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Munich Migrating To Linux
Rockgod writes with a progress report on the open sourcing of the city of Munich's administration. From the article: "The capital of Bavaria plans to complete its current migration of more than 80 percent of its desktop systems by 2008 and says that the first users of open software in the city's administration are pleased with the initial results. On Tuesday, Munich's mayor Christine Strobel said at the Systems trade fair that 'up to now, we are very happy about the results' of the migration currently underway. 'I am not a computer geek, but I must admit that it was easy to switch to the new software,' she reported. By the end of the year, some 200 workstations... will be running on a special LiMux client. If everything runs according to schedule, most of the approximately 14,000 PCs will be migrated to open source in the next two years."
now the poor souls miss out on all that upcoming Vista goodness.
How long until some of our more major cities follow this approach?
Is it?
mt
Officer workers don't care what their system has as long as it can run (a) solitare and (b) popcap games.
Particularly government workers.
They'll never be able to read MSFT Word documents with embedded VOIP!
Sincerely,
Some MSFT spokesperson's reason why ODF is bad. (I can't find the reference)
Free Beer!
First off, they have to state what their requirements are. Just as with any other project.
Then they look at what is out there and how closely it matches those requirements and how much time/money would be needed to fill in the gaps. Munich decided to go with a Debian base with KDE and OpenOffice.org.
One of Munich's requirements seems to have been to become "independent of monopolists like Microsoft." In this, Debian's social contract would have been a major plus.
Over the next few years as we see more governments organizations (and some schools) moving to desktop Linux solutions, I think we'll see a corresponding upswing in home use. Maybe massive citywide conversions like Munich's will be the catalyst that the desktop Linux market needs to gain traction. For the everyday user, if they use Linux at work, they'll probably want to use Linux at home ... assuming they can get a distro that's easy enough to install and maintain.
I'm sure it's been discussed, but I think the risk of losing home users is the real impetus behind Microsoft basically giving away software to schools, and offering STEEP discounts to governments.
Crack - Free with every butt and set of boobs
"I am not a computer geek, but I must admit that it was easy to switch to the new software."
It's lines like these that give Linux more promise and hopefully brings out the "If they can switch, so can we" line of thinking among others.
Conversely, I'm sure Microsoft HATES lines like these.
Respect the laws of physics, for the laws of physics have no respect for you.
But the problem with home use is NOT about being easy to "install and maintain".
Home users tend to stick with whatever was pre-installed. Once you have a city using Linux, there is a financial incentive for OEM's to build boxes with 100% Linux friendly hardware and a nice recovery CD with all the Linux drivers on it. After all, a city buys a lot of computers and parts over the years.
But that's just the base platform. That still doesn't address the apps (games) that the home users will want to run. So the market will
I'm on 100% Ubuntu Edgy Eft and it handles everything that the average home user would do with the exception of games and certain IE-only websites.
From here, regarding Chicago:
Given that they're migrating their Solaris server boxes rather than Windows desktop workstations (as seems to be happening in Munich), I'm not sure if it's quite the same thing.
I can't believe how wrong they got the client name! ...LiMux?!
How about Munix? Doesn't it sound a lot better?
The thrust of this rather positive FA seems to be that user acceptance has been good, and the delays were caused by such things as legal concerns and complex negotiations with project partners. The indications are that a massive migration to desktop Linux is perfectly feasible. I think Wilhelm Hoegner's view that this project, by itself, will not cause an avalanche of further conversions will prove correct. That said, a few projects like this can dramatically change perceptions leading to major change over time.
Why is it taking too long? Isn't this information about 2 or 3 years old? I thought they had completed the migration.
They decided to go with Gentoo Linux couple of years back. They are still waiting for the damn thing to finish compiling
Rockgod writes with a progress report on the open sourcing of the city of Munich's administration.
Cool, I always wanted to change the city of Munich's administration. Does the mayor come with full source code?
Opus: the Swiss army knife of audio codec
They have migrated less than 200 work stations. Can we wait till the project actually approaches completion before deciding upon its success
Do not try to read the dupe, thats impossible. Instead, only try to realize the truth
What truth?
There is no dupe
One of Munich's requirements seems to have been to become "independent of monopolists like Microsoft."
The actual requirement was to avoid vendor lock-in, for which the free distribution of Linux is very useful. Red Hat and Novell don't have to be monopolists to present the same danger of exorbitant support fees and lack of choice.
Controlling complexity is the essence of computer programming. -Brian Kernigan
Except Germans call their city München and not Munich.
Oh, and there is no 'k'-sound in the proper german pronounciation.
It is better for Munich to move to Linux than
Linux to move to Munich.
The truth is an offense, but not a sin.------R. N. Marley
Actually you have hit on the major reason why Linux is not popular in many Business because "it is not like Windows". The real problem with Linux is while it can happily inter-operate with nearly all distributions of Linux and Unix, *nix OS's don't inter-operate well with MS Windows, due to fact that MS Windows does not have open formats while Linux not only has open formats it also has its source open for all to see. Unfortuantely the desktop will always be the hardest to migrate since many Business are very conservative, the lead to the acceptance of the Linux desktop will come first from Government.
The slow but steady adoption of Linux by Governments in Europe and Asia is not due to them being altruistic but pragmatic since the openness of the Linux (or all *nix) formats makes a great deal of sense and they are under scrutiny by their electorates and opposition (unless it is a dictatorship and then anything anti US business is acceptable) to cut costs. Once enough Government groups move to Linux, business and eventually the home user will follow.
There ain't no such thing as proprietary standards only proprietary formats. Standards are by definition open.
..is how well they managed to port some of the custom built applications. switching from word/excel to openoffice is not a big step, but some of these specialized pieces of software for government purposes (so far with a Win95 look and feel) were the tipping point in the success of a migration like that.
congrats to the munich mayor!
Munich is the Capitol of Bavaria, Germany. Bavaria is the high tech capitol of Germany and the richest state in Germany. They have always been ahead of the curve. It is no wonder that they are migrating to Linux and adopting open source software where it makes sense. With Munich being home of some of the largest high tech companies in the world, it would make sense for the government of Munich to adopt similar policies. I for one, praise Munich and it's government for thinking out of the box. The licensing fees they will save on Windows can certainly be spent better elsewhere.
Yahma
ProxyStorm - A Free, Anonymous apache based proxy service, for security minded individuals.
In my brother's surgery we've been on Linux ever since and the system runs smoothly with 16 diskless fat clients (http://132.230.4.73/trac/dxs). That being said, I'm kind of clueless when it comes to Windows administration. At my workplace however, I had to "take over" system administration of a seriously broken W2K setup. One W2K pro license and one Office 2003 license for 10 PCs. No server license although the "server" (no PDC, just a workgroup config) runs W2K server. I told my boss over and over again, that if someone digruntled about the company would run to the police or the BSA, he'd be in big trouble. This is simply being ignored. They'll tell me that it'd be too hard to switch to Openoffice because it's "too different". They won't let me buy a couple of Office and W2K licenses on ebay for maybe 1500 in order to save their arse. A Linux setup is completely out of question.
...)
The fact is, people don't have a clue, and never will - if I'd setup a system with a properly configured Samba-server, LDAP, Kerberos and imap, they'd still complain and blame me if the slightest thing broke (i.e. they had to learn a couple of new things). So I basically gave up and don't care any more if they lose data or get fucked by the prosecutor.
If people are willing to listen to you, or respect your technical expertise (our Linux system) it's relatively easy going. If they don't, don't waste your time. Let them have a very bad awakening one day (after all, you tried to explain
>Why is it taking too long? Isn't this information about 2 or 3 years old? I thought they had completed the migration. ;-)
--
Everything had to be translated, in Freestate Bavaria, Munich, they speak Bavarian, not German.
Also getting a Penguin to wear Lederhosen was no small feat.
...than cost-cutting is, in my opinion, cost retaining. Even if it costs were the same overall, F/OSS would be attractive to municipalities because they could find a local company(ies) to customize an operating system based on their chosen distro of Linux. Having your Software budget go off to America is kinda like if your entire police force were foreigners, and took their salaries home to spend them. And I agree with GP that home users would think Macintosh system 6 was the best operating system in the world if it were pre-installed on their machines.
My turnips listen for the soft cry of your love
He said he's Bavarian. He didn't say he lives in Munich.
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
This fits pretty well into the conclusion of http://www.psychocats.net/essays/linuxdesktopmyth. If you've got the time, please read the article.
:)
Personally I were delighted to discover http://www.system76.com/ and is looking forward for a Swedish reseller.