Munich Delays Linux Conversion

It doesn't come easy writes "A short blurb over at The Register reports that Munich has decided to extend the pilot phase of their Linux migration project. One smart move mentioned: Many of their office workers will switch to OpenOffice on Windows first where it is comfortable, easing the transition."

Comments

Blarg - a non story

[Anonymous Crowhead]

Who here, who as ever worked on a large scale project, has not experienced delays?

Re:Open Office is Open Office... Or is it?

[stoanhart]

Proably because switching to OpenOffice will require enough people to relearn or do things they have always done differently. If they change the OS on them too, it is too much at once. Let them get used to OO first, then change the OS.

makes sense to me.

Re:Open Office is Open Office... Or is it?

[xploraiswakco]

Yes you are missing something, OpenOffice on both platforms is the same. The idea is the users will have a chance to get use to OpenOffice, before they have to get use to linux.

Which quite honestly is a bigger change than changing from M$ Office to OpenOffice.

The effect will be that they will be able to convert there templates and scripts while still using an OS they are comfortable with, then copy those Templates/scripts to there Linux setup once they are accustomed to OpenOffice.

You and I may have no problem changing OS'es just like that, but they are dealing with general users that wont be, and will simply be expecting there computers to just work.

Re:Open Office is Open Office... Or is it?

[einhverfr]

First, I am not at all surprised by this delay. Munich is undertaking something extremely massive. I figure it is going to take maybe 2-3 more years to make it happen. Undoubtedly this delay has happened because they have found that some of their internal apps/web apps/etc. don't work as well on Linux and they are working on porting them over. This is to be expected and is hardly the end of the world.

Secondly why migrate the apps first? Think about it. You want to make sure everything works. This usually means migrating in stages and slowly. The last thing you want to do is migrate everything all at once and then have to shut down everything for a month while you rebuild certain areas of your infrastructure. So you start with the easiest to replace areas (Mozilla/Firefox, OOo) and work down from there. You have some people on a pilot program using Linux and finding all the issues with it, and this makes it easier to migrate additional areas. Also moving everyone over to OOo as soon as possible makes a lot of sense because it helps the people on Linux use the same software as the people on Windows.

Ideally this pilot program would be done by those people with the least specific requirements and the fewest software tools they rely on. Once these users are stabilized, then you can expand the pilot to a larger group with slightly more complex needs. And so forth. I figure that a well orchistrated migration of a large organization will take at least 3-5 years to complete assuming all goes well.