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McDonald's Germany Moves to SuSE Linux
sglafata writes "Novell has made an announcement that McDonald's is moving towards Linux. 'With more than 30,000 restaurants around the globe and more than 1,200 in Germany alone, McDonald's is the undisputed market leader in the fast food sector.'"
That was my initial reaction as well. But think about it, McD needs to keep records just like any other firm. They need servers and desktops for making sure their business needs are met. After all, they are running a business here, not a roadside circus.
No, but if history holds true, this makes McDonalds a target for an SCO lawsuit. Both Chrysler and Autozone were former SCO UnixWare customers who switched to GNU/Linux.
-Jem
I can see Balmer having apoplexy as we type.
This will probobly be followed up by calls on unamericanism, anticapitalism and communism against McDonalds. The company will then be accused of supporting terrorism and having al-queda training camps set up in parking lots after hours. Bin Laden wears a purple hat, cell leaders a green hat. Rookies wear red hats and fedoras. HA! I made another funnie!
Seriously though I doubt that the tillers at McD will be logging transactions at a bash prompt anytime soon. From the sound of the article the company is using Linux on backend servers for important tasks, like just about every medium to large company in existence. But I'd still be willing to bet that they're using 2000/3 and ADT.
May the Maths Be with you!
"McDonald's Germany deploys SUSE LINUX Enterprise Server for DNS, FTP, and proxy services on the Internet."
I count three servers there, and "FTP" hardly strikes me as a core service for a fast-food company.
Services != servers
"I'd rather have a full bottle in front of me than a full frontal lobotomy"
Anyway sooner or later anything running SCO is doomed.
It's sort of like reading about how linux is helping the US Military to more efficiently make weapons/train people to carry out their highly questionable "activities" worldwide. Yay, McDonald's will be able to exploit workers, wreak havoc on the environment, and serve sub-standard more efficiently and to make more money doing it. Hooray. Freedom is freedom and open is open but I'm not exactly gleeful about this news.
This doesn't sound like just DNS, FTP and proxy services to me.
McDonalds has been using computers for a long, long time and Novell is business-savy enough to not let loose their customer's plans.
"SUSE LINUX Enterprise Server enables us to deliver a functional, flexible, efficient, and yet efficient infrastructure," says Trepl.
Apache as web server and JRun or Tomcat enable the implementation of static HTML contents as well as dynamic Java-based applications without having to resort to overly large solutions. The utilized Oracle9i database is certified for SUSE LINUX Enterprise Server.
According to Trepl, "Our current solution can be expanded at any time. This is possible due to the low price, the flexibility of a Linux solution, and the certification of SUSE LINUX Enterprise Server for solutions such as Oracle9i. Thus, there is no upper limit."
In the time honoured fashion of large companies, it is much more likely to go on directors' payouts, not improving the product
Due to lack of disk space this user has been discontinued
Replace that License agreement with a game demo cd and I would actualy BUY one...
" Is it just me or isn't this a bit of a coop for linux."
While stories like this are still interesting, I am not sure that it is really a coop anymore. In '96 I would have been forwarding this story to everyone I knew, but Linux is all grown up now. Hell, Linux runs some of the biggest computers in the world these days. Slobbering over stories like this is a lot like getting all excited when your 11 year old kid is able to dress himself when he has already been doing it for 9 years...
While it is good news for Novell and Suse, it should be expected that an extremely adept and profit driven company like McDonalds would see that Linux IS the full meal deal.
"I am a patient boy. I wait I wait I wait. My time is water down the drain..." Fugazi
Had anyone else noticed this? How did it get past PR?
Error 404 - Sig Not Found
Not exactly a great image for a high-tech customer reference.
I'd disagree. McDonalds was into computers and automation long before most Slashdotters were born. It's not just Burger King that imitates McDonalds.
The answer is simple: Unix-related jobs are on the increase. Go with the growing market, rather than the mature one where competition is likely to be higher, and pay + security therefore lower.
Funny how McDonalds is the epitomy of bad fattening food, environmentally unsound, and a nasty big corporation, but when they're switching to Linux they're OK.
Why do people keep buying their food anyway? I have to assume that people forget how bad it us until a nice shiny advert comes along and convinces them how good it is. Those nice soggy floppy burgers. Hmm.
Get your own free personal location tracker
Not that I disagree...quite the opposite...but, just keep in mind that while the evil resides from far right, he comes in squarely on the far left....if you get what I'm saying....take everything he says with just as much salt (no pun intended) as that of his 'enemy'.
Just stay balanced, that's all.
I'm all confused now...
MacDonald's is meant to be evil...
# cat
Damn, my RAM is full of llamas.
You'd think, but didn't SuSE get a restraining order or something on SCO last year? I'm wondering if McDonalds has been planning on moving to Linux globally for a while and didn't want to wait until SCO is toast before proceeding. A SCO hostile court system in Germany that has already ruled in SuSE's favour would make the country an ideal place to run the Linux trial while providing some protection from SCO. Very clever of McDonalds...
UNIX? They're not even circumcised! Savages!
Call it "eatodromes" instead.
Restaurant: A place where meals are served to the public.
Pray tell, how does McD not fit that definition? Is the food crappy? yes it is. But it's still a restaurant.
Lesbian Nazi Hookers Abducted by UFOs and Forced Into Weight Loss Programs - -all next week on Town Talk.
Probably went along for the ride with "enable the implementation of static HTML contents as well as dynamic Java-based applications".
Possibly translation error. Possibly they're excited but don't want to give too much away as to what their plans are.
I think linux jobs are fewer because Linux admins, if doing things reasonably well, have less work to do for the same number of machines.
My experience is that MS based installations require regular and repeditive attention. Linux however will generally sit there un-attended, without any need for any kind of attention for years.
Windows: "The application encountered a problem and has to close. We apologise for the incovenience."
Linux : "happy meal: Aieee, transceiver MIF write bolixed"
Now come on, admit it. You'd use windows more if it gave out error messages like that. Even a simple "Ooops. We fucked up that last write operation rather badly. Sorry". Phrases like that just seem to convey a bit more feeling and sincerity than the dry corporate psuedo-regret that windows serves out.
You are in a twisty maze of processor lines, all alike.
There is a lot of hype here.
Linux deployments on the server stopped being news years ago. If we see some movement on enterprise desktops, that'd be worthy of the /. frontpage.
In the spirit of the parent,
;-)
Operating System: Software designed to control the hardware of a specific data-processing system in order to allow users and application programs to make use of it.
So, MS Dos IS an operating system. Is it crappy? yes it is. But it's still an operating system.
OMG JOE BLOW SWITCHED TO LINUX MAKE A POST ON SLASHDOT
How come no stories about companies switching to Mac OSX or even the dreaded Windows?
I wonder how quick this post will get a -1
So he ordered a hamburger with full knowledge of his beef allergy? Sure, he did... Anyway, As McD's always points out, with the low prices at which they buy beef, anything else would be more expensive. Think about it - how much would it cost to ship roadkill kangaroos from australia?
-----
Sorry, I'm only a 1336 h4x0r.
Erm, the article doesnt say that McD's in Germany is not swtiching to unix. Considering they are a SCO customer, thatey have been using unix for a while now, and may already be using it in backend systems. The article states that they are moving to Linux in some areas, i think the causalty is not MS, but other Unix systems....
so a win for Linuzx at the expense of other UNIX.
Have a nice day!
Of course nothing would have happened to him.. he ordered a HAMburger, not a BEEFburger.
However, there is very little evidence that McDonnalds burgers contain any soft meat at all, so after all, your story could be accurate.
often the companies they work for make politically-oriented tech decisions over what is practical and economical.
Allow me to wholeheartedly concur. I have been working for a Fortune 500 for the past few years, during which time we've been one of the fastest growing in the 500. Over that three years I have seen our tech decisions become dramatically more political, and have seen an accompanying shift from MS supported and all other OSs tolerated to MS is the only approved OS (client side - we use Linux or Solaris on many of the servers). The decision has been made for entirely non-technical reasons.
Amusingly, I've simultaneously watched steady growth in the number of Linux client stations, and the two highest execs in the IT Software chain recently bought Mac laptops.
McD's could give a rat's rump about the SCO case as such, but their IT department has to see The Writing on The Wall: that the vendor for the back-end software in their thousands of franchises is crashing. There's already an injunction in place in Germany against SCO making claims against Linux, and using SuSE gives it a 'local vendor' bonus there, so it's an easy choice for a proving ground.
If this works, with the Novell deal now giving them a US support base, they have a potential migration path out of a failing vendor. Whether they wait for SCO to crater or just move ahead and dare SCO to bring suit on their largest customer remains to be seen.
That seems a bit suspicious to me... they're comparing the "Caesar salad with Chicken Premiere" (which I've never eaten, but it sounds like its probably got a lot of stuff on it), to the standard cheesburger, which we all know is tiny. While I'd naturally question the healthiness of anything McDonalds puts on their menu, this sounds like some reporter digging for a story thats not really there.