Slashdot Mirror
Munich Votes for Linux Migration Plan
JoScherl writes "The German news site Heise reports (German, Babelfish version) that the city council of Munich (3rd biggest city in Germany, 1.3 million inhabitants) has voted for the detailed concept of the LiMux - Linux for Munich (German, Babelfish version) project with votes from all parties except the CSU (Christlich Soziale Union, christion social union). With this decision the 13,000 Desktops and Servers of the city administration will be migrated to Linux. CSU, which has just won the European elections, said they won't support Linux since its Feierabendprogrammierer ('leisure-time coders') would destroy Munich's IT-landscape (Microsoft Germany and other big companies are located in and around Munich) and they also fear that the personnel would have problems with learning how to use OpenOffice and other migrated systems. The migration plan has the following steps: This year the Windows NT desktops get OpenOffice and Mozilla as their default office and browsing suite. In 2005 and 2006 the systems will be migrated to Linux, with some applications running on Windows application servers. In 2008 all applications should run native on Linux."
babelfish's tranlation sucks
/c't)
google seems to do a better tranlation
Resident of Munich town councillor segnet concept for Linux migration off
30 million euro the expensive project LiMux can start: The town councillor Muenchen adopted the stage plan on today's Wednesday for the conversion of the entire computer landscape for those approximately 16,000 coworkers of the city administration officially. For the Linux migration tuned the red-green coalition governing in the city hall together with representatives of FDP, OEDP and the Party of Democratic Socialism. Alone the CSU governing in Bavaria votierte against the introduction of the penguin into the offices. Conservative politicians expressed doubts that the "end of workday programmers" would destroy the IT economy of Munich from the open SOURCE corner. They were afraid also risks for the persons employed, who must learn now above all handling a new text processing. Announcement
With LiMux the migration of approximately 13,000 Desktop computers and the pertinent servers lines up. First the project responsible persons in the city hall want to select concrete open SOURCE products in the framework of bidding procedures. IBM and the Novell daughter Suse are not only to come to the course, even if the original LiMux Design of the two sizes comes in the Linux market. One of the main goals of the migration is it however to create jobs directly in the residents of Munich IT economy and to receive a competitive market. "we must now watch out that we some monopolist loose will want by we the next global giant to use up", explained themselves the green town councillor Jens Muehlhaus already first under allusion on Microsoft and Big Blue. It wants to bring the small and medium-size IT companies into and around Munich particularly with the necessary specialized technical and special solutions in the play. Opposite heise on-line regretted Muehlhaus the decision of the CSU, which did not understand yet that at free software money is made main with services.
In detail the migration is to take place in three steps: First in this year all computers in the administration, which run so far still on Windows NT, are equipped with open Office and Mozilla as Browser. "first the transformation lines up to that approximately 7000 Office macros for forms such as vacation requests or travel expenses accounts, which can be finally centralized thereby ", are pleased Muehlhaus. 2005 and 2006 go it then to the migration of all office PCS to the new operating system Linux, which is to finally work completely with free software. Until 2008 then the difficult adjustment of specialized's applications lines up, for which according to Muehlhaus creativity and a good co-operation between the administration and open SOURCE developers are necessary. The know-how developed thereby might be internationally in demand however and "also exported themselves and sell to let", is safe itself of Muehlhaus.
The migration motivation is not only to be reported for this reason with the coworkers concerned in the meantime again risen, white the green town councillor. In January from individual city hall departments warning voices had to be heard that the problems with the conversion could grow the residents of Munich over the head. "in the meantime we have the full support for LiMux", get straight Muehlhaus. All involved ones would regard the project as feasible and meaningfully. The timetable for the Green has a who courage drop still: The residents of Munich schools are to be reequipped only in two years on Linux, so that the training grow up up to then still with the Windows world. Microsoft offers very cheap licenses for the education sector "on". There it falls heavily, which political will for rapid migration to bundle ( Stefan Krempl )/( jk
...of those bargaining things where they are just trying to get a better deal from Microsoft?
Although, I think they'd be better off instead of "babying" the employees so to speak and taking such a long time to migrate. Just do it, give them courses, maybe an hour a day for a couple months. Four years seems like a long time just to convert to something extremely simple.
$30m divided by 13,000 machines = $2300/machine? Is this the reasonable cost companies should budget for to migration from Windows to Linux?
Rock that crushes, Paper & Scissors that don't matter.
Ok Linux is a good OS, but they're about to have to retrain approx 16,000 workers, many of whom never heard of Linux and some are total creampuffs in computers. They will be retraining to a platform the users may not like as well. The long run costs will probably be worth it as upgrades are free. However the short term costs of re-training I shudder to think about. At 16,000 workers they need a whole university's capacity of retraining. In fact any Linux guru looking for a job? Munich sounds like a good bet...
...in bed
Is IBM going to donate the services (as in lots of IT help for free, again) of a large crew of techs to assist in the transition like they did for the earlier part?
I hope those in charge of this migration is honest in reporting how the migration goes. I wouldn't expect the migration to go without some hitches somewhere and I hope it is reported what the glitches are. Of course, expect MS to jump all over the problems and say "I told you so!" but overall I hope Munich becomes the standard bearer for a mass migration to Linux.
Basically they should come out and say hey here is how things went, here are the problems and here is how to avoid them. The moral of the story hopefully will be that any large entity can migrate to Linux and get away from the MS lock-in.
No trees were harmed in the composition of this; however, numerous electrons were inconvenienced.
Linux fans had better hope that this goes well because if it doesn't you can guarantee that Microsoft will be hopping up and down screaming "I told you so".....or "Ich tolden youze sozen" (in German)
Where people complain about losing jobs to foreigners, but cheer when an American company loses a contract. Way to guys - brilliant strategy.
"The German news site Heise reports (German, Babelfish version) that the city council of Munich (3rd biggest city in Germany, 1.3 million inhabitants) has voted for the detailed concept of the LiMux - Linux for Munich (German, Babelfish version) project with votes from all parties except the CSU (Christlich Soziale Union, christion social union)."
Trying not to sound to troll-ish, but why was the Christian group the only group to say nay to this? Do unto others as you would have them do unto you, correct? Are they saying they support being locked into an operating system and helping a monopoly? I'd think they would be jumping for this...And hell, the philosiphy behind linux is one of sharing and helping your fellows!
Just a thought...
The Yasashii Syndicate ||
In other news, the CSU passed a law preventing youth groups from spending their leisure time collecting trash in order to prevent huge damage to munich's Trash Collection-landscape.
OTOH, does the fact that christians socialists are against OSS mean that we might see a crusade against OSS users. Is it time to prepare our attics?
"She's a scientist and a lesbian. She's not going to let it slide." Orphan Black
I'd say a little bit of that goes to the labour cost of upgrading all those machines, and the rest goes to the retraining of staff. Two weeks of professional training could easily cost $2000.
Vino, gyno, and techno -Bruce Sterling
Did it occur to you that a lot of us slashdotters are foreigners?
We are bound to get a score of people telling us how staying with windows is easier and how it is the past of least resistance. They also said this about the server a few years ago, although they are quieter on that front now.
What they do not understand is that this was a strategic and long-term move for the city of Munich. When you are creating infrastructure, you care about long-term benefits. In my eyes, the city of Munich is making a serious investment to create a future they can control. No doubt, this is a political move, but it is one that highsight will reveal as path-breaking, as in, breaking the path-dependence of Windows.
Finally, I have moved a bunch of small non-profits to Linux, and all these alleged retraining costs are not there, even for the computer challenged. Real computer novices can get to work after an hourly week of training. Those that have used a computer before can do so almost immediately, with the occasional question posted on the site's intranet and quickly answered by yours truly.
Come on, guys, if we are to bring on the Linux desktop, we need to dispell the myth that it is hard to use. Suse 9.1 or Mandrake 10 are a freaking joy to use.
Pragmatism as an ideology is not particularly pragmatic in the long term. Keep it in mind when you dismiss Free Software
So, is LiMux going to be a new distro, or are they going to be buying one from a certain vendor? The translation was a *tad* too horrible for me to figure out. It would be cool if they made a new distro, but I think the best goal would be to take a commercial one and just make it fit. Maybe take SuSe, strip out the unnecessary stuff, change the desktop and that's really all they would need. Of course, they have extra apps that they need to install. Well, I'm sure they have much more of a clue about what they need to do than I do. Good Luck Munich!
Hurricane Ivan: A 17th century prison collapsed. All of the inmates escaped.
There are plenty of grass-roots non-profit christian groups using free open source stuff. The CSU are not the best example of christianity.
You make the mistake of thinking you can educate the fundamental stupidity out of people. You can't.
This is going to be interesting to follow. The biggest problem will probably be the users that Do Not Want Change. There's always some of these, and they'll raise a stink about it. Hopefully, things will go mostly smoothly such that not to many No Opinion Either Way-people are swayed by their bickering.
I hope that IBM/Novell/SuSe provide some easy and well documented way (should be in the training "If you have a problem, don't mumble, speak up and we'll fix it!") for the users to send in bug reports. That and some developers/funds dedicated to fixing those precise problems could dramatically improve OpenOffice.org and the other applications they're switching to. That way, the users will see "Hey, we can actally influence this!" and the software projects will move forward, regardless of how the switch project ultimately ends.
Belief is the currency of delusion.
This is good to hear, I think. They're going slow so users get used to the new stuff (not that word processing on OpenOffice or browsing on Mozilla is all that different from MS stuff), and will eventually do a complete OSS converstion (yeah, I guess I just restated the article...). What does sound interesting is the part about specialty software, and how that will probably end up as open source. I'm curious as to what will come out of that.
CSU, which has just won the European elections[...]
sorry, but that's wrong. the party-system in germany is transparent and clear, except for the cdu (christian democratic union) / csu issue. the cdu is a big german party and the csu is a pure bavarian party. and in bavaria there is no cdu. but when it comes to nationwide elections these two parties run as one. they have different programms and different campaigns, but you can only vote for cdu/csu.
it is a major flaw in germany's democratic system bacause one can't elect one party without electing the other. the reason for this (there maybe are historical reasons, but that's no excuse): both parties are very conservative, but bavaria is an ultraconservative state (the csu gets always around 50-60% in bavaria) and so there is an ultraconservative christian union especially for them and no one else.
btw, i don't even understand why there are religious parties in a democracy.
beer as in "free beer"
but 'sag' is present form; something like: "Ich hab es dir gesagt!"
Moving to OO and Mozilla on Windows is a great idea all by itself. Kudos to the planners for coming up with a sane, gradual plan for transition. Hmm. Large Christian organizations siding unswervingly with big-business. I guess there are definate political consistencies on both sides of the Atlantic....
The heat from below can burn your eyes out
votes from all parties except the CSU - Chicken Shit Union
Anyone seen my jagged little pill?
This is true about public infrastructure. If a city tore out and repoured its sidewalks every three years, the citizens would be up in arms about such a waste of money. But with computering infrastructure, this is just accepted. Even projects funded by entities such as the WPA, which were intended to generate employment, were built to last. Many of the sidewalks in my town still have the letters WPA cast into the concrete. In fact, the Munich Linux installation may become one of those seemingly permanent pieces of public infrastructure that future generations will marvel at for its solid construction and longevity.
Great Accomplishments in Civil Engineering:
1. Hoover Dam
2. Roman Aqueducts
3. Brooklyn Bridge
4. Munich Linux installation
Unknown host pong.
If you'd been reading lwn.net you would have already noticed their link to a Bloomberg article, written in english, which covers this.
From the post, it's hard to tell...
With this decision the 13,000 Desktops and Servers of the city administration will be migrated to Linux.
and then
CSU, which has just won the European elections, said they won't support Linux
So, which is it? Can someone who knows the political landscape explain? Much appreciated.
"they also fear that the personnel would have problems with learning how to use OpenOffice"
Considering StarOffice is originally from Germany, while MS Office is not, this is rather.....strange!
It worships Linux, go away you Apple shill.
That which is done from love exists beyond good and evil
There are always little apps that you didn't know about and no one else has heard of, except for the one guy in Accounting who absolutely needs it to run payroll every month.
Sure it's okay if you migrate it. But it has to work exactly as the current one does. Same input, same output, same format.
And it's a mess of spaghetti code from 20 years and 50 programmers. All undocumented.
And he needs a specific boot disk to make it work.
Moving 95% of the apps for 95% of the people is easy.
It's those one-of-a-kind yet mission-critical apps that take so long and cost so much that your project over runs on cost and time.
I just spent 2 whole days moving ONE user's workstation from NT to Win2K and it was practically perfect...... except ONE thing she prints doesn't print the same way now.
And THAT is the thing that will be remembered.
Oh the wit in that statement!
Not highsight, but hindsight....
And I meant after a week where each person devotes an hour in their day to training. There are a few other things I'd have phrased differnently, but most of it should be clear.
Pragmatism as an ideology is not particularly pragmatic in the long term. Keep it in mind when you dismiss Free Software
Ain't that a slap on your face, Mr. Gates? With hardware becoming amazingly cheaper, who wants a costly software? Free all the way.
It sounds as if they're going from a Wintel fat-client/server architecture to a Lintel fat-client/server architecture. Whether or not you agree with me that this is a dubious decision, consider that deploying a true multiuser operating system in effectively single-user mode is a lot like deploying chainsaws to a bunch of chimpanzees.
In my experience *nix's strengths become apparent when you use it as it was meant to be used: a lot of terminals plus maybe a few high-powered standalone workstations. For many standalone machines it's no less of a headache than Windows and in some ways more of one.
I know, I know, thin-clients never took off, yadda-yadda. But I maintain that the biggest part of why they haven't is that deploying Office this way is prohibitively expensive. If you're moving to OO.o, it starts to look a lot better.
(One nice thing about a Linux thin-client setup is that legacy Windows machines can act as terminals with Cygwin/X, allowing Windows and Linux apps as to be deployed in parallel.)
Google confirms: Ruby is the world's most beloved programm
Politically active Christians in the USA would find the CDU/CSU's positions on many issues abhorrent; the Christian label is just an historical anachronism from what I could tell during my two years in Germany.
Actually, they take the C for Christian rather seriously. And there are quite a few overlaps between CDU/CSU and the Republican party.
Gerhardt Schroeder, the current Chancellor, is from the major "liberal" opposition party- I forget the name now.
SPD.
For what it is worth, West Germany only had one Chancellor in the postwar era from the opposition party. All the rest were CDU/CSU until the "wiedervereinigung".
There never was an "opposition chancellor", the opposition by definition does not provide the chancellor. And if you mean opposition = SPD: there were two SPD chancellors, Brandt and Schmidt. Combined they ruled for 13 years, that's not so bad. Add another three years when the SPD shared administration responsibilities with the CDU in the fundamentally flawed "big coalition" 1966 - 1969.
And there is peace
And there is love
And there is OS X
The difficulty part in using linux is not using the software to accomplish tasks, but getting it set up properly. The reason windows seems easier is because computers come preloaded with it. Now when a change like this occurs, the secretaries aren't installing linux, the experts are. Once you set up a good system, it will be easy to use. The benefit of linux is that you don't have to babysit it when it spits up every morning.
After all, they just have to download Debian stable, format all their PC's, install Linux and it will all be free wont it?
You missed the most important fact -- computers (hardware and software) age exponentially faster than the physical counterparts you compare them to. Sidewalks are always useful, so long as they're in good repair. Sure, you may occasionally need to widen a walk to handle more human bandwidth, but in general you could pour some concrete for sidewalks and then leave it alone for decades (but for a periodic cleaning and weeding), and never have a problem.
Try doing the same thing with computers. Go ahead, get some ancient computing hardware from the 70s, 80s, or even early 90s. Install the ancient software. Now try to use that effectively in a technologically-advancing world. Oops! You can't! At least, not as user desktops and such, if you want to keep productive and happy users.
Now let's flip it around. What you're suggesting already exists. How often did you hear about banks and financial institutions using 20-30+ year old software because it still worked during the lead up and fizzle of the whole Y2K crap? And what did those institutions do when a serious threat came around? They started hiring people to fix the current software (patch the sidewalk). Very few chose to upgrade their systems instead (rip up the sidewalk and repave).
This is one time where it would have been a good idea to not RTFA.
Anthropic principle: We see the universe the way it is because if it were different we would not be here to see it.
Slashdot's US-centricism is showing...
The WORLD is US-centric.
But not correct in this context. Ich hab es dir gesagt is better. Or to make sound more realistic: Ich hab's dir ja gleich gesagt. If a group (=Microsoft) is supposed to be behind it: Wir haben's euch ja gleich gesagt.
Switching from Office 97 (what everybody really uses) to Office 200x is as traumatic as switching to OpenOffice. As Microsoft points out, OpenOffice is comparable to Office 97. And Office 97 is about as good as Office ever got. Beyond that, it's tons of features you don't need, and integration with stuff you don't want to integrate with.
Die Gedanken sind frei... :-)
"CSU, which has just won the European elections, said they won't support Linux since its Feierabendprogrammierer ('leisure-time coders') would destroy Munich's IT-landscape (Microsoft Germany and other big companies are located in and around Munich) and they also fear that the personnel would have problems with learning how to use OpenOffice and other migrated systems."
Sounds a little too much like "direct from Redmond" FUD doesn't it? Let's hope these Microsoft shills don't have the power to sabotage the whole thing. We can expect Microsoft to try to buy politicians in Germany just like they have in the US. At any rate I would suggest that the government of Munich be prepared for Microsoft's interference.
The race isn't always to the swift... but that's the way to bet!
I will take you up on that bet. I will even tell you that none of those four applications: e-mail, browsing, word processing, and spreadsheets are enough to place a computer on a municipal employee's desk. The government killer app varies by department. But each department most likely has a client server application related to providing city services: Water billing, tax collection, property records, etc. None of these would need the above mentioned 4 apps.
The overall IT scenario is a mix of Telnet/Terminal emulation, Windows desktop apps (VB/VC++/FoxPro/Office VBA), Intranet applications, DOS (yea really!) apps, and maybe even some desktop java. Can you migrate most of these to _Insert OS Distribution Here_? Sure, Why not. That is your decision. However, some groups are going to have a specific piece of commercial software that just will not convert easily or work with VMWare, WINE, or your emulator of choice.
Have you Meta Moderated t
"social" in Christian Social union is like
The social in social security referring to
society.
Spoken like a person who has never used Word for anything except writing a college paper. I prefer Open Office to MS Office, and I think that there are plent of problems for MS Office. But saying Office 97 is better than the more recent versions is delusional at best.
Come on, guys, if we are to bring on the Linux desktop, we need to dispell the myth that it [Linux] is hard to use.
Not entirely myth.
You are entirely correct in that much of what normal users need and want to do is in fact quite easy with Linux, often easier than with Microsoft.
The thing is that the optimum level of use with Linux is substantially higher than that of Microsoft, like comparing vi with pico. Linux is harder in that it's worthwhile learning to do stuff that isn't worthwhile learning with Microsoft.
With Microsoft Word I tell my users to just slop something in. It will come out looking halfway presentable. Do not, ever, care much about how it looks. If you care about what it looks like you are fighting something bigger than you are and it will have its own way.
With Linux and Open/Star Office I would expect better, meaning that there's stuff that's worth learning.
As recently announced on Computer Business Review Novell is planning on releasing this summer the first desktop product since they bought Ximian and Suse. Waiting for this OS, that will combine several key client/server pieces (eg Evolution/Exchange), will be of great benefit to Munich. It will also be of great benefit to the rest of the world since Munich will be a great testing ground :-) (all software is in constant beta). Since Novell is positioning this as a 'Business Desktop' I expect that it will have excellent integration with Windows, Exchange, NetWare, and GroupWise servers. Certainly something to wait for when converting an entire infrastructure. Since Novell/Suse were involved in the pitch to the city of Munich I expect that the migration strategy, and the decision to migrate, were based heavily on the future plans that Novell/Suse/Ximian have for bringing OSS to the business world. Note the mention of 'contribution to OpenOffice.org' in the above article. BTW, anyone know what email server the city currently uses? Or anything other details about their network (file servers, print servers, application servers, etc.)?
This is often the kicker. To take a trivial example, consider my wife's computer, which I'd like to migrate to Linux for a whole raft of reasons (the biggest being that it requires more administration effort than the other four computers in my house, which all run Linux). But I can't migrate her easily, because of Quicken, PrintMaster and some of the kids' games. There are Linux equivalents, more or less, but she doesn't want to learn them.
If the subject is large-scale corporate or government migrations, your experience trying to browbeat your wife/grandmother/"Aunt Tille"/parents into using Linux is hardly relevant. Even bringing it up diminishes your credibility.
I apologize to swillden for using his post as an example, since it's not really what I'm talking about: it's not zealotry and other of his posts make clear that he does know what he's talking about. But in the future, people, let's try to avoid things like: "I put Gentoo an KDE on my grandmother's computer and she deons't even know the difference!"
Google confirms: Ruby is the world's most beloved programm
Haven't seen an office yet where almost everyone doesn't run at least some sort of custom app.
- A zillion Excel spreadsheet macros to be converted to OOo
Whatever their payroll system is.
- Custom reporting in Access out of the Oracle/SQLServer backend needs to be rebuilt
- The city engineers need some new CAD package to manage the sewer sytem. Oh, and all those existing files may need to be converted.
- All of their current Word/Powerpoint files need to be bumped against OOo for compatibility. It's not quite as seamless at it appears.
- All of their current development tools
Converting the one machine in your living room is one thing. Switching a whole business/city is quite another.
You are wrong.
:)
The "Christian socialists" are a conservative party - not socialists.
However the biggest pro-linux-party behind this Linux-in-munchen thing is "SPD" - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SPD, and they are members of the Socialist international - so they really are socialists.
I believe you would have a hard time finding a socialist or communist party that are against FLOSS - while it is very easy to find a conservative party that are against it.
Yes CSU is a sister party of the CDU. However the CSU is MORE right wing than the CDU. At least the CDU can be considered semi progressive, whereas the CSU is nothing more than a bunch of anti-foreigner, anti-modern old fuddy duddy's.
These folks make Bush look semi liberal! The worst part is that I actually voted for these baffoons.
"You can't make a race horse of a pig"
"No," said Samuel, "but you can make very fast pig"
Remember, we're not talking about 1998 or 2002. We're talking 2005 - 2008. I imagine the city will be moving -- like many businesses and other organizations -- toward a browser-as-platform model. After all, if they wanted to keep thousands of big fat desktops and a staff of programmers, wouldn't they have just kept Windows? :-)
> 1,000 Euro will get you a name brand PC with monitor and MS operating system and > Office licenses.
But that does not include installation, administration and infrastructure costs.
> You have to really build up a lot of hatred for a vendor to consider paying
> maybe 14,000,000 Euro over the top to oust said vendor
Certainly you're right, and some people hate MS, but from where I'm standing, most people just hate depending on one thing and paying out the nose for it when they KNOW there are better alternatives. Ask any avid linux user who admins both platforms - if he's worth his salt, he'll tell you that eliminating Microsoft at any cost is not practical or even desirable - but allowing better alternatives in, where they exist, is crucial to saving time, money and aggravation.
Also, you're not considering that those 14,000,000 extra Euro are seen as an investment for long term savings. Corporate licensing for MS is even worse then retail. At least you know in the short run what you're paying for and OTS application - the corporate licensing schemes have totally arbitrary terms (despite what is advertised on the MS site) and have you chasing your tail trying to figure out what you're entitled to. Forget explaining it to a CFO once you've got it nailed down. Then the whole paradigm changes with the next wave of releases. When using mostly free software, you have relative certainty in the form of more-or-less predictable labor and hardware costs - planning is much easier, a little less air needs to be added to the budget, and you have a better chance of staying within budget.
I'm personally counting on this to pressure MS and other big software vendors to either drop prices or increase quality, as well as provide me with the odd chance to roll out something that works instead of dealing with certain packages I know are not worth trying to support.
I think it's turned out OK in cases where MS has been forced to compete. IE was free and improved for a while (at least until they had a dominant lead, IE6+ has been a nightmare) and Exchange got better by version 5 in order to compete with Lotus on the groupware front and sendmail on the MTA front... meanwhile, MS cut server package deals that basically gave it away. Their OS has gotten a bit more stable, probably in response to the perception of Linux kernel as being rock-solid. Maybe MS Office or Citrix will get cheaper faced with the prospect of Linux desktops running centrally-managed open source office productivity software over X.
I didn't get fired.... I quit before you could fire me!
Don't worry about me.. In 10 years I'll be really right and you'll still be the development manager in the same position you are today!
Bergen is also going over to Linux (article in Norwegian)
People say I'm crazy, I got diamonds on the soles of my shoes...
Factor in the costs of getting locked-in to a single software technology provider. Then you must use Word, Excel, whatever. Factor in the costs of non-interoperability of your files for future revisions of the software. And I mean like on the scale of 30 years. Factor in the cost of lost man-hours due to the Worm of the Day. Factor in the cost of lost man-hours due to viruses. Factor in the cost of constantly rebooting the machines. Factor in the cost of system administration for Windows. Etc. Etc.
There are so many hidden costs when dealing with Microsoft.
Besides, why should Munich buy from Microsoft, when there's a better alternative?
Outlook can be easily replaced with Evolution.
Productivity tools, there's probably more of those for Linux than for Windows.
Whatever country the machine is located in doesn't really mean anything these days. The language is English so the potential user base covers a lot of the Earth's population.
I do not moderate.
Munich's Town Council blesses Concept for Linux Migration
The 30-million-Euro-project LiMux can start: On Wednesday, the town council of Munich has officially agreed to the step-by-step plan for transitioning the entire computer landscape of the about 16,000 workers in the city's administration. The governing red-green coalition, along with representatives from FDP, OeDP, and PDS voted in favour of the migration. The CSU, ruling with absolute majority in Bavaria, voted against the Penguin moving into the offices. Conservative politicians expressed concerns that leisure-time programmers ("Feierabendprogrammierer") from the Open-Source camp would destroy the IT economy of Munich. They feared risks also for the employees, who mainly must learn how to use a new word processor now.
LiMux means the migration of about 13,000 desktop computers and the corresponding servers. Initially, the project leaders in the town council want to make bid invitations to select concrete open source products. Not only IBM and Novell's subsidiary Suse should be involved here, although the original LiMux design was done by those two major players in the Linux market. One of the main goals of the migration is, however, to create jobs right in Munich's IT economy and to maintain a competitive market. "We must be careful now not to get rid of the one monopolist by making ourselves dependent on the next global giant," said green councellor Jens Muehlhaus up front, alluding to Microsoft and Big Blue. He wants to involve the small and medium-sized IT companies in and around Munich, especially for the non-standard programs (Fachanwendungen) and special solutions that are needed. Talking to heise online, Muehlhaus regretted the decision of the CSU, who still hadn't understood that with free software, money is mainly being made through services.
"But saying Office 97 is better than the more recent versions is delusional at best."
Really? How so? What featurs on the newer Offices make it more useful than Office 97? I have used Office 97 since the nice Microsoft rep gave me a free copy in 97, and I have yet to see any benifit from the O2K3 version I am forced to use at work. In fact I much prefer, the ease of use, lower system requrements and cleaner interface of 97.
Of course, if given a choice of using any of the 3, free as in beer, versions of Office that I have been given licence to use, I prefer the Open.org one as it is free, as in speech.
"There is nothing to do it. But to do it." -Floyd Pepper
The answer is, the government will spend that money on something else, or (better) leave it with taxpayers so they can spend it on something else. The money will then flow to other jobs, in businesses and industries that are more competitive, where the government should be encouraging capital concentration and job growth.
That answer goes to software publishers, fruit farmers, coal miners, steel makers, missile manufacturers, and any other interest that thinks it should be paid, not for the value of its goods or services, but because such a fat pig is entitled to its place at the public trough. Off to slaughter, piggies!
or a tremendous PR disaster. If they fail, you can bet your ass MSFT will not get tired pointing this out. If they succeed, Novel/IBM/RHAT and everyone else will be touting the precedent.
the best wordprocessing application I've ever used is WordPerfect 5.x, as far as my personal preference is concerned. It did all I wanted to do --to type-- without mouse clicks and without any confusion. If I want to write something besides "college paper" or a formal letter, I won't use either WP or MS Office. Some people values simplicity of application highter than extra features that they won't use. Not to mention how much memory these extra features would use is another factor to consider.
Only kiddies think that windows is the only OS but for those of us who have been slightly longer on this planet we have grown up with other OSes and only recently been forced to move. Even when offices switched to Windows 3.1 or later 95 it often was just to launch a terminal session to the mainframe where all the work was done.
Don't be suprised to learn that in a switch to linux many of the old timers will find the transition very easy as in fact they are switching back. In the real world Windows is the new kid on the block. Linux is just another unix. Just like AIX, solaris, hp-unix etc etc.
As for the office suit. Here it is even more recent that MS became the dominent player. Plenty of places still use Wordperfect.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
If you view the migration away from MS-Windows to anything else to be inevitable, then the migration costs should be largely accounted as removing-MS-Windows costs rather than buying-Linux costs. In which case Linux costs an awful lot less than MS-Windows.
You also have to figure in the ongoing cost of maintenance, along with a number of so-called "extraordinary" items like cleaning up after the next CodeRed or MSBlast hits you. Linux is extremely unlikely to ever raise such costs.
But the big reason is that Germany really, really hates being run by foreigners, particularly Americans (but they have other pet peeves too), in any way.
Got time? Spend some of it coding or testing
Did anyone notice that first they are going to make the users run some of the open source apps on their windows?
Then the change won't be so huge, when they switch from Windows to Linux. All of their apps will still be right there. The browser and mail-client being the most important.
Some people get angry that good open source apps are being ported to windows, but really: It's the best(only?) way to do it.
It's must easier to switch if you can take all your base^H^H^H^H apps with you.
-- Make software not war
Damn right! MS Office is like a road of no return. Ever tried to get your data back out of it? Ugh!
mod him/her/it up!
The fact that someone's used more than one word-processor successfully is a plus in my mind, so yes, if faced with two people and one had OOWriter experience from work plus MS-Word at home, I'd be more inclined to hire them than the next person who has only ever seen MS-Word.
However, OOo really isn't that different from MSO for your average user. I frequently see people use OOo instead of MSO for extended periods of time (or even Linux instead of MS-Windows), without noticing. I'd be more impressed to see KWord plus MSWord.
Got time? Spend some of it coding or testing
Seriously, that works under Mandrake. Then use the drakTermServ GUI tool to configure it, light the blue touch-paper and retire to a safe distance. No worries.
Got time? Spend some of it coding or testing
That's ridiculous. It's fairly obvious that you use Office (whatever application) only to, as the OP said, write college papers.
Off the top of my head - on the fly spell check, revision control, task panes, etc, etc, etc, etc.
Web2.0: I love when people Flickr my cuil and digg my boingboing until my google is reddit and I start to yahoo
With those votes for the Christen Democrats (making then the biggest supported political group), Europe has the potential to slide right back into the dark-ages (Italian Mr Prodi anyone?, or even our Mr Balkenende from the Netherlands).
As a Euro from the Netherlands myself i follow these event's from very close proximity.
At least you Americans should be happy about the outcome of these euro elections, the Christen Democrats are youre closest allies in Europe.
But for the Euro's this is the step in wrong direction and i fear many wil suffer the consequences.
Many greetings
Here Some Entrys about the German Partys:
SPD
CDU
CSU
FDP
Bündniss 90/Die Grünen" (Green Party)
The Results of the last vote for the European Parliament
And finally the city of Munich
Ironically the main presence of Microsoft Germany is in Munich and one of the big employers.
Spelling mistakes: My is english spoken not tongue of mother.
They did win only in the sense of being the getting the most votes (together with the sister party CDU, their relation has been explained already by other posters).
If you look at the offical results you'll see they lost votes, too. Anyway, this was a federal vote concerning European politics; Linux migration is a municipal affair and the Munich city council has been SPD dominated for ages. Maybe that's what pisses them off.
oh yeah i just got here.. sat down and wonderful no evil windoye.
And where the hell are you from?
Basically, the Chrsitian Socialists Union [...]
It's Christian _Social_ Union
Politically active Christians in the USA would find the CDU/CSU's positions on many issues abhorrent
Depends on what you mean by "politically active christians". Planting bombs at entries of abortion clinics? Well, I guess you're right. But I'm pretty sure you will find a few nutheads everywhere.
Gerhardt Schroeder, the current Chancellor, is from the major "liberal" opposition party- I forget the name now.
As they are in power now you can't call 'em "opposition", can you? And the name is SPD (Social-Democratic Party of Germany), which these days (unfortunately) is very comparable to the US Democrats.
German Chancellors:
1949-1963 Konrad Adenauer (CDU)
1963-1966 Ludwig Erhard (CDU)
1966-1969 Kurt Georg Kiesinger (CDU)
1969-1974 Willy Brandt (SPD) <---
1974-1982 Helmut Schmidt (SPD) <---
1982-1998 Helmut Kohl (CDU)
1998- Gerhard Schröder (SPD) <---
source
don't forget, significant part of these 13M will stay in germany, may help to create new jobs there, etc ...
so paying 7M for windows can be more expensive (for germany at least) than paying 13M for linux
The backend can be whatever you fancy, the interaction is via your web browser, firms with half a clue are making sure that those applications are fully compliant with W3C standards.
If it is and old propietary cludge of a program this is the ideal moment to migrate it to something else, although the time frames given sound optimistic it can, and if there is enough political conviction, will be done.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
Surely all those "Windows for Dummies" books, expensive courses, videos, etc. are testament to the complete lack of need of retraining for different MS products.
Yeah, people using Windows 3.1 can rest assured, they are ready to use Longhorn in 2010 when it comes out.
When I grow up I want to be like you Batman, such powerful logical thinking will save the world against the evil Penguin!
Regards
Robin.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
Hello, could someone please explain me what the heck is wrong with european conservatives? Why do they have to brown nose the USA? Why do they not care at all about the sovereignty of their country? Are they jealous of the status quo in the USA? Do they need to submit to some leader?
The notable exception of course are the French conservatives.
Just a question to anyone knowing a little bit of German politics: Isn't CSU the biggest party in Bavaria (where Munich is)? Aren't they 60% or so?
Or is yet another case where the city is more progressive that the (rural) areas arround?
I had this view that CSU was totally pervasive in Bavaria... it seems I was wrong.
If they are against this Linux plan, have they the power to stop it?
Almost all EU mainstream political parties are left of the US Democrats.
For example the Conservative party was pretty much evenly divided in issues like gay marriage and adoption of children by gay couples as well as some topics of sexual education in secondary schools (i.e. teaching children there are gay people, duh). The Conservative party is the party of MR R. "I forgot Iran-Contras" Reagan's old chum, Baroness Thatcher.
US people do not realize how much to the right their political landscape has been moved by Reagan and the two Bushes, Mr Blair would want to do the same in the UK but thankfully he can't.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
The Munich migration is a part of an EU-funded umbrella scheme called COSPA (Consortium for Open Source in Public Administration) -- http://www.cospa-project.org -- for assisting and monitoring migration of public bodies to FLOSS and ODS. (Another such migration that has made some progress is a large hospital in Dublin, Beaumont Hospital -- although their main web server still seems to be ASP.) See COSPA's web site for a fuller list. (It will later have a knowledge-base for sharing tips and experiences of switching to FLOSS in this context.)
In fact the CSU has total Majority (>50%) in the Bavarian Parliment.
They have the majority in many (most) cities(towns/villages), Munich being, ironically, the big exception.
This is primarily due the fact that people vote primarily for "political parties" during state-wide elections, and during city council elections they vote for "people". So one charismatic (or proven) candidate can totally change the outcome.
And regarding why the Munich CSU says "no" to Linux - cuz the SPD (which is the ruling party in Munich) says "yes".
CDU/CSU & SPD are eternal enemies - if one of them says something you can be sure that the other one opposes it, sad but true...
+++ MELON MELON MELON +++ Out of Cheese Error +++ redo from start +++
They just call themselfes CSU in Bavaria or CDU (D=democratic) in the rest of Germany. They are not, by any means, more christians than, say, the Austrian "Volkspartei" ("Peoples party").
Has been since the war, I think. Everyone else in Bavaria votes CSU
EIN FUHRER
EIN REICH
What really bothers me in European politics is that right wing is also pro-church, pro-military, pro-SW-patents, anti-open-source, and narrow-minded. Even if I hate this I cannot vote for left wing, because I believe that people should make their own decision and goverment should be in the background. We have much too much govermental interference in our lives already.
-- Imperial units must die --
Netcraft confirms!
The integral macro-language in MS Office can access every feature of a document -- that's the whole point of a macro-language. So "all" you have to do is write a set of macros to translate the data to a readable format, and export that to a file which you can then translate at your leisure to another format -- either the OpenOffice.org XML format, or {if you must stick with a newer version of MS} write some more macros -- for the new version, this time -- to build up a document based on your own special format. That isn't as easy as I just made it sound, of course -- MS macro programming is a job in its own right -- but it's probably the surest method in the long run.
In some cases, the simplest option might be to re-create your documents from scratch -- or, just one step up from there, export everything in a plain text format and re-apply all formatting using the new software. You probably could even get a YTS-er {or several} to do that, and have the Social pay their wages for you; but check with your local JobCentre first in case you have to give them real jobs afterward.
Je fume. Tu fumes. Nous fûmes!
Currently, the SPD (together with the Greens) rules Germany.
that a larger project in Extremadura, Spain, doesn't get this kind of attention (Some background for the spanish-impaired). It's already working (I thinks it's a little over two years now), it's been distributed to hundreds of thousands (including every desktop in the schools, one computer for every two students, mind you)... it even has inspired at least one already working project in Andalucía, Spain (and seeds of several others, as in Madrid, Zaragoza or Valencia; it seems all education in Spain is migrating to linux in the next few years).
My journal. Mainly about freedom.
I am with you on the database heavy apps. But they are commercial database apps. Only an odd few cities have an in-house or contract staff of programmers. Other commercial apps include document management/imaging, GIS, desktop publishing, and desktop database apps (Paradox, Access, Foxpro, powerbuilder, or Visual Studio). None of these are light conversions. And 2005 is right here as far as converting goes. I agree that browser apps are the way to go. I am working on some of these projects myself. Our schedule is running past 2006 on some apps, others we will not even convert.
;-)
The typical large city IT department is mostly concerned with running the server apps. The desktops are left to the support staff.
thousands of big fat desktops
The Linux distros with desktops like KDE or GNOME have not exactly skipped any meals!
Have you Meta Moderated t
I wouldn't go that far. Eliminating the spyware, the viruses, the oddities of IE, the general cruftiness of the registries will probably add years to the life of your admin.
The CSU argument sounds like another case of politicians making statements about something they know nothing about.
I mean has anyone from the CSU actually seen OpenOffice before they announced that people could have trouble migrating to it (from MS Office)?
the two are generally so similar that I'm surprised that Microsoft haven't tried to sue OpenOffice for 'look and feel' copyright breach.
Installing Linux is only the beginning. There is going to be a period of transition where people have to learn to use the new systems. It's not as bad as some people seem to think -- I have first hand experience, having to support ex-Windows users in a nearly-all-Linux company {Windows is still used by about half a dozen people, for a few legacy applications; but you can bet your arse, we fully intend to make use of our statutory right to perform reverse-engineering for the sake of interoperability -- which is not affected by anything the EULA may say .....} and once you have explained the obvious differences, people will get used to it.
Legacy documents will have to be converted to the new standard, quite probably by retyping them from scratch. This will represent a substantial one-time cost; but once documents are held in an open format, the hardest bit of the work is over. There is a big decision to be made: for each document, should we (a) go to the effort of converting it accurately, (b) put up with some idiosyncrasies arising from an imperfect conversion or (c) scrap it. Such triage itself costs money, but it might lead to a considerable saving if there are many B or C answers.
Linux maintenance is an ongoing cost -- and it does tend to be more expensive, when it is required, than Windows maintenance, but that is to be expected. Linux doesn't go wrong very often; and when it does go wrong, it usually goes wrong for a reason. Windows is inherently unreliable. Sorry to upset the MS fanboys, but it is. The reason is that it is closed source. Application and driver developers can't see the OS code, and have to trust that it matches the documentation exactly. OS developers likewise have to trust that application and driver developers have specified their interfaces correctly. What happens in practice is that you get "logic traps" -- sets of ordinarily innocuous events which, if and not unless they all happen together, will cause something different to happen instead of what should have happened. It may be as obscure as pressing the W key on a Belgian keyboard as the CRT raster comes to the end of the 87th line while the sound card is playing F# above middle C out of the right hand speaker and a PCL5 printer driver has been swapped out from memory -- and the only way anyone could ever spot it, short of actually experiencing it, would be to look at the source code for the OS and the keyboard, graphics card, sound card and printer drivers. It's not hard to see how the severity increases geometrically as more devices and programmes are added to a system. Even motherboard drivers are not immune.
So Windows has these designed-in random crashes that happen for no reason other than source code bogarting, and they account for by far the vast majority of Windows crashes. Without the source code, the only thing you can do is tut, scratch your chin, and whip out the power lead. And a trained monkey could do that. Replacing the hardware, or installing a newer version of the software, will cure most of the worst ones by introducing a different set of trigger criteria. Linux doesn't have the same potential for hidden logic traps, because the developers can see one another's code and so prevent them from ever arising in the first place. Of course they may be present in early versions, but someone is certain either to fix the problem themselves, or alert someone who can fix it. If something is amiss with Linux, there is likely to be a reason which will not go away if you just cut the power. And fixing it takes someone who really groks the system, bellyfeels it, is one with it. That costs money -- but since Linux doesn't have built-in unreliability, most of the time it will just work. This means you will need fewer, more expensive support personnel, as opposed to more, cheaper personnel with a comparable Windows installation.
Je fume. Tu fumes. Nous fûmes!
But that does not include installation, administration and infrastructure costs.
Those costs exist in any upgrade scenario. Take the balance and give each PC the remaining 1000 Euro.
allowing better alternatives in, where they exist, is crucial to saving time, money and aggravation.
No doubt about it. You should always have the best solution, and pay for it. If that means replacing green screens, java desktop, linux distro, or Windows, then do it right.
14,000,000 extra Euro are seen as an investment for long term savings
Capital expenditures for PCs are not investment vehicles. CFOs despise capital expenditures. Software licensing and maintenance is accounted differently and is much easier to approve. No cost licensing always looks better no matter what. There will be annual costs, call it maintenance or licensing if you will, but they both are accounted the same. On top of that, any investment advisor will tell you to keep emotion (hatred) out of any any business decision.
I will let the MS Salespeople shill for their licensing agreement. Other OS distros are making big strides. The best ones are never going to be free. If Mandrake or SUSE or Knoppix emerges as a superior distro, they are not going to give it away. Their prices will rise as Microsoft's falls. So in my mind, the future cost savings is speculation.
Have you Meta Moderated t
While the Social Democrats suffered devastating losses, both conservative parties lost seats too! The real winners are the small parties, in particular the Greens (who more than doubled their seats) and the PDS (who get +6 seats to a total of 7 since they managed to enter the EUP as a parliamentary fraction).
I love C++
Actually if you care about how it looks, one would use Lyx or LaTex. And, yes, there is a bit of a learning curve there.
Just a Tuna in the Sea of Life
This is yet more proof that Microsoft does not have a monopoly.
:)
Now, if only we could get my office to dump Windows, too.
Aha... You're not only a troll, but also grossly non-informed. First, their machines are now mostly running NT 4, for which Microsoft no longer gives support, not even security updates. Then, a lot of their applications are no longer up to the task and require a complete redesign, and these costs are included in the 30 million. You could write Windows apps, or you can write Linux apps for about the same amount, it doesn't matter. If the vendors are smart, they design their new programs portable from the ground up anyway. So, no, just continuing to use the old "junk" until it falls apart is not an option for a responsible city administration.
And then, Microsoft's offer would have been costlier, until they offered massive rebates just to keep Linux out of this prestige project. I'm glad they didn't fall to this anti-trust-worthy trick which would've just allowed Microsoft to increase Munich's degree of dependency, and consequently raise the prices for later deals accordingly.
I love C++
Linux maintenance is an ongoing cost
Maintanance is an ongoing cost, regardless of OS.
and it does tend to be more expensive, when it is required, than Windows maintenance, but that is to be expected.
I doubt the cost of cleaning up after Windows malware is exactly "cheap".
Linux doesn't go wrong very often; and when it does go wrong, it usually goes wrong for a reason. Windows is inherently unreliable. Sorry to upset the MS fanboys, but it is. The reason is that it is closed source.
Part of the problem is the closed source nature of Windows, which means there is a temptation for bad code and hacks to wind up in there. Because "no one is going to see this anyway". But there have also been cases of Microsoft deliberatly choosing to write bad code in the name of "integration".
"Spoken like a person who has never used Word for anything except writing a college paper. I prefer Open Office to MS Office, and I think that there are plent of problems for MS Office. But saying Office 97 is better than the more recent versions is delusional at best."
Go on then... what's improved since Word 6?
Having more Citrix servers won't help Microsoft at all. Since you can install a free Citrix Client on any Linux machines you now only have to buy a couples of windows servers and that's it (not more Windows XP or Longrun(!) to buy). Maybe (and I'm not sure of this) the Single Sign-On would not work but that's not a big deal.
http://smoke.rotten.com/bird/ _ ) ( \ 8=X==D http://smoke.rotten.com/bird/
http://smoke.rotten.com/bird
However, the thing about Banner, is that you get support -- it may be pretty crappy support, based on the people SCT kept on-site at GW [some were exceptional and yet there were some that I wondered how they managed to keep from getting fired over the years, as they clearly didn't understand the system they were supposed to be maintaining]
There have been any number of times when I've wondered what the reason was for keeping around the piece of crap that is banner, that GW hacked up to work around whatever problems they had run into.
The problem comes when there's some new federal requirement that you have to comply with, or you're going to be fined. Stuff along the lines of FERPA, or that more recent one that requires all foreign nationals be tracked -- if the program was made by one guy, who knows if he'll be available when changes need to be made. It doesn't matter how well you document things so that they can fix things later -- they want someone they can use as a scapegoat when something goes tits up.
If you don't have errors and omissions insurance, I hope they don't buy from you. We don't need another person out there as an example of 'this is what happens when you try to migrate from Banner'.
If you're serious about getting off of Banner, here's a few suggestions for you.
Now for a true story --
Build it, and they will come^Hplain.
Open office has "on the fly" spell check. I don't know about revision control or task panes but few people (even in business) actually use them.
The problem with Microsoft Word is that it has so many "features" that it's really a liability. Case in point VBA. I can sit down with a copy of Word 97 and write a complete application using VBA. It's way over kill and guess what? People with way too much time on their hands use all of that extra power to write malicious code.
Open office has a macro language also which I'm not too happy about. It's always a bad ideal to mix your data and executables. Way big security risk.
The race isn't always to the swift... but that's the way to bet!
That's a lot of etc's. I use Office 2k3 in is businees setting and very little of what I need to do with it requiers more funtionality than what I get in Wordpad. Granted I'm not wrighting tecnical journals or legal documents or creating governmnt forms or the like, but what percentage of the licencees of office actually do those things. Really, what are definitively, the killer features in the newest MS Office that are not present in 97 that you could not live without? I'll give you revision control as a valid point in some situations, but on the fly spell check? That is more of a pain in the ass than it is worth.
"There is nothing to do it. But to do it." -Floyd Pepper
...which kind of blows your argument away. Hello from Perth, Western Australia, like it says in my /. profile.
No, Germany likes to be in charge of things. It's effectively in charge of the EU. Good thing Germans in general are more focussed than average on doing a competent job, but a bad thing when they get carried away by their own success.
The Americans did a better job than I expected with the Iraq war, but the ongoing violent stupidity is an inevitable consequence of the local culture, and the USA should long ago have worked out a more draconian way of getting the flock out of there and back home after their main job was done. I don't think leaving the situation entirely in local hands is a good idea either - yet - but since America is "the Great Satan" they are definitely not the right people to caretake.
I can sympathise with my peer-poster "mOdQuArK!" in two ways; firstly, I can see that your average Yank is quite different to Mr George "I Know What's Right For Everybody" Dubya Bush; secondly, the Australian government (yes, all parties) is regularly an embarrassment to ordinary Australians, particularly WRT the IT industry - and probably just like Dubya.
Got time? Spend some of it coding or testing
It would be interesting to see what happened if moderation was available for the moderations (the current "meta-moderation" is too simple for this, it's just approve/ignore/disapprove and I'd like to see how many rated this moderation "Insightful", how may rated it "Funny" and how many rated it "Troll".
Got time? Spend some of it coding or testing
Was there already an interview with the folks running this migration? (Cannot find one). If not, I officially suggest one...
The product of cost of recovering from virus attacks on a Linux network times probability of occurrence is negligible, but good luck convincing a Gates-worshipper that it's so. Agreed. I was holding my tongue to avoid accusations from the closed-source fanboys; but now you have spoken, I feel free to say: GEDDINTHEREMYSAN! Another reason why bad code pravails in closed-source projects is that, since developers aren't allowed to borrow code that is recognised to have been Done Properly {either because the good code exists in a closed-source programme which they are not allowed to look at; or -- slightly, but deliciously, ironically -- because the good code exists in a GPL programme but the developer insists to release a closed-source programme}, everyone has their own go at inventing the wheel from first principles; and, barring supreme good luck, introduces their own special little errors.
Je fume. Tu fumes. Nous fûmes!
Agreed. But cleaning up after a virus / worm / trojan / spyware / adware infection isn't regarded by blinkered bosses as "maintenance", it's "disaster recovery".
Which is rather at odds with the usual meaning of disaster. In most other industries "disasters" which happen frequently are considered "maintenance issues".
I don't understand it, either. But then again, my company has a written policy explicitly favouring Open Source -- which I wrote
Je fume. Tu fumes. Nous fûmes!
Yes. Have you a solution handy?
Got time? Spend some of it coding or testing