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Munich's IT Lead: 'No Compelling Reason' To Switch Back To Windows From Linux (techrepublic.com)
"The man who runs Munich's central IT says there is no practical reason for the city to write off millions of euros and years of work to ditch its Linux-based OS for Windows," reports TechRepublic. Long-time Slashdot reader Qbertino summarizes a German-language article:
Karl-Heinz Schneider, lead of Munich's local system house company IT@M, goes on to claim, "We do not see pressing technical reasons to switch to MS and MS Office... The council [in their recent plans] didn't even follow the analysts' suggestion to stick with using LibreOffice." Furthermore, Schneider stated that "System failures that angered citizens in recent years never were related to the LiMux project, but due to new bureaucratic procedures..." and apparently decisions by unqualified personnel at the administrative level, as Munich's administration itself states.
Um, it cost that much to switch to Linux? This can't be encouraging to other cities / governments. Exactly how was the money and time spent? Inquiring minds want to know!
...omphaloskepsis often...
Whenever I read stories like this, ie. Windows vs. Linux vs. OSX vs. it seems to always be from the perspective of the implementers or those looking to make a point about whether it can be done. Why not offer choice? Why the constant insistence that users must have the flavour of the day foisted upon them?
There is complexity in running an estate with multiple OS on offer but the truth is, any sysadmins capable of running a *nix infrastructure and operation should find supporting and mainlining other OS estates relatively straightforward.
In my personal life I make good use of all 3 mainstream OS and at work I have a choice which is made available all users too.
And with modern browsers offering productivity suites through web based platforms and file storage and infrastructure delivered via consolidated IaaS / AWS / Azure / Google Compute / NEOther why does anyone even care about the opinions techies have in regards to their own preferences.
Use what's right for you and let the technology work with your choice to ensure interoperability, security and information management. That's where the techies should focus.
Quidquid latine dictum sit, altum sonatur.
Not everybody needs complex spreadsheets, but even simple ones can be made a lot better with couple key features from Excel that seem to be missing in Open/Libre Office. The major missing thing is defining tables. It makes things so much easier to work with in Excel and OpenOffice has no equivalent feature.
Anthropic principle: We see the universe the way it is because if it were different we would not be here to see it.
The major missing thing is defining tables. It makes things so much easier to work with in Excel and OpenOffice has no equivalent feature.
Is there any benefit to that over simply adding another sheet/tab to the spreadsheet, besides making it prettier? That's not useless, but generally speaking if you are approaching the level of complexity where it matters, wouldn't you be better off with a webapp? I don't want to hand a user a spreadsheet they can break, ever, and I'm smart enough to select a different tab and enter some data into it.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Business people live and breathe Excel. They know what they are doing.
I've seen plenty of evidence that they don't.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Usually the people who complain that software B is hard to use have been using software A for 10 years and B is just different enough to throw them off constantly.
Exactly. I made the transition from Microsoft's suite to AO and LO almost seamlessly. I had to look up some things in their spreadsheet, but that might have taken up 15 minutes. since then. On the other hand, fixing documents from Windows to OSX was a regular part of operation, I probably spent months overall.
The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
AFAIK the new major of Munich boasts that he was the one responsible for Microsoft relocating their German HQ from Frankfurt to Munich so this is most definitely political and not technical.