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Munich Open Source Switch 'Completed Successfully'
Qedward writes "Munich's switch to open source software has been successfully completed, with the vast majority of the public administration's users now running its own version of Linux, city officials said today. In one of the premier open source software deployments in Europe, the city migrated from Windows NT to LiMux, its own Linux distribution. LiMux incorporates a fully open source desktop infrastructure. The city also decided to use the Open Document Format (ODF) as a standard, instead of proprietary options. Ten years after the decision to switch, the LiMux project will now go into regular operation, the Munich City council said."
This is a pleasant surprise.
Hopefully the near 12 million pound savings can be expanded upon and cause others to follow suit.
Either give it away or get top dollar, but never sell yourself cheap.
The decision to prefer ODF as the document format is my favorite part here. Office and its DOCX format is pretty much the last big thing holding people to the Microsoft monoculture. More ODF files should be put into circulation in the business world.
I tend to believe Munich more on this, because they can actually point to real numbers from the real world, while Microsoft's claims are based on speculation and estimates.
In each large organisation (and Munich's administration has 15000 seats), you don't roll out the software as it comes from the vendor, you always customize and put your own addons while removing parts you don't need or consider dangerous. So I would expect the work you have to do to tweak a Microsoft install for your organisation to be on par with modifying a Linux distribution to fit your needs.
Munich Open Source Switch 'Completed Successfully'
Excellent, now the Microsoft shills and lobbyists can really get started with their...
Doing this sort of thing to spite Microsoft is silly.
Oh, I see. Already in progress. Wow, Microsoft really IS becoming a leaner, faster company!
No tablet interface shoehorned onto your desktop because Steve Ballmer says so...
== Jez ==
Do you miss Firefox? Try Pale Moon.
10 years is a long time to switch
Seems quick to me... where I work, I saw it take ~8 years for a modestly complex VisualBasic application to be replaced with a .NET one. These sort of transitions take place in an environment with a lot of moving parts and ongoing demands for change and many competing priorities. Heck, we're just now to the point of completing the Windows XP --> Windows 7 transition. Big organizations move slowly... sometimes for reasons that are dumb, but frequently because that's the only way to do it.
-1, Too Many Layers Of Abstraction
I know this is Germany and there are no software patents but why would that stop Microsoft (or some MS funded troll) from trying?
They simply can't let the public know that whatever it is, it can be done with F/OSS and if it can't now, a project can be launched and funded to pay for it... ONCE! Not over and over and over again, by the seat, by the user, by the processor or however a software might be licensed. It's just better. But people have grown pretty fat, dumb and lazy and are willing to just let the product vendors tell us all how to work and what is good and what is safe.
Also, the dairy counsel says we need more milk in our daily intake, Monsanto says their stuff is perfectly healthy and that HFCS doesn't cause any problems either.
How on earth can a properly skeptical person ever believe that letting the people who profit the most from a thing tell us what's best?
Microsoft's claims are based on speculation and estimates and blatant self-interest.
FTFY.
You write as though this point is the end of possible cost savings. In the future, there will be no more Windows licenses, no more CALs to buy. No more Office licenses.
More importantly, no (or perhaps fewer) vendor(s) with a lock-in that prevents effective price negotiations and, for those that do have lock-in, a very credible threat that they will be replaced if they refuse to play ball.
The real "Libtards" are the Libertarians!
You write as though this point is the end of possible cost savings. In the future, there will be no more Windows licenses, no more CALs to buy. No more Office licenses.
More importantly, no (or perhaps fewer) vendor(s) with a lock-in that prevents effective price negotiations and, for those that do have lock-in, a very credible threat that they will be replaced if they refuse to play ball.
Also no tying up tech staff with juggling licenses in fear of the Spanish Inquisition, er software license audits.
And it only took Munich ten years to upgrade - at that rate Linux will bury Microsoft in just a few years...
This is an interesting "glass is half-empty or half-full" issue:
Linux "advocates" will focus on the "switch completed" part of the story, MS advocates will focus on the TEN YEARS and their "need" to create their own distribution.
No CIO in any organization of any serious size will look at this ten year effort as anything other than justification for their decision to remain on MS software.
This is declaring our dependence on gasoline is almost upon us because one fellow in town just converted his diesel VW Rabbit to run on used cooking oil.
Linux is 20 years old and has less than half the market share of Microsoft Vista... (3.57% v. 1.56%)
Ken