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Munich Council: To Hell With Linux, We're Going Full Windows in 2020 (theregister.co.uk)
The German city of Munich, which received much popularity back in the day when it first ditched Microsoft's services in favor of open-source software, has now agreed to stop using Linux and switch back to Windows. If the decision is ratified by the full council in two weeks, Windows 10 will start rolling out across the city in 2020. From a report: A coalition of Social Democrats and Conservatives on the committee voted for the Windows migration last week, Social Democrat councillor Anne Hubner told The Register. Munich rose to fame in the open-source world for deciding to use Linux and LibreOffice to make the city independent from the claws of Microsoft. But the plan was never fully realised -- mail servers, for instance, eventually wound up migrating to Microsoft Exchange -- and in February the city council formally voted to end Linux migration and go back to Microsoft. Hubner said the city has struggled with LiMux adoption. "Users were unhappy and software essential for the public sector is mostly only available for Windows," she said. She estimated about half of the 800 or so total programs needed don't run on Linux and "many others need a lot of effort and workarounds." Hubner added, "in the past 15 years, much of our efforts were put into becoming independent from Microsoft," including spending "a lot of money looking for workarounds" but "those efforts eventually failed." A full council vote on Windows 10 2020 migration is set for November 23, Hubner said. However, the Social Democrats and Conservatives have a majority in the council, and the outcome is expected to be the same as in committee.
It's not that it's a great product, or even a good product. Microsoft is like kobolds, or Starbuck's; flood the market, drown everything else out. They're the Zerg Rush of the OS world.
probably getting paid by Microsoft (nothing as obvious as cash, more like items of tangible value) to do the switch.
Or they were sick and tired dealing with the constant compromises in getting Linux to work how they needed/wanted. And, believe it or not, more than just some of us like the OS, the platforms, the backward compatibility, the development environments.
"When life gives you lemons, don't make lemonade. Make life take the lemons back!" -- Cave Johnson
Outlook and exchange are the tools of the managerial class. So if it's a choice between learning a brand new email/calendar application or blowing 100k-ish on an exchange/windows license. They'll cling to outlook.
Since now you have a AD controller, exchange server, and the boss running windows it's just a slow creep until you're back to Microsoft. It's interesting how much you can intuit about a company by how much microsoft they have running.
You forgot to address one of the more important points: âoeUsers didnâ(TM)t like it.â I like and use Linux, but if you think itâ(TM)s better on the desktop for non-power users, youâ(TM)re deluding yourself. Windows is solid - I hardly ever have crashes, itâ(TM)s fast, and itâ(TM)s compatible with everything. The only issue I have is drivers no longer being kept up to date, primarily my for Bluetooth and WiFi.
> half of the 800 or so total programs needed
They have 800 programs they use?
Color me sceptical. Excluding games, I don't think I've run 800 different programs if I go back even to my Atari days.
I've worked in large public organizations before, and I recall maybe two dozen programs being used, a third of them being Office (MS Project is still out there) and the rest since replaced by web servers.
mail servers, for instance, eventually wound up migrating to Microsoft Exchange
WTH? E-mail is one of the easiest systems to NOT use any Windows-specific software with --- in fact, the more mature implementations of SMTP and IMAP servers run on Linux and much more robustly, than those pieces of shit called 'Exchange' and 'Outlook'.
Let the church say "Amen" to that one. I work for a US based Fortune 500 company as a result of being hired by a company they bought out. They left us alone for several years and during that time we maintained our own email systems on Linux. It was so much easier than now when we are forced to use corporate Exchange servers with awful Outlook clients. I just despise Outlook and remain amazed that people actually like it. When we ran our own servers I could write procmail rules to handle my email and do what I wanted and I loved Thunderbird as a client. Outlook is much worse to using procmail + Thunderbird.
You'll have thousands of commercial-quality Linux-only games before you have a Linux-only version of something even closely similar to Microsoft Exchange.
Unless someone pays for it. That's what made the Munich experiment so exciting: once those major tools are developed, there's no reason governments can't become untethered from proprietary software. LibreOffice is a perfect example of this. I used to use OpenOffice out of principle and I dealt with its shortcomings (and I used Excel because OpenOffice just didn't cut it when it came to spreadsheets). Now I use LibreOffice because I prefer it as a word processor and Calc has become functional.
Someone just needs to get the ball rolling.
"From the depths of my skeptical and rationalist soul, I ask the Lord to protect me from California touchie-feeliedom."
the more mature implementations of SMTP and IMAP servers run on Linux and much more robustly
Exchange isn't just about transferring mail. It's a full groupware package, with email, calendars, contacts, and tasks. And then they may be using software that has Exchange integrations or Outlook plugins.
And just to be clear, I'm not arguing that they made the right choice. I'm just saying that throwing SMTP and IMAP onto a Linux box doesn't begin to replicate the full feature set of Exchange.
On a modern mail server using postfix (for example) it's actually quite easy to disable a terminated user's mail login and make his email available to his replacement.
Based on Microsoft.
Exchange 2016 is the last and final version that will be available as a software package for installation on your own server.
After 2018 there will be no (legal or up to date) versions of Exchange to be had, and if you don't have a volume license account you won't get any security updates to the 2016 version.
The only offering beyond that point is Microsofts cloud hosted exchange server.