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Munich to Go Ahead with Linux After All

Posted by CowboyNeal on from the bring-on-the-penguins dept.

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.

3 of 142 comments (clear)

  1. about time. by ch0p · · Score: 0, Troll

    Finaly someone has the common sense to ditch m$. It's about damn time if you ask me.

  2. Re:green party is for open source by stratjakt · · Score: -1, Troll

    It was a great way to "wake up the government". Hey, if we start enforcing patents, we won't be able to steal other people hard work for free!

    The municipal govt of Munich doesn't mean shit to the EU, frankly, and doesn't have the power to stop this legislation. And if it does go through, and it seems likely, it'll be the law of the land, and I dont see municipal governments as an appropriate place for "civil disobedience". I mean, what if the local PD decided to ignore all those "due process" and "civil rights" because they dont agree philosophically?

    So, whats a little odd to me is that the city knows about possible patent troubles, and doesn't care.

    So if they don't care about possible IP issues with Linux, what's stopping them from just downloading free versions of what they already have off of Kazaa? Then there's nothing but savings. Just stop paying the software vendors. "Sorry, but morally I feel your product has no tangible value, so therefore I wont pay for it" Hell, why pay for the equipment either? Why pay salaries?

    Euro governments are fuckin wacky. Not to be mistaken as an affirmation of American government, of course.

    --
    I don't need no instructions to know how to rock!!!!
  3. heh by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Troll

    Linux is gay. They should have gone with AppleSOS.