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Munich Struggling with Linux Transition?
rune2 writes "The Toronto Star has an article up that mentions that Steve Ballmer is gloating about how the Munich transition to Linux and Open Source software isn't going too well." Even if the transition is going poorly, what about when Munich is finally set? Funny how there's no mention of all the future costs of licenses they've already saved themselves from, yet there's a nice plug for the next version of Windows. Last time I checked, Windows' upgrades from one version to the next were not free by any definition.
They spend quite a while discussing the problems Windows has with security, including viruses... how is that a nice plug?
The article seems pretty balanced to me, although it does gloss over one or two points (Munich hadn't already 'made up their mind' when Microsoft made a cheaper offer).
Sounds like a good opportunity to look into why and exactly what isn't going too well, so it can be fixed.
For a city the size of munich its nice to see them trying to use linux on such a massive scale, but any kind of technological roll out is going to have unexpected cost. However,as more people do these roll outs, the costs will come down -- or rather be gauged more accurately. We should all be thanmkful that Munich is willing to ungergoing this projects, as it will help the rest of us understand linux deployment on a largetr scale. Also on a personal side note: this is really to be expected seeing how they are using SuSE. SuSE isnt a terrible distro, but since we can all thank suse for being rpm based (yes i know it can support yum and maybe deb).
They didn't say it was more expensive than Windows-- they said that it was more expensive than keeping what they had (i.e. having Windows and never upgrading/maintaining it) and more expensive than they anticipated. And I don't know if the Munich government works the same as city governments around here, but it seems to be traditional to severely lowball the costs of projects, just to get them rolling. Later, no one wants to kill a 'city improvement' plan, so everyone grudingly agrees to more funding.
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Crudely Drawn Games
..of those problems are because of they were using ms in the first place?
and how many of them would have existed when trying to move to a newer microsoft platform, and how many of them transition problems would have been significantly bigger if they had later decided to jump off the ms boat(after this round of upgrades and new lock in's from changing fileformats)?
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world was created 5 seconds before this post as it is.
They're no longer struggling with Windows, like 99% of the world's organisations.
And they'll be pissing themselves laughing next time a big virus hits.
That was classic intercourse!
So, let me get this straight.
A Toronoto newspaper says that Steve Balmer says that Munich is having trouble switching to Linux. Boy, that's great investigative journalism there.
Answer that one for me, Mr. Ballmer.
They aren't locked into your prescribed update path, at your prescribed price, with your prescribed software... If Microsoft says "like it or lump it," you have no choice, and no freedom.
Yes, linux can theoretically be "free" (as in beer), but everything has update and maintenance costs (even if only in manpower costs)... everything... including windows and linux.
Even if it costs a bit more up front... how much are they going to save in the long run? And how much is it worth to be free to choose another vendor? Another tech support company? Another code monkey to maintain their systems?
Even if a man chops off your hand with a sword, you still have two nice, sharp bones to stick in his eyes.
Well, duh. That's why Microsoft has a monopoly, right? Ballmer likes to bitch and whine about how it was a "political decision" and how such things are somehow dirty and rare, but he seems to have missed the fact that every decision is political. There's no such thing as a pure business decision.
No matter how many TCO studies you do, no matter how many reports are written by an IT dept doing an evaluation, the final decision is going to be made based on how comfortable somebody is with an idea. Going with Microsoft is safe, it's easy, because everybody else does it. That's a political decision. It's the old "nobody got fired for buying IBM" thing.
The problem with Ballmer is that he sees what he wants to see. Somehow he has to reconcile his beliefs (that Microsoft is better) with reality (people are chomping at the bit to leave them). He does this by saying:
There's another thing. Does anybody else have questions about the competency of the Munich guys to be doing such a migration? Why are they doing a crash switch, which is bound to end in tears? Why are there persistant rumours of them using VMware rather than bringing Wine up to speed on their products (which I'd guess works out cheaper in the long run and certainly provides a better desktop experience).
Finally, is it just me or does Ballmer look really evil in that photo?
Isn't it great how ALL of the quotes in this article are from Ballmer? Every single one? I mean, gee, they spend a whole half a paragraph on paraphrasing "news reports out of Germany", but then let Ballmer go on for paragraphs and paragraphs without any attempt to analyze what he is saying. Real balanced journalism, that.
How many readers of the Toronto Star, do you think, are going to just glance at that article, see a quote from [someone] saying "All of a sudden it's more expensive now to use the Linux solution than the Windows solution," (with respect, in the article, to... well, they don't say what that quote refers to or what its context was, just that he said it at an expo) after a few paragraphs of talking about unexpected cost increases in the Munich city government, and walk away with the interpretation "It has been more expensive for the Munich city government to use Linux than it would have been to use Windows."
It seems that the main problem in Munich is with the knowledgebase of the integrators. The equivalent of this problem would selecting the wrong Microsoft Partner to do your rollout.
I would imagine that as experience with Linux grows this problem will be easier to minimize.
Linux needs to offer more than just lower costs to successfully compete (I would probably point to the lower costs last - it's not like it's a good idea to run your systems on something just because it's cheap). So instead of taking how much they've saved and will save on future licenses it would probably be more beneficial to look at what the problems are and how they can be solved. Not least because similar problems are likely to arise in other organizations switching to Linux.
So to sum it up, they spend the same, but pay germans (so they get some money back), and educate the people. Not really a difficult choice.
The article talks about how they don't have the know-how to successfully complete the OS deployment, and you're suggesting that they actually dive into the code and fix OS problems themselves? Hahahah... seriously, I think you are missing the big picture here.
' The migration plan is more complex than simply replacing Windows with Linux, according to an outline provided by the Munich information department. Studies on open-source security, desktop ergonomics and the software components' stability and compatibility with other applications will be included in the process.
But according to Computerwoche and other reports, the city lacks the funds to invest in the planned testing and development of an open-source solution. IBM and Germany-based Linux distributor SuSE are expected to help offset the costs of the migration by supplying technical support and conducting some of the studies that the Munich city council has requested.
Reports in Computerwoche also stated that local vendors who currently code applications for the city were experiencing problems in developing applications for the open-source operating system, since they are more familiar with Windows than Linux.'
Yes it's more expensive to actually worry about security and design system that factors in security needs.
It would much cheaper in the short term to just toss the latest MS product on hundreds of machines and ignore security totally. Nobody need do a study, the answer is MS security is almost non existent.
And the last paragraph speaks volumes about relying on an MS monoculture. Noow those vendors are screwed and any venor who can provide an open source solution for Munich will get there contract.
Munich saved tons of money by using RAD tools like Delphi, Access, and VB in the past to build db apps they needed to function - rich client gui apps. Everyone does that. I bet they are running stuff from Delphi 2 and Paradox - 8 years old.
How are they going to rebuild that? Where's the money coming from? And don't say web apps, because it takes MUCH longer to write a db app originally made in Delphi (which is outstandingly fast) and build it in php / perl / jsp. And these web apps are not close to the ease of use of a Delphi or Access app. Linux and open source DESPERATELY need a RAD tool like Delphi with data-bound controls and grids (too bad borland gave up on Kylix, it seems). All other development in the open source world should take a back seat to this. Why not do it in Python - with TCL or PyQT?
I really doubt this migration will go through as planned.
Exactly.
The thing is, the first priority is the value that Linux is providing Munich. Security and stability are big points in Linux's favor. Customization should be another. If we can't offer compelling value, people will smile, nod, say "good for you guys, I'm rooting for you" -- and then plunk down money for the product that fits their needs.
We can't as a community wish away these transaction costs of switching. The whole point Ballmer is making when he highlights stories like these is that Open Source is NOT free.
You need expertise in-house, custom development to meet your needs, tech support, administration, management. All these things are expensive. If Linux is to win, it needs to prove that it isn't just hiding its costs.
I'd like to see the community really engage the guys in Munich to ascertain 1. what the problems have been 2. what we can do (new software, utilities, companies, services) to alleviate these transition pains.
That's what MS does with their customers. If we're to really challenge them, we need to be even more responsive and useful. We have the advantage, but that doesn't mean we're using it.
One thing that I don't see being noted here is that it's not just how much something costs, but who gets paid. If Munich uses Linux then a lot of the costs stay local, if they use MS then the business is exported. Even if MS uses locals a lot of the money goes to Redmond. With all the bitching about lost jobs we have to remember that other countries have the same problems and Linux is one solution. You can get the best minds around the world working for you, but still keep your business local.
It is telling that Ballmer is gloating over the difficulties of a transition to Linux instead of gloating over stomping the Linux community into the ground with better products and services. The fact is that they are having trouble BUT they are still transitioning.
Change is always costly, Linux transitions have all of the troubles that other software transitions have without the high cost of each liscence.
I agree completely with the proposition that we must strive to provide software support for Linux as the primary focus of our community efforts. The code is free, the support is where we have the opportunity to add value and create wealth.
Creative Spelling Copyright (2002). May use without Persimmons
The problem is that there are no great replacements for Active Directory and Exchange.
You call it proprietary lock-ins, I call it a damn good way to manage a few thousand users.
I've been on both sides here. I've done the OpenLDAP database of users, with OS X desktops an Samba fileservers, Sendmail / QPopper / IMAP mail setups for a few thousand users.
I've also done the Win2k3 servers with AD and Exchange, and WinXP desktops, again for a few thousand users.
The bottom line is that they both serve the same roles: user management, mail, fileserving.
The difference is that while it takes 20 seconds to add a user to Active Directory (complete with Exchange mailbox setup, login script assignment, etc), it takes fussing with LDIF files for OpenLDAP. Eventually we went to web applications to mimic the MS tools, but that again takes time and money. There simply aren't the tools available that make it worthwhile for busy administrators to fuss with OpenSource solutions.
It's difficult to get away from MS tech because MS makes it damn easy to run an enterprise of a few thousand employees. It may be that the IT staff just isn't used to linux (I suppose I benefit from the fact that I grew up on Sun and FreeBSD, which makes it really easy for me to pick up just about any of the common OSes around), but realistically speaking, there's a lot to be said for the enterprise tools that MS offers, even though they cost a lot of money.
I'm still waiting for an open source package that comes close to rivaling Exchange in functionality. I don't see that happening anytime in the near ( 3 years ) future.
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"User friendly" isn't the problem. Clicking on an icon is the same. There's just a bit of training so people will know which icon to click on and where it is.
The big problem is that there are lots of little apps that need to be ported. This is the same in any migration. Someone, somewhere throws together a database for some reason and it becomes "mission critical" to that department.
So, you have apps that you knew nothing about....
That need to be ported....
With 100% functionality....
Prior to your roll-out....
And it is probably badly written with no thought to managability or portability or even data integrity....
And THAT is what eats up your budget.