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Open Source Cities Followup — Munich Yea, Vienna Nay
We're catching up on two stories of municipal engagement with open source software: Munich (which decided to go OS in 2003) and Vienna (2005). E5Rebel brings us news that Munich has stayed the course. But bkingaut informs that Vienna has decided to migrate back to Windows (Google translation) — to Vista no less. The migration of 720 computers used in kindergartens will cost the city about €8M. The given reason for all this is a language test application for the kids that only works with MS IE and won't be made compatible (by the producer) with Firefox until 2009.
Who in their right mind makes something work on a browser that doesn't work well, but neglects to do it for a browser that is easier to develop for?
Seems to me it would be easier and cheaper to find test software that did not require IE.
OR even better, they could write some and help other schools going open source.
RTFA, they are also willing to pay 8M euros to someone writing the language test application instead.
Seems like a good price...
Sorry, reading the onion too much...
Comment removed based on user account deletion
The wonderful world of educational software. It is usually written by the most clueless and incompetent lowlife out there. It runs only on Windows, only on a specific version and is mandated and approved by the relevant government as mandatory.
It is the _REAL_ reason on why Microsoft is so prevalent.
Baker's Law: Misery no longer loves company. Nowadays it insists on it
http://www.sigsegv.cx/
"That's a major setback to the conversion to linux of the city.", Marie Ringler, a member of the district council and representative of the Vienna Green party, said to ORF.at. On Wednesday the Vienna district council will decide that the most important linux installation (720 computers) of the city council be migrated to Windows Vista. The corresponding proposal was made available to ORF.net
-----8,000,000 Euros for Microsoft-----
The MA 14, the body that is responsible for the city's IT-systems, has thus made available a budget of 8,000,000 Euros for the purchase of software licenses. These costs will be reimbursed to the MA 14 by MA 10 (kindergartens) and MA 56 (school administration).
The migration of the public authorities' computers from Windows 2000 and Office 2000 to Vista and Office 2007 will cost 7,600,000 Euros, and the purchase of 2,600 licenses for Windows, Office, and Server-software in Vienna's [Bildungsnetz] education network will cost 324,000 Euros. The changeover of the 720 kindergarten computers from the city-branded linux distribution "Wienux"* to Vista will cost around 105,000 Euros.
-----Language skill tests for children-----
The migration of the kindergarten computers is because of a piece of software that tests kindergarten children's language abilities is only available on the Internet Explorer platform. The makers will have a Firefox version of their product only by 2009, according to Ringler.
"The city could have gotten the company to get their version that runs on Firefox out the door faster with only a fraction of the money that the changeover to Windows will cost, Ringler said, who also accuses the city of not following the Open Source concept and not producing any incentive to migrate from Windows to Wienux. The city also missed the opportunity to subsidize the 1,000 companies that make open source software in the Vienna region.
In Fall 2008, the STOSS2 studies, which was initiated by Vienna and is concerned with the analysis of costs and benefits of using open source software in the city council, will be published.
-----The MA 14 continues to polish Wienux-----
Klaus Rohr, spokesman of the MA 14, confirmed the roll-back on Tuesday afternoon, which is to be completed in 2008. The most important reason for the migration from Linux to Windows is the availability of the aforementioned software only for Windows via Internet Explorer. But there have also been problems with hardware detection in linux, according to him.
But the re-migration to Windows doesn't imply that Wienux will die. The distribution is to be continued to be developed and distributed, according to Rohr.
-----SPÖ: "Wienux is not dead"-----
SPÖ-district councilor Siegfried Lindenmayr doesn't view Wienux as dead either. "Wienux isn't dead. The city of Vienna has used open source software since 20 years and will also continue to do so," he said to ORF.at. "The use of software isn't a question of ideology to us, however. The best educational software runs on Windows, and therefore we will use Windows in our kindergartens."
The city's general open source strategy hasn't changed. The MA 14 will continue to offer linux and install it wherever departments want it. * Wien is the German word for Vienna
Yahoo has an English story about the Switch to Vista in Vienna: http://messages.finance.yahoo.com/Stocks_(A_to_Z)/Stocks_M/threadview?m=tm&bn=12004&tid=1393970&mid=1393970&tof=3&frt=2
Who says IES4Linux isn't legal? Microsoft's EULA for IE states that all you need is valid license for a valid Microsoft Windows OS on each computer you install IE on.
There are numerous methods for obtaining such a license without directly paying for it.
My blog
How can you possibly say IE is easier to develop for then Firefox?
Either way it's HTML and CSS, it's just that one of them has a renderer that actually works, and the other is broken in a multitude of ways.
And that's not even getting started on things like Firebug, which makes it far easier to develop on Firefox then with IE's "something broke, I'm not going to tell you where" model of error reporting for Javascript.
What? When was the last time you heard of Microsoft providing support for IE?
Lets take the classic example of transparent PNGs, which took years to get fixed. And that's something that thousands of developers have been screaming for - I dread to think what would result if you called up Microsoft and said "I have a really specific problem, can you fix it?"
If you want support for Firefox there are forums, IRC channels, and a publicly viewable bug tracker. I'd imagine that if you waved enough money at them the Mozilla Foundation would be quite happy to get a problem you have fixed pretty damn quick as well.
To be fair: The migration of 720 computers used in kindergartens will cost the city about 105,000 euros not 8M.
First I thought this may have been a bug in TFTtranslation but It's even correct in TFTofTFA.
Just not in the teaser.
Actually transparent PNGs aren't really properly fixed in IE7 - try applying an Alpha filter to a transparent PNG and suddenly the transparency does not work anymore.
This is the nature of Microsoft's software and APIs - if you use it in uncommon ways, it breaks. I can give you such examples all day - JavaScript memory leaks in IE6 and IE7? How window.openPopup() requires weird hacks to work with domain relaxation? Flickering images at page load in IE6? The first BR tag in a block tag does not appear when the block tag has a background image? document.selection returns gives you a selection object from a different document object than the one you specified?
Add these to the fact that IE does not have free developer tools like Firebug, Safari Inspector and Drosera, and Opera Dragonfly available (notice how every significant competitor to IE has one)... I'd take the opinion of anyone who says "IE is easy to develop for" with huge pinch of salt. And please... trying to bully people with "I'm an experienced developer" in the technology world isn't a very smart thing to do.
I am dumbfounded that they are spending 8M Euro to make a switch primarily for ONE application. If you have that money to spend, tell the bloody web app vendor to fix their broken app or you will move to a competitor. Heck, I bet for substantially less than 8M you could sponsor an open-source project to CREATE A NEW APP FROM SCRATCH.
There is a story on the WKO (The Austrian Federal Economic Chamber) http://portal.wko.at/wk/format_detail.wk?AngID=1&StID=366673&DstID=0 , which is closely tied to MS, about the context where this software is used. The initiative which uses this software is sponsored by the WKO with MS as a partner. I suspect that the big advantage the Microsoft technology stack has, compared to other inferior offerings, is the reason that the product is working only with IE and not with any other browser
How exactly does it cost more than ten thousand dollars per computer to switch back to Windows?