Munich to Go Ahead with Linux After All

Saeed al-Sahaf writes "According to Groklaw and the German publication Heise (it's in German, of course) Munich's mayor Christian Ude has held a press conference, in which he said that the bidding process for the switch from Windows to Linux will go forward as originally planned, despite patent issues. InfoWorld (in English), quotes Bernd Plank, a spokesman for Munich town hall, saying that he expected that the administration would take a maximum of 'two to three weeks' to decide whether the EU's Directive on software patents could affect the city's plan to switch to Linux, and that would be no 'dramatic setback.'" We reported this earlier as well, but now that it's making the rounds again in English, more of us can read it without resorting to Babelfish.

Comments

Re:green party is for open source

[Elektroschock]

Call it a auto-da-fe Public relations of the Limux project. They didn't expect the media reaction in Munich, so they cooled it down. They didn't want to spread FUD about the Limux oproject, they wanted to say that software patents are dangerous for them and cause costs. They wanted to urge the German Government to stop software patents.

Even FFII was surprised about Munich's initial press release, Hartmut Pilch wrote:

We were surprised by the announcement of Wilhelm Hoegner and the mayor. I learnt from both only through the media.
Yet I think their message is exactly to the point.

Municipalities must assess the risk caused by software patents. Some government authorities in Sweden and the UK have already seen themselves forced to litigate against frivolous software patent claims in order to retain their freedom to do basic day-to-day business. Interestingly, in these cases there was no Linux or free software involved. Yet, it can not be denied that solutions supplied by local SMEs on the basis of free software, as envisaged by Munich's IT strategy, involve greater patent risks than a contract with a single big supplier such as IBM or Microsoft. In any case it is the normal procedure to try to assess the risk and insure it, be it through the supplier or through a separate insurance. Recent estimates from the US suggest that such a patent insurance could cost more than 100,000 eur per year. The costs would be very similar in Europe, if the Council's political agreement, for which the German government and other national governments have been fighting, became law. If, on the other hand, the European Parliament's version of the directive was adopted, the risk would drop to zero.

It is a good exercise for municipal governments to estimate patent risks in terms of insurance costs, and it would be an even better exercise for national governments to start serious assessment of the effects of legislation. No such calculation has to date been made, in spite of regular calls from Brussels to do so -- not to speak of calls from FFII to calculate the macro-economic costs of the various legislative options. The message from the Munich's mayor is therefore timely and should be heeded by other municipalities and governments, regardless of whether they plan to deploy free operating systems or not.

Re:Linux Community Support

[Anonymous Coward]

The switch is mostly in the hands of SuSE/Novell and IBM. For them, this is a showcase project. If they can pull it off there, they can expect a lot of followup business.

I guess they'll do their best, whatever that is :)

Re:Discounts?

[ackthpt]

Maybe there is more in it than just price, ya know...

IIRC, there was. The Munich government reps who were involved in the decision making were insensed that Microsoft didn't make their best offer when asked the first time, but in steps. I certainly know enough people who would have jumped at Microsoft's offer, but the germans were apparently insulted. There's also the likelihood that they were focused on Long Term TCO rather than short term, which was all Microsoft was really offering them. Look at what's going on with Microsoft since, all the patching (which in recent stories highlights the expense of testing, certifying and accepting patches and understanding their impact on software already in use.)

They're showing uncharacteristic good sense and courage in making such a decision... one would almost be convinced these weren't bureaucrats, but aliens who have taken the place of the bureaucrats.

Re:Discounts?

[Anonymous Coward]

Even though the Linux proposal is more expensive, a lot of that money stays in (i.e. helps) Germany's economy whereas with the Microsoft solution, essentially 100% leaves the country (i.e. enriches Microsoft). Perhaps that had something to do with the decision.