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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.
Windows paid off the right people to switch back.
That said, open source software is great until you have to use it. OpenOffice, GIMP, KiCad...all needlessly convoluted.
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.
Better than Micro$oft Office 365.
Obvious solution: switch to ReactOS. Or, if that seems too time consuming, just install Gentoo.
Business people live and breathe Excel. They know what they are doing.
I've seen plenty of evidence that they don't.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
This is a glaring example of corruption at work. Microsoft bribes the council into shoveling millions back into Microsoft. I wish I could say something like, "how are these clowns not being thrown out of office?!" However, this is standard operating procedure in corrupt governments around the world.
Apparantly you are wrong, https://www.google.com.au/sear... leads to https://ask.libreoffice.org/en.... Wow that was really so hard.
Next step in this story should be a in depth investigation of why the new incoming politician pushed so hard on this apparently with zero consultation with his IT staff. Most probable, M$ paid them a bribe (campaign contribution) to push it, so the arse holes at M$ could use if for marketing purposed and the stupendously invasive POS windows anal probe 10, dies a slow grim death.
Chaos - everything, everywhere, everywhen
MS made a deal with Munich's mayors office to move its german headquarters to Munich. Wonder what the other side of that deal was...
Usually that job is to _advise_, but not to _undermine_ his bosses. Advising is something you do internally, not publicly.
Look, I get he cares about this. But if his bosses tell him to make sure application or OS get installed, it's his job to make it so - and not to bitch about it in public. If he doesn't like his job, I'm sure there are plenty of other people who will do it without complaints.
His bosses are the tax-paying citizens of Munich. If he has the idea that the process by which the os was chosen is wrong, he almost has an obligation to express his opinion.
There are reasons why certain decision-making is private, but especially in a public organisation, there shouldn't be too many. I don't see why a decision on windows vs linux shouldn't be transparent for everyone.
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.
Is there a "word processing mode"?, or "content mode"?
When we hit return twice to space out paragraphs, it's because that's easier and in the mean time the paragraphs are spaced out, like we intend to.
If we're not supposed to do that, so much as it's considered harmful, maybe there should be a GUI mode where you're constrained from doing that. You hit enter and it doesn't let you go down one more line unless you do something "right" like introduce a new paragraph, section, page break etc.
If word processors default to being a typewriter, and the proper way of using it (even since the 90s) is an "advanced" feature that requires going into menus and trying to figure out what the hell a "style" is, while a single manual adjustment breaks it all, then maybe the design of word processors is flawed.
Depends on what office environment you are in. Everyone in my company uses office 2013 and up. All our documents come across as docx. I hardly ever see a plan doc, document in the wild any more.
I read at +2. If your post doesn't reach that level I will not see or respond to it.