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The City Of Munich Now Wants To Abandon Linux And Switch Back to Windows (techrepublic.com)
"The prestigious FOSS project replacing the entire city's administration IT with FOSS based systems, is about to be cancelled and decommissioned," writes long-time Slashdot reader Qbertino. TechRepublic reports:
Politicians at open-source champion Munich will next week vote on whether to abandon Linux and return to Windows by 2021. The city authority, which made headlines for ditching Windows, will discuss proposals to replace the Linux-based OS used across the council with a Windows 10-based client. If the city leaders back the proposition it would be a notable U-turn by the council, which spent years migrating about 15,000 staff from Windows to LiMux, a custom version of the Ubuntu desktop OS, and only completed the move in 2013...
The use of the open-source Thunderbird email client and LibreOffice suite across the council would also be phased out, in favor of using "market standard products" that offer the "highest possible compatibility" with external and internal software... The full council will vote on whether to back the plan next Wednesday. If all SPD and CSU councillors back the proposal put forward by their party officials, then this new proposal will pass, because the two parties hold the majority.
The leader of the Munich Green Party says the city will lose "many millions of euros" if the change is implemented. The article also reports that Microsoft moved its German headquarters to Munich last year.
The use of the open-source Thunderbird email client and LibreOffice suite across the council would also be phased out, in favor of using "market standard products" that offer the "highest possible compatibility" with external and internal software... The full council will vote on whether to back the plan next Wednesday. If all SPD and CSU councillors back the proposal put forward by their party officials, then this new proposal will pass, because the two parties hold the majority.
The leader of the Munich Green Party says the city will lose "many millions of euros" if the change is implemented. The article also reports that Microsoft moved its German headquarters to Munich last year.
Seriously, anyone using animation in a presentation is a disaster himself.
Achille Talon
Hop!
I would love an Ask Me Anything from some of the sys admins. I'd be curious how the switch went, the troubles or lack of them they had during and after the switch and why there is pressure to switch back to Windows.
I am starting my phd soon and when I do will have access to a discount office. There is no way in sweet hell I would use libre to write my thesis!
Well, a cheap office is nice for writing a thesis in. But writing a thesis in any technical field with MS Office (or Libre Office, or Apple Pages) is just masochism. That's what LaTeX is is made for.
Stephan
If web based services are what most office staff and bureaucrats use all day long, then you only need a browser. And Linux runs a browser just as well as Windows. And ChromeOS, if you can call it Linux, runs a browser way better than a desktop. (but that's about all it does)
Office software on a desktop is still a little better than the web based options. There isn't a huge difference in terms of capabilities and usability between Office 16 and LibreOffice, but the compatibility between the two is quite poor so it's best to pick just one. Throwing data into a spreadsheet, making some graphs, and slides is pretty much a solved problem on Windows and Linux. Web based stuff is a few steps behind, I anticipate in 3-4 years that it will be to a point that my company can switch (10000+ employees)
When you get into content creation that you have to think carefully about what OS to us. Desktop publishing, graphic design, etc.
“Common sense is not so common.” — Voltaire
I own a private museum with about 100 computer-driven displays and half a dozen admin/office PCs. Originally I used Linux for 95% of it. Ten years later I have 2 Linux boxes left and the rest are Windows 10. I used to believe all the pro-Linux arguments I'm reading again here, but in the real world there are just too many problems with Linux. It's not any one problem - it's the plethora of annoying niggles that eventually wear you down. For example:
- Unavoidable but incompatible 3rd party hardware and software.
- "Linux-compatible" versions of software that are just crap.
- Driver issues.
- Minor but frequent differences in the way MS Office docs are rendered.
- Browser rendering differences and problems with 3rd party websites (shouldn't happen but does - nothing I can do about that).
+ many, many more little things.
If I was a better sysadmin/programmer and enjoyed spending time addressing these issues then maybe I could make Linux work better. But I'm not and I don't, so Windows it is.