Slashdot Mirror
Some European Moves Towards Linux
Readers VE3OGG and FFFFHALTFFFF write in with three pieces of a global picture that is emerging of governments and corporations moving away from Microsoft and towards open source. First, France: the French automaker Peugot Citroen has announced that over the next several years they will be integrating up to 20,000 Novell SUSE desktops as well as 2,500 SUSE servers into their facilities. (Let's hope that, in Novell, Peugeot Citroen hasn't bought a lemon.) Next, Sweden: the Swedish Armed Forces has made a decision to migrate its Windows NT servers to Red Hat Enterprise Linux. Finally, Russia. VE3OGG writes: "It would seem that after the recent Russian piracy debacle that could see a school headmaster jailed in a Siberian work camp for purchasing pirated copies of Windows for his school, the Ministry of Education in Russia has decided that the school boards will no longer be purchasing any commercial software."
How soon before MS does an about face on "helping" that teacher out?
When do we get to meet this mystery European?
2^4 * 3 * 20929
That's what I would do. If I was the Ministry of Education.
I even said so, sort of. Funny how this was not moderated as all.
Does anyone have any operating system usage statisitcs that are actually reliable. It seems that any pro - windows site (www.microsoft.com) would have you believe that the windows monopoly is as healthy as ever whilst we also hear news like this showing systemic adoption of Linux based operating systems across multiple sovereign nations.
prepare the survey weasels.
The sooner Microsoft goes away, the better off we will all be. ...
I quit using their crappy products at Windows NT, and I really
don't miss the "Blue Screen of Death", viruses, malware,
A topic has been posted with the word 'Russia' in the description. Prepare for a barrage of 'IN SOVIET RUSSIA...' jokes
...when you can't afford any real software.
It's funny because it's true. The Russians aren't switching away from WIndows because they want to.
Although it sounds very grand when whole countries or states or cities make a lot of noise about switching to open source software, if you follow them to the conclusion it always seems to work out the same: they end up sticking with Microsoft. I suspect that Microsoft comes in a makes them a sweet deal (maybe they'll open the source code a little, maybe they'll drop the price) and in the end they stick with Microsoft. As more and more groups do this, I think it's just part of the negotiation.
"We've already established what you are, ma'am. Now we're just haggling over the price."
Which European? He must be pretty important to get a Slashdot frontpage notice.
ShoutingMan.com
It would be a shame to waste this opportunity. Is there a LUG in the Perm region that could step in and offer some support?
I don't care why you're posting AC
there are how many people in europe? And we get some anonymous European to move to linux?!?
Thanks to file sharing, I purchase more CDs
Thanks to the RIAA, I buy them used...
I never get used to these constant resurrections
Citroen, lemon. Ha! Funny on so many levels!
Let's just hope the Russians don't decide to accept a deal from Microsoft for cheap software, ultimately if they do that they're just setting themselves up for future problems down the line. When funds are tight it is very useful to be able to have software where it's legal and encouraged to copy it. The amount of piracy that goes on with Microsoft products just shows how much that people consider Windows the only option, once they have other choices then more people are going to go for free and legal over free and illegal.
Back when I was a student Linux was a great way to free and easily get all the tools needed to learn Perl and C. The documentation on the internet provided most you'd need but I still bought a few O'Reilly books for reference, I learned a lot more using Linux in the 90's and using Linux gave me the skills to get a better paid job when I left university, people coming out with only Windows skills do not get the same salaries.
Some people say that teaching Linux in schools is a bad thing as the commerical world is all Microsoft on the desktop. That's total rubbish too, people should not be taught 'Word' they should be taught general word processing skills and preferably be exposed to a few alternative apps so they don't think there's only one way to do it. Versions of Microsoft applications change the UI between versions so even if they do end up working at a Microsoft shop they'll adapt better to the changing UI's between versions. Also a better all round education will open up alternatives to businesses, if the staff are better trained then switching to alternatives will be easier, it can save the economy a fortune in the future.
I thought that Linux was always bigger than MS in Europe already, was I wrong? With SuSE being originally from Germany and many other local distros, MS was fighting more of an uphill battle to get into European nations. Kind of makes me want to move overseas so I can work with a good stable OS and stick it to Bill Gates and the Legion of Doom...er...Microsoft.
It would seem that Microsoft's campaign against the poor, Russian school teacher backfired miserably. Microsoft has now incurred the wrath of the Russian government and has just locked itself out of a market. That's a real smooth way to do business and has just opened the flood gates for open source software. Bill Gates' tacit denial of Gorbachev's appeal shows an utter lack of foresight and has caused an ultimate loss for Microsoft. And all of this occurred because Bill wanted to make an example of a poor, Russian school teacher whom was using Windows, not for commercial gain, but for education. If Microsoft were wise, they would have provided free, genuine copies because this teacher is educating future Microsoft consumers. Instead, they caused alienation, and, as anyone can tell you, alienation is a bad thing. So now, Red Hat has the chance to build loyal users. Go Red Hat!
Clearly MS hasn't learned its lesson yet. While I don't begrudge MS for trying to protect their copyrights against piracy, they do need to learn about subtlety. Does Ernie Ball come to mind? Ernie Ball had more copies than licenses; they didn't keep up with the licensing like they should have, and they admitted it. They were a good MS customer and would have preferred to work with MS on any licenses problems. But raiding their offices with armed federal marshalls? Now, they're a Linux shop. MS lost a good customer and got bad PR. All for 70 something licenses that Ernie Ball would have glady paid for had it had the chance.
Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.
In America, you purchase commercial software In Soviet Russia, commercial software purchases you!
Purchasing and paying for other people's work and efforts is the core of healthy society. Anything else ruins it.
Peugot Citroen can use the savings. They had a bad year and are about to slash jobs. They make brilliant cars though. When the DS http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Citroen_DS came out in 1955, the rest of the world was stil in the stone-age. Without any of the fancy stuff, my Saxo does 25 km on a liter of diesel, (that is 58 miles to the gallon for you gas-guzzlers!).
10 ?"Hello World" life was simple then
In Sweden one university was thinking of switching to Linux - a couple of days later it got a sweet deal from Microsoft.
According to rumours they got a 90% rebate on the normal licensing fee for software.
Just saying it like it are.
In other news, vendors are likely to drop prices when in fear of losing customers.
Global warming is a cube.
I'll never find out, but it would be good to know if the deal between Novell and Microsoft figured strongly into the desktop selection.
The adoptions sound good, but when money is involved there's a "winner takes all" environment which I think Microsoft wants to promote. Later on, they can assimilate or crush them easily.
http://www.maxineudall.com/2010/02/should-economists-be-sued-for-malpractice.html
All of these groups didn't stick with MS: http://www.linux.org/info/linux_govt.html
Please explain where that's Russia's problem.
Real Daleks don't climb stairs - they level the building.
Well I am not to suprised or shocked. If I was running IT Services For a University or any company of consequential size. I would always keep Linux on the table as an option. Keep that Option rather public and go to Microsoft "can we make a deal". That way you can Get MS Products for Cheap and you will not need the expense to migrate over. But the work before that is not that easy you need to make sure you can switch to Linux in case the deal goes bad (never threat unless you are willing to act).
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
Typical slashdot. How is this news? One lousy European guy goes the way of the penguin and there's a national party. I won't be happy till I see some balance restored with a huge article called 'Some chick buys a copy of Vista'. Or at least 'Seven year old finds Mac OS moderately appealing'.
Should work even better than the old successful IBM FUD piece "Nobody has been fired for buying IBM". And like good FUD pieces, it has some truth in it.
The summary implies that all schools in Russia will be switching over.
But the linked article only says that schools in the Perm region will switch to Linux.
This wasn't some case that Microsoft could decline to prosecute. In fact, Microsoft declined to assist with the prosecution in this case.
Given the extent of rampant copyright violation that goes unpunished in Russia, I'm more likely to believe this case was the result of someone trying to make a political point, either against copyrights or because of a personal grudge, rather than that of the police legitimately pursuing a copyright violator.
Mmmm.. Donuts
Re: the parent post - RTFA: "Rather than attacking mobsters who peddle pirated copies of Windows directly to companies, the Russian coppers decided to lock up a Sepich headmaster who bought hot Windows software which came from Perm region's Capital Construction Administration.... Microsoft says that the incident has nothing to do with them..." I can well belive that last part. M$ carefully treads a fine line between being too repessive in developing countries, (where they are secretly delighted that people grow up using pirate XP, which they will then specify in later life, rather than linux etc.), and looking too 'soft'. As for M$ negotiating when open source is in competition - it's true. A while ago I was part of a very large Govt. project in a former Soviet-bloc country, where both the EU and the USA were competing for influence using the normal peacetime weapons of aid etc. A strategic Govt. project was half rolled-out using XP as the client platform. When I audited, there seemed to be no valid licences on the 100s of PCs that were deployed. This was clearly a problem, as money was tight, but the Govt. could not be seen to be using pirate software, especially as it wanted to join the EU etc. Since the app was incomplete - and users untrained - I suggested a re-write using open-source. This would have had the spin-off benefit of 'seeding' linux development and support skills in the country. Strangely, the licencing problem went away...
Isn't that how they got into the problem in the first place?
Having said that, it will be excellent if this incident helps people to look at the alternatives to piracy.
Like another poster said, some groups actually do switch to Linux. Still, I think it's a very good sign that Microsoft isn't calling the bluff of these organizations; It shows that Microsoft takes the Linux threat very seriously, and legitimately believes that they would lose a big customer if it didn't start negotiating. I think as we see closed source solutions like Windows become more obtuse and riddled with the sorts of DRM issues that a lot of poor organizations can't afford to deal with (a la Vista, to an extent), we'll see Linux and other open solutions become more common in these poorer markets.
That said, even having every Russian school switch to Linux is not going to make 2007 the "Year of Linux on the desktop." It helps, but until Linux becomes common in the US and Europe in general will Microsoft feel threatened in the desktop market.
The summary says that "the Ministry of Education in Russia has decided that the school boards will no longer be purchasing any commercial software", while the article says: "Schools in the Perm region will soon quit buying software from commercial companies, said the region's Education Minister Nikolay Karpushin." Perm Krai is just one of over 80 federal subjects in the Russian Federation.
Drink with them, make friendship, du not fully trust them, too many crooks, but many also are nice, make business with them, but never every try to be arrogant against them or bully them. They are very proud people, and the usual american arrogance is not really accepted. (I am not russian and live in central europe btw.)
The russian mentality in many ways is somewhat different to the usual western mentality, you really have to be open to keep friendships with them or generally deal with them and you have to learn their ways to some degree.
Excellent! This is exactly the kind of strong government action we need to see more of. Obviously the Russian government sees quite clearly that Windows' DRM, lack of security, and general brokenness presents both an economic and security threat to the state, and is willing to take a stand to prevent this cancer from spreading any further. I think anybody who voluntarily buys a copy of Windows deserves to spend time behind bars, and now it's time for Western governments to step up to the plate and make this a reality.
There is a spellbook here; eat it? [ynq]
From 2004 : " Uppsala universitet betalar mindre än en tiondel av ordinarie pris för Office. " , which translate to English as "The University of Uppsala pays less than a tenth of the ordinary price for {MS} Office"
Word on the street was that UU was going to go completely FOSS, or at least completely non-MS, on its workstations. Many other institutions were heading that way until 2000-2002. Turku was a notable case, but there were quite a few others that weren't able to move even that far before MSofters flew in and thus didn't get as much press.
Other bad decisions were made around that time, too: People got sold a lot of junkj hardware, too: gross income deduction in exchange for last year's hardware, at this years full retail prices, delivered 6 to 12 months from now. That gross income reduction cuts rather deeply into the pensions, given the new pension system.
It would be useful, though nearly impossible, to find out all the places that have been trying to dump M$ junk since 1998, but have been threatened with raids, or threatened with audits, or given 95%+ discounts in order to keep or extend the lock-in. As you can see it's been part of the business model for a long time. The BSA/FAST raids seem not just about licensing but about even getting rid of non-MS commercial software.
Beta is broken and the link to classic doesn't work. Stop wasting our time or there won't be anybody left here.
When I read a sentence containing the words "Peugeot", "Citroen", "Novell" and "lemon", I don't usually associate the word "lemon" with the word "Novell."
Now "Citroen" and "lemon" have a lot in common.
"Peugeot" and "lemon" have even more in common.
"Man is nothing without the works of man" -- Helvetius
Since when is Russia in Europe?
Yo mama so fake, she failed the Turing Test.
Remember this day, because it's the day that Russia starts breeding a second generation of programmers far, far ahead of anything our broken school sytem can ever produce.
So some European moves towards linux? Big deal... this is big news but when some Asian or some American moves in a certain direction towards a box of software it's not reported on Slashdot.
http://kitties.b-log.ca
It's GNU/Linux. Duh.
I think you are exaggerating things. How good must be any deal from Microsoft to be competitive with supposedly better and completely free software ? How come you can convince anybody to pay any, even miniscule price, if one can have a better product without paying a single $ ? M$ simply has much better product for the desktop, period. That is why you see succesfull switch to Linux mostly on the server side around the world but you see very little on the desktop side unless it is used for very limited set of clerk type applications such as City government etc. Most people use OS to run other software and hardware products and in the end they care less what is the underlying OS that allows them to run those. Linux simply cannot compete with quality and quantity of applications and harware products available for Windows.
JAM
In other news, vendors are likely to drop prices when in fear of losing customers.
Yes, but 90%? I've been in a position similar to that and after negotiating back and forth toward a price where I felt I was getting good value, they claimed they couldn't go any lower. They got wind I was looking very closely at one of their competitor's products and they gave a 25% discount on their "firm" price. I was insulted, and they did not get my business because of that. If the original vendor had held firm on their price I probably would have gone with them (their competitor's product was priced very similarly), but suddenly being able to lose another 25% on their price when it was already claimed it was as low as they could go... How can I trust anything they'd say, whether it be support or expansion or anything?
But 90%... Jesus...
The artice about the adopting Linux in Russia is not really true. The story with the arresting the school director has got a bit of public attention, so the community of Russian Linux users started an initiative (sorry, the blog entry in in Russian, here is a google translation) to help teachers getting more knowledge about Linux. Many Russian LUGs are participating, but, really there not that many techers, who are willing to adopt Linux.
..Some Europeans Move in with Linus
-- www.globaltics.net
Political discussion for a new world
How about "Some moves towards linux by Europe" or "Europe makes some moves towards linux." These capture the essence of the original without being confusing. However, they are still kind of dumb. The concept is that more people or agencies in europe have been using Linux. "Moves towards" isn't the best way of poutting this. "More Agencies in Europe Adopt Linux" or "Linux Usage Rising in Europe" would have been much better.
"Some Lazy Editor Moves Towards Cheetos." Why do I suspect that these guys really just want to sit on their asses all day playing video games while the money pours in and they do as little as possible? I know the submitter probably wrote the headline, but that's what editors are for: editing.
I feel like the editors resent everything they actually have to do, like they are some kind of royalty and we are the peasants whose duty it is to support them. Hmm, I wonder if slashdot editors get Primae Noctis rights?
- None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
but the title is correct.
I guess we could call this a typically "Russian Incentive". Use Linux or we'll ship you to the Gulag. Oh well ... every country has its traditional ways of motivating people. It's probably a "cultural" thing.
grammar joke...
My problem? I was perfectly gruntled, until some numbnuts came by and dissed me.
It's a widely spread misundertanding that you need to be special to your customer. Please understand that you only care about *marketshare* and about *margins*. Not about "the customer". If you work in a business where customers have names and faces, then _yes_
And unless you really need to grow "organically" there is no percentage in offering better terms than the competition other then where it doesn't cost you much and costs are directly controllable
The point is that MS already *has* the marketshare, they're just not getting the sales. So if you do revenue projections, your spreadsheet will contain a large number of people who run an illegal copy of Windows. Multiplied by list price this shows enormous potential sales
So err
Sounds like we need to paradrop some bearded Linux hackers into the Perm region for an emergency education operation. Some of the heavier ones may need two parachutes.
Ceci n'est pas une sig.
It made me wonder about the profit margin Microsoft has on this software.
I know that in general the price of retail software is as virtual as you can possibly imagine it, but still.
The real question then is: if all their software would be sold at 90% discount, would Microsoft still have a profitable software business?
I'm sure that the answer to that is still a wholeheartly "Yes!".
News about the Kettle Open Source project: on my blog
"(Let's hope that, in Novell, Peugeot Citroen hasn't bought a lemon.)"
Let's hope that Slashdot contributors stop behaving like crazed fundamentalist idiots at the mere mention of Novell's SuSE Linux (which rocks by the way) because of an agreement to share technology with Microsoft.
Novell has fscked up in lots of ways but SuSE Linux isn't one of them.
Tubby or not tubby. Fat is the question
Yes, but ONLY because they're on virtually every machine on the planet. If they, for instance, only had 10% market share they more than likely could not supply the same product with a 90% discount.
Check out my lame java blog at www.javachopshop.com
If they're buying lemons, shouldn't that be Peugeot Citron?
One swallow does not a fellatrix make
Rumours of this kind are usually based on decisions regarding systems used for administration, and they consitute a minority of all workstations.
The same is even true for most larger companies. I'm currently with a big well-known Swedish firm that has previously taken strategic decisions to be "all MS", and sure I have a Windows laptop which I usually read email on. Only, I haven't bothered to start it since the harddrive broke down and the support staff replaced it. All real work is done on a Sparc Solaris and an AMD SuSE Linux workstation. In fact, our unit does not even use Word, but Framemaker for technical documentation, but that is not popular at all with our IT management.
The world is not black or white.
See, I've corrected the subject for you.
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
You are completely wrong. Those deals are never about paying $$$ versus getting for free. These large users almost always want support contracts, and those are never free, although often cheaper than list-price Windows with support contracts. This isn't about MS having a better "product for the desktop". It is about costs of migration and the support contract being undercut by Microsoft when they fear losing a large customer. In addition, convincing a customer that has gone public about a possible migration to Linux to remain with Microsoft enables Microsoft to spin it in the direction of "the migration failed, and they are going back to (or staying with) Windows".
... a note pops out that reads: "The parachute for this pack was proprietary and therefore not included. A more free and open parachute is in development on parachuteforge and will be ready for beta testing probably sometime in the next six months. Developers and seamstresses are welcome to volunteer."
Sorry, couldn't help it. I can hardly stop laughing hard enough to post about Bruce Perens and his chute, but he surely has insurance.
I only look human.
My mother is a halfling and my dad is an ogre, so that makes me an Ogreling
This is great news!
Surely if I was a former superpower, and still a very large and important country in my own right, my government would also be concerned about the security risk of using a closed source operating system. Who knows what backdoors are inserted in Windows at the behest of the US government?
A country like Russia would have the resources to do something about it.
An investment in OSS by such a large country has a much larger impact than trying to compete with MS with your own government funded closed source outfit. If you succeed in getting your country off the MS teat, you can create a positive feedback loop. Once you succeed, other countries will copy you. Firstly, the security advantage. Secondly, the cost. The desktop computer is largely a solved problem by now. There is no inherent need for a never-ending upgrade cycle; that need is Microsoft's. Planned obsolescence is much more difficult in a product that doesn't rust.
If you succeed, you will also likely destroy what ever advantage the US govt (if any) has in computers all over the world running Windows. (Of course, there is still the google monopoly to contend with. I suppose if you can send a schoolteacher to Siberia, it wouldn't be so hard to simply block google nationwide while you build your own competitor. But that's another story.)
If I have seen further it is by stealing the Intellectual Property of giants.
It has nothing to do with DRM, lack of security or anything of the kind. they are droping windows only because of legal issues(they don't want to go to jail).
When Geiger counters are outlawed, only mutants will have Geiger counters
It is certainly true that some people might use Linux as a negotiating strategy; in fact, I would argue that a CIO that doesn't try this manoeuvre is failing due diligence :)
I am sure that there are cases where people failed to execute the Open Source strategy, and in the resulting retrenchment MS gained the customer back. Management support is another issue: the first ever FOSS implementation back in mid-1990's was Greg Wettstein's Roger Maris Cancer Center. Sadly, a management change resulted in Dr. Greg leaving, and the Center switched back to MS. No IT implementation is ever finished or permanent, so changes forth and back should not be a surprise. Really large installations, of course, require some sort of commercial support which has been hard to come by, but between Novell, IBM and RedHat one can find it now.
I think it is clear by now that a FOSS switch is quite possible given a reasonable budget, competent execution and management support---all the factors required for the success of any project.
I think we've found Linux's new World Domination(tm) strategy.
That's one hell of a motivator...
Slashdot gets worse every day... Pipedot: News for nerds, without the corporate slant
i first interpreted it as "a random guy, of indeterminate european descent, took a step towards linux". in other news, i am thinking about switching to decaf.
sarcasm:
-noun
1. harsh or bitter derision or irony.
Although it sounds very grand when whole countries or states or cities make a lot of noise about switching to open source software, if you follow them to the conclusion it always seems to work out the same: they end up sticking with Microsoft. I suspect that Microsoft comes in a makes them a sweet deal (maybe they'll open the source code a little, maybe they'll drop the price) and in the end they stick with Microsoft. As more and more groups do this, I think it's just part of the negotiation. Yes, but it is a procurement strategy that pays off. They should invest in open source to reduce their procurement costs. AOL invested in Mozilla, then Microsoft paid AOL for using the IE engine. That's the way open source business is fun. Open source business is about saving costs. And it saves our government a whole lot of money if they have an alternative product which is somehow mature. Let governments dump 50 million$ on OpenOffice which would result in much less software procurement costs, not to mention all the nice new partnerships and top jobs for current government officials.
[*] To preempt the TANSTAAFL crowd, I paid no money at all for Linux. The bandwidth and disc space expended have absolutely nothing to do with the IP involved, nor with funding the product's creation, which is what this AC was on about.
which European and where did Linux go? sorry. next time I should probably RTFSummary.
Which European is moving toward Linux?
I write English good! All our article is professional.
Sorry to feed the troll, but you're a asshat.
But it drives the users to Linux - good.
I'm confused.
...sure I have a Windows laptop which I usually read email on. Only, I haven't bothered to start it since the harddrive broke down and the support staff replaced it. All real work is done on a Sparc Solaris and an AMD SuSE Linux workstation. In fact, our unit does not even use Word, but Framemaker for technical documentation,That was rather common before 1999 and is experiencing a renaissance as people are starting to look for a way to use computers to get work done rather than as an end in themselves. The most productive shop I passed through, both in terms of deliverables and SEK/EUR brought in, ran a mixture of Solaris and Debian for both workstations and servers. It, by the way, outlasted the dot-bomb era with more money than was good for it, a condition which ultimately brought on the carpetbaggers and, subsequently, demise. Currently getting good use out of OS X, Ubuntu and Debian at work.
... but that is not popular at all with our IT management.What's wrong with the IT management there? If the data is a in a well-documented format, then staff can use the tool that's most productive for them. No man-weeks spent on time wasters based on sending crates of money to Chairman Bill's representatives. Deliverables made in HTML or PDF any time the last 10 years and are still readable to this day.
The world is not black or white.
Nothing in the post said it was black or white. Ditching any remaining MS systems does not leave going to "linux" as the only option nor does it even rule out using closed source. There's still plenty of quality closed source products out there. They're just fewer and harder to find since MSoftologists starting having their way with trade journals through their advertising budgets.
Sure at a large enough university you will find all manner of systems, so nothing will ever be 100% gone, it can be so low as to be as good as gone.
Beta is broken and the link to classic doesn't work. Stop wasting our time or there won't be anybody left here.
Good - we need more pressure on Linux to tighten its security. Even the public exploits are too many, and many lesser distributions have a poor response time to patching. BSDs and even the proprietary Solaris are more secure in general, and if Linux catches up in this space (difficult with its development model, but entirely possible) it will be better for absolutely everybody, even people whose only contact with Linux is servers, even Microsoft who necessarily rely on a lot of Linux machines in the world to host software that unfucks Windows a little. So a higher adoption for Linux implies a higher pressure for security engineering and quality control, which is better for everyone. Monoculture should still be avoided, but most of the damage of monoculture can be negated by individual randomization like what OpenBSD has been doing by default for some time.
Sam ty sig.
If all their software is sold at 90% discount, it's no longer discounted, that's the new standard price. It's a marketing ploy to claim any different. So what they can do is increase the price tenfold, but continue charging the same, claiming they're giving everybody a 90% discount. Which is ridiculously stupid, and therefore is exactly what they'll do once somebody reads this post. Microsoft is much better at writing suicide notes than software or licenses.
Sam ty sig.
This is new to me, do you know what was the outcome?
Wait... how does that joke work again?
My company ( a big financial institution, let your imagination fly if you wanna guess) has hundreds of Linux desktops installed (thus why I am forced to post anonymously) as well as many servers, many of them using cutting edge technology.
:-) ) has no clothes, and many people are beginnning to notice.
The Emperor (that is MS, not a Penguin
If MS is forced to do hugh discounts in order to keep a client, eventually it does not make economic sense for wither party to chose based on price, and it would be features, support and quality what would win customers.
By offering cuts, MS is just delaying the inevitable: they will have to compete in quality.
It was Swedish for a good long time and still known as Åbo, though the importance of that died out a generation or two back. However, it's not an example for its geographical location or its history.
This is new to me, do you know what was the outcome?Old news. Maybe you can find some old articles.
Åbo was one of the first to investigate 'linux' back in the second round of F/OSS interest some years back. The first round, IMHO came with the web. The second around 1999/2000. The third now. Anyway, the sort version of the outcome is that MS was able to block (through the hardware vendor) the investigation long enough that they could rally top managers to let them "help" with the evaluation. Åbo had made too much noise and MS came in like a ton of bricks. After that, business and agencies around the world watched and learn that you don't say squat about your IT plans until they are already implemented.
Beta is broken and the link to classic doesn't work. Stop wasting our time or there won't be anybody left here.
Actually not in Vienna, Austria!
:)
I know firsthand that the government is really migrating, takes some time, but its on the way.
For example all kindergarten have allready been switched to Linux PCs! So even the youngest learn to use linux, I find this wonderfull.
And all new government applications, that i know, are web based, client SSL, fully compatible with linux.
All documents for download are currently PDF or RTF, so also compatible.
Give it some time
From TFA:
According to Karpushin, schools would start using freely distributed software like the Linux OS, Russky office and Open office desktop apps.
But what _is_ Russky Office???