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Munich Plans New Vote on Dumping Linux For Windows 10 (techrepublic.com)
An anonymous reader quotes TechRepublic:
The city of Munich has suggested it will cost too much to carry on using Linux alongside Windows, despite having spent millions of euros switching PCs to open-source software... "Today, with a Linux client-centric environment, we are often confronted with major difficulties and additional costs when it comes to acquiring and operating professional application software," the city council told the German Federation of Taxpayers. Running Linux will ultimately prove unsustainable, suggests the council, due to the need to also keep a minority of Windows machines to run line-of-business software incompatible with Linux. "In the long term, this situation means that the operation of the non-uniform client landscape can no longer be made cost-efficient"... Since completing the multi-year move to LiMux, a custom-version of the Linux-based OS Ubuntu, the city always kept a smaller number of Windows machines to run incompatible software. As of last year it had about 4,163 Windows-based PCs, compared to about 20,000 Linux-based PCs.
The assessment is at odds with a wide-ranging review of the city's IT systems by Accenture last year, which found that most of the problems stem not from the use of open-source software, but from inefficiencies in how Munich co-ordinates the efforts of IT teams scattered throughout different departments. Dr. Florian Roth, leader of the Green Party at Munich City Council, said the review had also not recommended a wholesale shift to Windows. "The Accenture report suggested to run both systems because the complete 'rollback' to Windows and MS Office would mean a waste of experience, technology, work and money," he said... The city's administration is investigating how long it would take and how much it would cost to build a Windows 10 client for use by the city's employees. Once this work is complete, the council will vote again in November on whether this Windows client should replace LiMux across the authority from 2021.
A taxpayer's federation post urged "Penguin, adieu!" -- while also admitting that returning to Windows "will devour further tax money in the millions," according to TechRepublic.
"The federation's post also makes no mention of the licensing and other savings achieved by switching to LiMux, estimated to stand at about €10m."
The assessment is at odds with a wide-ranging review of the city's IT systems by Accenture last year, which found that most of the problems stem not from the use of open-source software, but from inefficiencies in how Munich co-ordinates the efforts of IT teams scattered throughout different departments. Dr. Florian Roth, leader of the Green Party at Munich City Council, said the review had also not recommended a wholesale shift to Windows. "The Accenture report suggested to run both systems because the complete 'rollback' to Windows and MS Office would mean a waste of experience, technology, work and money," he said... The city's administration is investigating how long it would take and how much it would cost to build a Windows 10 client for use by the city's employees. Once this work is complete, the council will vote again in November on whether this Windows client should replace LiMux across the authority from 2021.
A taxpayer's federation post urged "Penguin, adieu!" -- while also admitting that returning to Windows "will devour further tax money in the millions," according to TechRepublic.
"The federation's post also makes no mention of the licensing and other savings achieved by switching to LiMux, estimated to stand at about €10m."
Microsoft put together a huge infrastructure in MS Learning to teach people to use and support their software. This meant that while you had to pay more to license their software, it was relatively easy to find people that could use and support their software. Because it's more challenging to "grow" people who can support open source software, their services have never come cheap. The most expensive part of any IT deployment is the geeks - reduce the cost of that (by prioritizing the creation of training material) and the cost of licensing your software really becomes a secondary concern.
As much as I am a vocal Linux supporter, the fact of the matter is that Linux has no comparable turnkey Office, Exchange, and Sharepoint killer.
Oh yes, there are comparable applications - but none of them work together in an easily managed way.
Until something unified and stable can actually compete with the ease of setup of Microsoft's office suite, Linux has no hope here.
So it looks like we'll be stuck with Windows Server and it's regular RDS server dropouts, printer spooler issues, DFS shares disappearing, and random Windows hangs for a long time into the forseeable future until someone can do something about it.
READY.
PRINT ""+-0
I'm not convinced that any respect was actually due the AC.
Cue the comments saying that LibreOffice is "as good as" MS Office and that Mozilla Thunderturd + IMAP is as good as Exchange.
Translating from German: "The right people have been greased, this will not happen again"
So Linux adds some dumb audio drivers, whereas Windows changes it's entire UI that makes even GNOME 3 look good. So you say, that Metro UI is for home users and not servers? Well, GNOME 3 and PulseAudio aren't for back office servers either. Your Red Hat server is going to run the same software from 10 years ago most likely, whereas Windows is bad at doing this.
You will often hear the Windows guru say "have you tried shutting it off and turning it back on?" Yes, sounds like a joke but it happens. But you don't hear that from the Linux guru.
KDE works just fine if you have enough RAM... typically 32G or more, but I will agree that it's definitely not for smaller systems.
Well, just tap that FUD keg and let the swill flow.
KDE works just fine on 4G or less. Often much less. 99% of Linux desktops have never even heard of 32G. Your statement is so bogus I seriously wonder what your purpose is posting it.
Windows 8, windows 10... suffering. Change not just for change sake but also with more instrumentation to spy on you, to advertise to you. Ultimate goal is that we pay a monthly fee AND we have to put up with commercials to use our own computer.
She was like chocolate when she drank... semi-sweet at first and then increasingly bitter.
what you end up with are 50,000 geeks all with completely different ideas of what a desktop environment should look like and going off and creating YADE (yet another desktop environment) instead of working together to make the one, true DE better and more usable.
I think that's a strength, not a weakness. Look at Ubuntu; they had this horror called Unity that was basically the Apple philosophy on Linux, a one-size-fits-none GUI that "knew better" than its users and wanted to have a similar experience for everyone, and it has been a huge failure.
You don't succeed in life by adapting your model to be a clone of the competition. You succeed by embracing your identity and providing a real alternative, not a discount runner-up.
As long as people can install free software and customize it the way they want, the Linux desktop is a winner. Let Microsoft worry about market share, who cares.
lucm, indeed.
This story encapsulates, with startling economy and elegance, everything that is wrong with our alleged Western "civilization". (The thing that Gandhi, when asked, said he thought "would be a very good idea").
Apparently expensive software costs less than free software. That's the basic truth here. Of course it is all dressed up with frills and furbelows: maintenance costs, training costs, blah di blah di blah.
But the fundamental assertion is that expensive software costs less than free software. And people believe that! Not so surprising, perhaps, in a world dominated by marketing, advertising, and political campaigning.
In a world where the authorities can utter such a startling piece of imbecility, "experts" can be found to support it with an impressive array of "facts" and "figures", and credulous multitudes can be found to believe it... how can you ever hope to accomplish anything honest?
"Aus so krummem Holze, als woraus der Mensch gemacht ist, kann nichts ganz Gerades gezimmert werden".
I am sure that there are many other solipsists out there.
Windows not likely to run a software from 10 years ago? Are you from some kind of a parallel universe? Windows backwards compatibility is legendary. Windows 10 is able to run most software written for Windows 95, but it is often very difficult to get a package from Debian Jessie running in Debian Stretch.
"It's such a fine line between stupid and clever" -- David St. Hubbins, Spinal Tap
And this attitude - why would user even need x - is exactly why Linux on desktop will never happen.
"It's such a fine line between stupid and clever" -- David St. Hubbins, Spinal Tap
Then they were also very smart people when they decided to switch to Linux.
Or does that notion conflict with your bias?
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Because Microsoft never inflicted Windows Vista and Windows 8 on the world. They didn't destroy a stable Office interface with the disaster known as the "Ribbon". Windows is totally stable, and immune to the whims of GUI designers looking to make their mark. /sarc
Seriously, this is a disease that affects the entire software community. However, Linux gives you the tools to minimize the problems. Granted, you won't escape SystemD easily, but Gnome is actually easy: choose a more stable desktop, like xfce. I've been using Xubuntu for ages - any changes to the desktop have been minor. There are a few hiccups in getting things configured, but even those hiccups have been stable for a long time.
I think the mistake that Munich has made is allowing such a large set of Windows computers to exist. This means that they are essentially maintaining two complete infrastructures, requiring two sets of administrators, support personnel who have to cover both worlds, etc.. They haven't ever finished their migration, and that is the real problem.
Enjoy life! This is not a dress rehearsal.
1) MS has been attacking this from the start. Every Linux misstep is amplified and scrutinized with a double standard.
2) Massive multinationals have more power than most governments and outlast political careers.
3) Early adopters pay an additional price; even at a higher price, Open Source is a long term game. Commercial is a perpetual subscription to a 3rd party's short term game, on their terms.
4) THE TREND IS TO THE CLOUD even MS is going that way! Internal services (indoor cloud?) also.
5) When everything can run in the browser (and most government software should) it doesn't matter what OS you use. So why pay for the USA to copy all your data and raise your security threat?
Democracy Now! - uncensored, anti-establishment news
For what it's worth, Munich's LiMux is running an ancient linux desktop - which is part of the problem and part of why (some) users don't like it. A more modern desktop like Linux Mint would probably be better received. And systemd has fuck-all to do with it, haters. As noted above, the servers are probably running RedHat. And, in fact, Munich's desktop is probably so outdated that it doesn't run systemd either.
That said, the fact that Munich had to decide on a desktop to use - and that desktop is now more or less orphaned software now isn't a good thing. If Munich's needs required a frozen, non-standard Linux desktop in order for everyone to run the same apps, that's gotta be a point against it. Then again, these folks were early adopters, and endured a long, painful learning curve. If they weren't facing political opposition (and bribes) to switch to Windows, they could probably migrate to a newer generation Linux desktop that works much better than what they're using now.
But ultimately, the sad state of affairs is that, unless an organization has bitten the bullet and learned how to live without Windows desktop applications - i.e., they have gone with web-based apps for almost everything, Linux is not going to fit the bill for them. That said, there is a lot they can do to move in that direction. And tying themselves to the full suite of Microsoft stuff isn't it. So, switch to Windows on the desktop if you must - for those few 3rd party Windows apps you're still dependent on. But use LibreOffice - or if you must, Office 365 or Google web stuff. And use PDF for distributing documents. Or bite the bullet and make plans to migrate to a full web infrastructure with Chromebooks on the desktop. And if you can't do any of that, well, all is lost. But bear in mind that new organizations don't have the lock in that you do. Fine if you're a government that isn't in a competitive situation, then it's just a waste of money - but that's nothing new for governments. Businesses need to remain competitive, and new ones don't have to drag along a ton of Microsoft baggage.
Posted from my Android phone. Oh, I can change this? There, that's better...