http://compbrain.net
Don't expect to see this right away. After all, the Roman network wasn't built in a day.
(Sorry.)
tc>
Most Americans don't understand science, and they wouldn't like it if they did.
Hopefully we can shift London to where Rome was before and finally get some decent weather.
Avantslash - View Slashdot cleanly on your mobile phone.
Sounds more like they're trying to coerce Microsoft into giving them free training among other things. I'm not sold on their direction towards Linux based on the statements.
Rule #1 -- Politics always trumps technology.
I live in Rome, Georgia, and I have to say that everyone here is switching to Linux nonetheless. Well, not everyone, but my large list of friends. =)
It's a fact that things that piss us off, we do not like to continue to use. And well, you know how Italians are... Sorry Microsoft; better them use a different product than yours, than them holding a Godfather-shootout in your HQ in Redmond.
"Instant gratification takes too long." - Carrie Fisher
How long before the US government starts to notice how much foreign countries are saving with OSS?
The US government forgoing M$ would surely be the death knell of Micro$haft W1nbl0ws.
"Those of Microsoft know the esteem that we have for they"
"The Common one of Rome ahead slowly towards Linux"
Can you move from M$ to Linux and still kiss M$ ass in the same article??? For the first time I really noticed it in an article.
Evolution or ID?
Roman Gnome in Rome... right?
Are you Corn Fed?
Interesting notes such as "money saved on liscencing will have to be used on training. When will the linux desktop and desktops in general get to the point that they are so intuitive that training won't be requried? Judging by my own experience helping new computer users - not any time soon. While the interface may seem intuitive to you and me, to the complete computer newbie - it is still a challenging jungle.
"Science is about ego as much as it is about discovery and truth " - I said it, so sue me.
All roads lead to Linux!
Good to see they're giving up bad software for lent.
ThunderBird. Nuff said.
Veni, Vidi, Vici
Seems to me the City is playing the "we're trying out Linux" card in as a means to publicly complain about Microsoft.
At Microsoft they know how much we esteem them.
Riiiiight. They "esteem them" enough to tell the media they are trying something else.
This has been a tactic tried and true by other customers - it gets Redmond back to the bargaining table, to knock thier bid down a few euros, just as long as they send Tux away.
The problem with socialism is that they always run out of other people's money. - Margaret Thatcher
Why is Munich the frame of reference for Linux on the Desktop when the region of Extremadura (Spain) moved 80,000 desktops to Linux nearly 2 years before Munich even announced its intentions?
More time should be spent on understanding how they did it and why they have had such good results. The move has been an incredible success with copies of Linex (the debian-based distribution they created) being given away when you buy the newspaper.
And schools have transitioned to it. The key, I believe, was localization. They switch the name of openwriter to "Cervantes", the famous Spanish writer, author of Don Quijote. They did the same for all of the applications and streamlined the installation to a process that makes it dead easy for anybody to install it.
Finally, the government is subsidizing the use of linux in rural areas for first-time computer buyers by paying for a chuck of a linux-compatible computer.
So why isn't this being talked about is the greatest mistery to me. Linux is on thousands of government, school and private desktops today. And it works!
Pragmatism as an ideology is not particularly pragmatic in the long term. Keep it in mind when you dismiss Free Software
After reading the article, those involved are being quite realistic about this test. They are investigating changes for political reasons, but they also expect long term monetary savings.
From the article: (emphasis mine)
This is good for the viability of Linux on the desktop. Object studies of using Linux for desktop machines will highlight weaknesses that can be addressed.
the_crowbarHave you read the Moderator Guidelines
Rome didn't switch to Linux in a day, ya know!
FLR
The Italians I know use thise same tactic with women.
They tell the women they are with how much they love and adore them while they are working a deal with some other woman.
Evolution or ID?
...Roman guards, under orders from Lineius Torvalds, seized Billus Gates as he camped outside the city. Formal charges are yet to be announced, but already crowds of Linux zealots are picketting the courthouse with signs that read "Penguify Him!"
Largo, Florida (400), Munich, Germany (14,000); Extremadura, Spain (80,000); Thailand (up to one million subsidized PCs to low income people, with 160,000 already shipped) and Rome now. Do you see a trend here? Massive deployments are taking place, mostly in the public sector, I think Linux has a bright future as the main option for tax funded massive deployments.
now we'll have Roman Catholic Zealots join forces with the Linux Zealots?
...the Huns, Visigoths, and Vandals are running XP. It is said that some of these barbarians are running Windows For Workgroups, but that is just too horrible to believe.
Then we really could call non Linux users heretics.
I came. I saw. I Konqueror-ed.
Did anybody else find themselves reading the article like they were practicing for a role on the Soprano's?
I didn't do it on purpose, but halfway through the article I thought to myself "Self, why are we reading with this ridiculous accent?" Crazy, huh?
A prominent cardinal enters the Pope's chambers with good news and bad news.
The good news, he tells the Pontiff, is that the Vatican has received an email from God himself!
The bad news is that they've traced the IP address to an ISP in Salt Lake City, Utah.
You are in error. No-one is screaming. Thank you for your cooperation.
I have no idea what you are referring to. But Linex is very much alive. You can download it here.
http://www.linex.org
And the distribution is actually very decent. I have also seen it widely used in schools.
Pragmatism as an ideology is not particularly pragmatic in the long term. Keep it in mind when you dismiss Free Software
The real question is why you, who appear passionately interested in this topic, have not provided any links with relevant background information.
I'm mildly curious, but the merely curious are lazy. Certainly I'm not sufficiently interested to sift through all the press releases and mailing list posts to actually find more than the first couple of nuggets of digestible information.
If you already know something about the project, you are much better placed than I to do a little background research. Go for it!
Miguel de Icaza has some interesting comments on the Extremadura deployment.
In fact, the success of LinEx is being so great that it inspired other spanish communities, so that in Andalucia they've got Guadalinex. In Malaga, Andalucia, there was recently an Open Source World conference. There, about 5000 copies were distributed. Further 100.000 copies of Guadalinex will de distributed in 2004. Free software is alive and well in Spain, thank you :) We didn't get the press because Ballmer didn't visit us to offer 90% discounts.
My journal. Mainly about freedom.
Quintus: People should know when they are conquered.
Gatesius: Would you, Quintus? Would I?
<insert witty linux comment here>
I was hoping it was "Rome" meaning the seat of the Catholic faith. If the Vatican went Linux it'd be hard to call Linux users Commies.
So why isn't this being talked about is the greatest mistery to me. Linux is on thousands of government, school and private desktops today. And it works!
Because it not only had the interest of the nerds, it also had the interest of the clasic newsmedia. It was like a battle between Linux and Microsoft. Munich is also a larger and well known city. It holds the Octoberfest. If it were Madrid, then it would have been noticed. And sometimes newsstories just do not make it. The reason is that they were written or presented poorly.
Don't fight for your country, if your country does not fight for you.
Seems like you're training them that if, when an icon appears on the desktop, that rather than just getting on and dealing with it, if they react with confusion and mass hysteria, they get a day off from their regular job for cushy training.
Rich
I was going to make this same point... Linux isn't the be-all-and-end-all of operating systems. For a lot of people, Windows simply does the job better/faster. Is it really that hard to accept the idea that people still using Windows aren't being "pressured" in some way by Microsoft? Maybe they just like Windows better! Deal with it!
"Ask not what your country can do for you." --John F. Kennedy
...I'm all for more intuitive interfaces ;)
Kjella
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
Said Steve Ballmer, reeling from being penguined in the back.
What an instructive discussion! To see what the rest of the world (but mainly Americans, I suppose) thinks of us Italians is really amusing! Mafia, sopranos, the Pope, ancient Romans... Lol & lol. (Think also about pizza, icecreams, spaghetti, Venezia, mandolino and "That's amore!" please). Sociological instructive, yes. About Linux in Municipality of Rome... well I hope it's true, but you know... we are in Italy. Maybe the son of my son will see it. Ciao bella.
That might well be true, if they had actually tried using something else. It's always amazed me how people will just refuse to even consider anything else than MS Office/Windows/IE/Outlook. If a menu is a different colour, it's a showstopper.
Because they installed Debian, which is not commercial. Like it or not, software procurement goes in the "business" section of the newspaper, and that section is mainly information about the successes and failures of companies in doing business. Munich gets reported because it is a deal with IBM and SuSE, so we hear about how these companies are being successful in the sector. Extremadura isn't a big success for any corporate entity (as far as I can tell), nor a particularly big failure for MicroSoft; it's a great success story for the region, but that's only regional news.
I personally think that it's a much better example of adoption of OSS; Extremadura is actually using the freedoms that RMS goes on about to change the things they don't find right about the software, rather than treating the software as proprietary software sold on reasonable terms. But this won't be interesting to the newspapers until somebody in Madrid notices that Extremadura has better IT on a smaller budget.
... OpenOffice.org is adding mouse gestures.
No big deal: in Rome, they're used to this.
org.slashdot.post.SignatureNotFoundException: ewg
They switch the name of openwriter to "Cervantes", the famous Spanish writer, author of Don Quijote. They did the same for all of the applications and
I don't know about you, but I'd find it quite confusing if every application was named "Cervantes".
Because all the big distributions allow you to install LaTeX..
The Vatican using Linux and knowing there are Cardinals (wearing red skull caps) on staff to use it brings on a whole new meaning to "Red Hat Linux"
You may now groan.
Better to fall at the first hurdle than spend a fortune on getting over every other little problem and find the final hurdle is insurmountable. Exchange migration (including keeping all the existing emails, calendar entries etc) is distinctly Non-Trivial.
If they can find (or write their own) system which Just Works as an alternative to Exchange then not only will they find the path to migraton that much clearer, but if they release it migration will become a real possibility for many organisations which right now couldn't even consider it.
Let's look the reasons not to switch to Linux:
If you look at all these problems, you can sum them all up into a single problem:
Linux isn't very well established on the desktop yet
But with every migration, this problems becomes smaller. With every migration more software is ported. With every migration, more people gain Linux knowledge and mindshare. With every migration others can just "copy" them with much less risks.
One niche after another, Windows will go and Linux will come. The 3d-modelling world already has switched to Linux on the desktop. Now it seems that government desktops are next.
And as I already said: With every migration, reasons not to switch to Linux diminish, so the whole thing snowballs until Linux dominates the niche (and in the long run all computing).
So I expect that a few pioneers like Munich and maybe one or 2 other big cities go from WinNT4 to Linux. When Windows 2000 is discontinued (IIRC about 2006 or 2007) a lot more will migrate to Linux and will be able to do so much faster because you can easier avoid mistakes when it has been done before and of course because lots of software is already ported. Then after Windows XP is killed (2010?), I'd expect the majority of government desktops to run Linux.
Wouldn't it be easier to bring Linux to Rome?
Mike van Lammeren
It will challenge your head, your brain, and your mind.
Arividerci Microsoft...
All roads now lead to Linux??
Cyde Weys Musings - Scrutinizing the inscrutable
In 2004 AD, Rome shall be saved from the invasion of the Borg by another type of birds: PENGUINS!
I'm sorry, the number you have dialed is an imaginary number. Please rotate your phone 90 degrees and dial again.
Oh dear. Looks like it might be quite easy to 0wn the pope, then.
OTOH, the Vatican observatory use Suns. But then it's run by Jesuits, not directly by the Vatican.
I feel like we should have a giant map with battle lines on it, and maybe some little plastic penguins marching across it.
"Germany is freed", "we've captured rome"
anyone want to photoshop a map?