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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.
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'.
"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
Seriously.... 800 "Needed" Windows programs? WTF. I call BS. How about supplying a list.
Part of migrating is CHANGING which business apps you will use, to focus more on Web-based solutions, and replace Windows client apps with substitutes that provide the necessary capabilities.
By the way, Linux or OS X should be EASY to adopt on 100% of endpoints, even with specialized software, even if some legacy apps are still required; thanks to Terminal Services or Citrix-based solutions, specialized published apps can execute from a more limited number of machines.
First they went there own way with out of date software. They didn't contract this to some outfit like SuSE or Canonical. That would have been the smart thing. Second, Microsoft opened a massive office in Munich. That means jobs, money, taxes. Not too hard to figure out why they went the way they did. Microsoft has spent years throwing money at them to move.
Visual Studio Code. Its pretty nice.
You can probably tell me a thousand reasons why it's bad. But I've been doing code work for about 30 years, and Visual Studio Code is as good as anything else I've used.
No reason to lie.
Why can't Linux be easy?
Ubuntu very nearly has this licked, largely stable system, particularly LTS, easy repo installs including closed source blobs (even if you hate them, they increase usability, and thus potential market adoption), and widely available with broad platform support, but even with that it hasn't cracked the desktop.
I concur. Linux should be easy. FOSS advocates need to look deeply into Munich's decision to switch back to Windows, figure out what all their pain points were and work towards reducing or elliminating them.
I think Canonical was doing an excellent job with Ubuntu right up until they started forcing Unity down everyone's throats. That's when I stopped using Ubuntu.