City of Vienna Chooses Linux

Bill Kendrick writes "Back in January, ZDNet reported that the city of Vienna, Austria was looking to move at least a portion of its desktops to Linux. Well, it looks like it happened (in German; use the fish). Their official distro is based on Debian with KDE, and is called WEINUX." Update: 07/06 12:49 GMT by T : Several readers wrote to correct the spelling here: the correct name of the distro is "WIENUX."

Comments

Gawd

[Craig Davison]

Buncha Wieners.

Re:Gawd

[larkost]

The first time I was in Vienna (named Wien in German) I arrived just in time for Wienerfest. It took me two days to finally realize it was not about sausage. My German has improved since then.

All right

[aixou]

The Linux katamari picked up another city. A few more and we'll be able to level up!

Re:All right

[eobanb]

In case anyone doesn't get this joke, it's in reference to a Japanese video game called Katamari Damacy (Damachii) with a cult following. It involves rolling a small sticky ball around through towns, cities, and the countryside that picks up objects (starting with small objects, like thumbtacks); as the ball grows bigger, the ball is able to obtain larger objects, like cars, and so on, eventually being able to pick up entire large pieces of the landscape. This is actually a great analogy to the growing popularity of Linux, I think. As the marketshare and mindshare of OSS grows, so do its chances of scoring a big customer, like municipal Vienna. Hobbyists are the paperclips, and the cities are, well, the cities. I applaud both OSS developers and Vienna for making this happen.

Re:All right

[Lars T.]

This is actually a great analogy to the growing popularity of Linux, I think.

Unless you are an early Linux adopter, and have just been compared to thumbtacks.

The distribution is called "WIENUX"

[quigonn]

It is called "WIENUX", not "WEINUX", as the city of Vienna is called "Wien" in German, not "Wein" (which means wine in German, and has nothing to do with Vienna).

Re:The distribution is called "WIENUX"

[Anonymous Coward]

Because the english names are the old/middle- german names, as the English-source-race Angles and Saxons left what is now Germany a long time ago, whereas the English-source-race Normans came to england from what is now France much later. Like still calling "New York" "New Amsterdam".

Re:The distribution is called "WIENUX"

[Zog The Undeniable]

I don't know. The good people of Austria - one of my favourite places - certainly drink a lot. It's legal to drink at the age of 16 [1], and you should see the amount of lager those oompah bands put away during a concert (basically each musician has a big glass under his chair and swigs half of it after each song; waitresses with big jugs (oo-er) come round and refill them at regular intervals.

[1] in the UK, amusingly, the legal drinking age is *5* if at home with a parent/guardian present. But then we exported all the Puritans to the US ;-)

Re:The distribution is called "WIENUX"

[Sique]

It's not only that, it's also connected to the fact, that French is a roman language, related to the Latin, which in the middle age was the language of choice for international relations, where German is... hum... a germanic language ;)

So English often has a romanized version of the german name for german towns, while for french towns the name is already roman, thus no change.
An example would be Muenchen -> Munich.

A second factor is that the west and south german towns often have roman roots and were founded by roman soldiers as frontier towns and castles to defend the Limes (the roman border) against the Germans. Those towns have a 2000 year old latin name, which is still reflected in English, but the german name was heavily changed due to bad spelling and pronounciation by the inhabitants.

Examples for the later:
Koeln, latin name Colonia Agrippina -> Cologne.
Wien, latin name Vindobona -> Vienna
Trier, latin name Augusta Treverorum (this one is Trier in English too ;) )

For north and east german towns the english name often is the german one, because those towns were founded much later and started out either with a german name anyway (Hamburg, Bremen...) or have a name that is derived from the old slawic name (Berlin [this one is still slawic], Drezdany -> Dresden, Lipa -> Leipzig, Kamenice -> Chemnitz), where only the german name survived.

Ambitious targets

[Mattygfunk1]

It is up to the individual workers to choose if they prefer a KDE Desktop or a Microsoft based system. The officials expect that about 4,800 machines can run KDE in the short term.

That's a very ambitious target if they are only offering it, not saying "you will use this".

__
Funny Adult Videos and Pictures

Re:Ambitious targets

[Freaky Spook]

I agree, I don't see why they wont migrate acrosst to it, the basic user only needs email, internet & office products which all can be operated easily from KDE, they don't really need to know powerful desktop functions.

They should aim to make Linux the standard SOE & using Microsoft products to support users who require more specialised programs.

PD in basic linux isn't hard especially with KDE.

Re:Ambitious targets

[drsmithy]

They should aim to make Linux the standard SOE & using Microsoft products to support users who require more specialised programs.

Amazing how quick the battlecry goes from "users should have choice" to "users should use linux"...

Re:Ambitious targets

[Freaky Spook]

Im just coming from the economical side, I work as a technician in public schools and the money that the Government spends on software licences for M$ products is huge.

90% of all my problems are troubleshooting desktop problems with WinXP and also problems with Word, Excell & Outlook. I am not saying that by using Linux these problems will disapear, but it will be cheaper to support these Programs because less is being spent on software licencing.

Its simple economics the only difference between a Linux system & Windows system for users who only need to use the basics is price, why spend X amount of dollars on one thing when you can get the same result much cheaper.

I do believe in choice, but I don't see the logic in going to the expense of something because its believed to be easier, I am not completley Pro linux, but in a government environment where Tax payers are paying for everything, the best value alternative seems much more appealing.

Re:Ambitious targets

[JamesTRexx]

I think this is better. Let those that are afraid to switch to Linux hear from their own colleagues how well it works, and see how little they're affected by spyware and virusses. Then they'll switch voluntarily and have no reason to start complaining about how they're forced to give up windows.

Re:Ambitious targets

[replicant108]

Nice attempt at a straw man argument.

The battlecry (as you term it) is actually "customers should have choice".

In a corporate environment the customer is the organisation.

Why must...

[concept10]

We get the report when a decent sized city and/or organization switches to Linux? I would rather read some reports of how the transition to Linux was, what software they use, initial user reactions to the OS. You know basic shit like that.

Re:Why must...

[/ASCII]

Well, Slashdot is a news aggregator, basically a collection of interesting links. Since Slashdot does not employ any investigative journalists, they simply can't decide their own content. Try contacting a site that actually writes real articles, and ask them to write the article you want to read. If they do, I'm sure the Slashdot editors will happily link to it.

nice approach

[scheuri]

I like the idea and the approach, that the city turn s to linux on the desktop AND using a own distro for this.

After all, with this everything is implemented THEY need, nothing more and nothing less...they take advantage of the biggest advantage of OSS:
Choice!

Instead of using a company or existing product per se (I know, its based in Debian), they changed it to their needs and they offer a voluntary change for the employees (at least at the beginning).

I wish them luck and hope they will make progress fast.

Re:Please, people. Lets not start a distro war...

[remmy1978]

My advice to people is, if you want something easy and are willing to spend $100, get SuSE in the box. There are a ton of applications to help you configure your system. You can use SuSE to run a server, and not worry about downtime (unlike Mandrake which will crash, I have seen it happen at a linux fest, where 12 of us stood in disbelief looking at the new blue screen of death). I knew another guy who had a webserver and ssh set up on SuSE and it ran for over 200 days without a glitch (he took it down when he upgraded his system).

For someone not wanting to start a distro war you do an amazingly good job of starting one using little more than anecdotal evidence. My Mandrake box which I use for all my computer work has been running for almost 420 days now without a reboot. Just goes to show how much a single experience is worth.

It has to be said...

[Anonymous Coward]

How long before we see a big, nasty, 7-CD distro, with lots of packages, called "Penux"? /ducks, posting anon

Re:when sahll we have a critical mass?

[william_w_bush]

ahem...

Large corporations usually dont lose nights of sleep when the `pro` segment of their customers, the ones who know well enough to ask for better, decide to switch to solutions that require more effort and/or knowledge.

Large corporations sell to people who know no better, and cant be bothered too. Smaller, more boutiqued, and/or specialized firms or user groups tend to cater to the everyday Joe Slob who just wants the simple music downloads and fastest pr0n access box for cheap, especially when if anything goes wrong they have other people to call up and yell at.

Seriously, nobody ever researched all the possible pros and cons of different architectures, and decided `hey, you know what? Im gonna design my mission-critical, or high-performance application on the one operating system rated to have the most extensive vulnerabilities, which cause billions of dollars of loss a year, cause well im feeling kinda lucky today.`

Know some admins I wouldnt piss on if their servers were on fire who use linux... badly, but most of the good admins i know who use windows do so because they have no choice. Seriously, EVERY pro app in engineering, accounting, and most of the other things people use in real life has an up-to-date version on windows, not so much for linux or even apple, and MSs beautiful `bundling? what bundling, its innovation` crap means any of those apps that needs a network framework needs a complete active directory or even windows PDC to work properly. Its hard to keep kids off crack when the schools serve it with lunch.

My greater fear is that over the last few years, linux has been getting better and better at being completely invisible. You can set up a linux openldap and samba system well enough that no one can tell the difference. Half the transparent gateways nowadays run some brand of linux, along with those new insta-nas boxes. Its not a bad thing for linux, but its kinda bad for linux on the desktop, because it makes the desktop part of linux the least neccessary. Windows demands a MS framework to run, linux is so nice you could slave it to a crazy, naked popcorn machine and it would work happily without a squeak.

Its not that linux has a disadvantage, MS just plays their (unfair, and greedy)advantage a lot harder on everybody else, and in the OS wars homecourt advantage is everything, ask OS/2. Bundling does hurt, just not the way youd think.

Clarifications

[ardor]

I'm Austrian, and want to clarify some stuff I keep hearing about Austria by tourists:

* no, we are not the country with the kangaroos
* no, we don't have a Nazi government (I keep hearing that from Americans all the time)
* our Wiener Schnitzel is really tasty, yeah
* our kids don't go to school by skiing (well, most of them don't)
* we don't eat much sauerkraut. That's what Germans do.
* never confuse us with Germans. We really don't like that. Its like confusing americans with canadians. They eat us alive if we do this.
* We don't wear Lederhosen all the time.

Re:Clarifications

[gibodean]

I'm Australian, and want to clarify some stuff I keep hearing about Australia by tourists:

* yes, we are the country with the kangaroos
* no, we don't have a convict government
* our meat pies are really tasty, yeah
* our kids don't go to school by sitting in a kangaroo pouch (well, most of them don't)
* we don't have sex with sheep. That's what New Zealanders do.
* never confuse us with New Zealanders. We really don't like that. Its like confusing americans with canadians. They eat us alive if we do this.
* We don't wear akubra hats all the time.
* Yes, at the olympics they once played the Austrian national anthem when we won gold.

Re:Clarifications

[mabinogi]

I'm a New Zealander, and I want to clarify some stuff I keep hearing about New Zealand by Australians.

* Yes we are the country with the sheep
* We use the sheep for meat and wool, and are not entirely sure what Australians think sheep are kept for, or why they would immediately jump to the conclusions they do.
* Every famous Australian is really a New Zealander.
* Every one of them.

Re:Please, people. Lets not start a distro war...

[l3v1]

Redundant or offtopic, don't care:

Lets just say Gnome is better than KDE regardless of distro. ;)

And you get Informative when starting an post with that line.

Go Gnome-ers, just please, keep it [i.e. Gnome] out of my face.

Follow Up Story

[gregarican]

I have read a decent number of articles about cities choosing to adopt Linux but would be more curious to read a follow up story of how the transition went using hindsight, say a month later, a year later, etc. What were the major obstacles and how were they overcome? After the dust settled how does worker productivity and cost effectiveness stand? These sort of facts could help start a domino effect where other IT execs could build cases to present to their respective PHB's in order to make the switch.

Kind of like some of the countless U.S. reality shows where people and houses are made over (e.g. - The Swan, The Biggest Loser, Extreme Home Makeover). Rather than short term focus I'd love to see the shows check in a year later to see how things look. That's more indicative of true success and failure.

Human translation of article

[Anonymous Coward]

Since the babelfish translation is beyond discussion, here's a human-translated version. I'm not a native speaker of English, so excuse some mistakes. I omitted some paragraphs at the end, otherwise everything is complete. Pretty interesting article actually :-).

---

Correspondence of the Office of the Mayor (July 5th, 2005)

WIENUX-Day: Viennese Solution for Open Source

Open Source in Vienna (Wien) - Presentation of WIENUX

Vienna (RK). Today Stadtrat (city councillor) member Rudi Schicker presented the current status of OS-usage in Vienna during a media conference in the main public library of Vienna. Together with Gemeinderat (councillor) A. Schieder and Nationalratsabgeordnetem (member of national parliament) Josef Broukal, WIENUX was presented, the version of Linux prepared for use in the city of Vienna. During a WIENUX information day, employees of the city of Vienna could get information about WIENUX and OpenOffice.org and try out Linux and OpenOffice.org on the spot. As Schicker emphasizes: "it's not about making decisions so to say from above, but giving the employees individual freedoms where possible, for a creative administration, ".

Vienna has already used OSS products for several years in the server area. Because of the positive experiences made, the development of OSS standard componentes for desktops has been observed for some time, and their use been investigated in study. The MA 14-ADV (IT department???) administrates 18,000 PCs, 8,200 printers and 560 servers. Most desktops run under Windows 2000, whose support by Microsoft will last until 2010, but there is not that much time. "Every five to seven years, a great pressure to migrate evolves, even if you skip over one to two versions" points out department head Dipl.- Ing. (engineer) SR Erwin Gillich. Therefore a migration of the systems would be due three years earlier, at the latest 2008, in contrast to Munich [another Linux deployment], where the time pressure was much greater because of obsolete hard- and software.

Open Source study

During a study, a comprehensive inventory of the sw used on every PC was made and used as a basis for finding the migration potential. The results of the study "OSS in the Magistrat Wien" show, that about 7,500 PCs could use the licensing-cost-free OpenOffice.org instead of MS Office. 4,800 of these PCs could even be switched to an OSS operating system.

In October 2004, a working group was started, which worked on the use of OS sw on the desktops of the Magistrat. The requirement was to develop an open source platform which can communicate with the existing MS infrastructure. The results are the custom-tailored operating system WIENUX and the use of OpenOffice.org. Both are offered by the MA 14-ADV in the course of a "gentle product introduction" beginning in June 2005.

Voluntary switchover

The most important consideration is voluntariness: Those who want to can choose the open source way; who is attached to the old products, may stay there. The licensing-cost-free operating system WIENUX was developed based on Debian with the KDE (Kool Desktop Enviroment) desktop. Firefox is used as the web browser, emails can be accessed using MS Outlook WebAccess, there is also an SAP-access and various additional tools. WIENUX is under the so-called GNU/GPL (GNU General Public Licence).

OpenOffice.org

OpenOffice.org, which is also free of licensing cost, is the counterpart to MS-Office, which the Magistrat currently uses. It can be installed in a cross-platform fashion on both WIENUX- and MS-Windows-PCs, an can be used in parallel to MS-Office under Windows2000. OOo comprises the programs Writer (for writing documents), Calc (for making tables), Impress (for presentations), Draw (drawing program), Base (DB module) and Math (scientific formula editor).

Making experiences

In order t

Re:when sahll we have a critical mass?

[XTbushwakko]

I agree that Dell pushing linux as the main OS and Windows as an expensive addon would be better. However it's very unlikely.

Even if, for example, DELL started offering Linux as an alternative, most people would probably stick with what they know, MS Windows. Sure, the market share of Linux would increase, but I don't think it would be widely used by your average consumer.

Well, that little market share increase would be in the newbie/inexperienced/regular joe sector.

If like one inexperienced guy could get a linux alternative from a "trusted" source like Dell and then being able to tell his friends it suddenly is main-stream. It's a whole lot diffrent then a newbie which has gotten linux pushed on him by his geek friend (read: me).That user will think he's using a hard to use OS, while if Dell sold it to him, he'll think of it as an alternative. AND he'd probably have support.

Difficult to overstate the importance of this

[SimianOverlord]

I don't think many slashdotters really realise the significance of Wien, and so the importance of this move. I don't blame them, Wien is part of the German speaking world, and so the local importance of the city and its habits is really only appreciated by German speakers like myself and not the general readership. Let me just say - this is very significant indeed.

Historically, Wien has always been to the german speaking world what Carthage was to the Greeks - the centre of learning and the export of culture and ideas. Although its importance waned somewhat in the early 20th century, the Cold War and events since has cemented its position as the premier exporter of German business innovation.

So, instead of reading Wien in the summary above, in a few years you can read it as "Germany and Austria". My bet is, such is the influence of Wien, that a successful Linuks experiment will "trickle down" into emulation by a whole host of cities throughout the german speaking world. Linus deserves a pat on the back for his bargaining prowess.

Dubya, is that you?

[quarkscat]

"Choosy Italians Choose Linux! "

Dubya, is that really you on the other end?

Vienna is in Austria. You know, sorta like
Germany, but with less touristy places...
Okay, okay. Where Arnold the Governator is
from. Venice is in Italy -- the western end
of the Silk Road. Okay, okay. The city that
is sinking into its own sewage system.

Jeez, Dubya, open a geography book once in
a while, okay? Geography -- that's the study
of places and how its history and culture is
different (like Connecticut and Texas). Okay,
okay. Book -- Those kinda square things with
writing on the inside. A whole bunch of them
are used like a wall covering where you live.

(And our lesson is done for the day. Now
go outside and play some golf on the moors.
Dress warmly, Dubya, 'cause it gets cold and
damp in that place your at now (Scotland).)

Australian's even need to import wit

[NZheretic]

New Zealand Prime Minister Muldoon on the migration of New Zealanders to Australia in 1978 : "Trans-Tasman migration is great. It raises the IQ on both sides of the Tasman."

Simpsons, is there anything you haven't covered?

[IvyMike]

Principal Skinner: Whoever did this is in very deep trouble.
Martin: And a sloppy speller, too. The preferred spelling of `weiner' is W-I-E-N-E-R, although E-I is an acceptable ethnic variant.
Principal Skinner: Good point.