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German State Plans To Migrate 13,000 Workstations From Linux to Windows (zdnet.com)

Posted by EditorDavid on from the government-shut-downs dept.

An anonymous reader quotes ZDNet: The German state of Lower Saxony is set to follow Munich in migrating thousands of official computers away from Linux to Microsoft's Windows. As initially reported by Heise, the state's tax authority has 13,000 workstations running OpenSuse -- which it adopted in 2006 in a well-received migration from Solaris -- that it now wants to migrate to a "current version" of Windows, presumably Windows 10.

The authority reasons that many of its field workers and telephone support services already use Windows, so standardisation makes sense. An upgrade of some kind would in any case be necessary soon, as the PCs are running OpenSuse versions 12.2 and 13.2, neither of which is supported anymore.

According to the Lower Saxony's draft budget, €5.9m is set aside for the migration in the coming year, with a further €7m annually over the following years; it's not yet clear how many years the migration would take... Munich's shift away from LiMux -- the city's own Ubuntu-based distribution -- is expected to cost more than €50m overall, involving the deployment of around 29,000 Windows-based computers.

5 of 325 comments (clear)

  1. POTUS declares EU as fiend by sanf780 · · Score: 5, Interesting

    If EU is not a friend anymore according to Trump, why does the EU allow USA software in their administration?

    1. Re:POTUS declares EU as fiend by PolygamousRanchKid+ · · Score: 3, Interesting

      If EU is not a friend anymore according to Trump, why does the EU allow USA software in their administration?

      Snarky answer:

      . . . probably because the EU is thinking long term, and that in six years, Trump won't be POTUS anymore.

      And then everyone will pretend to be friends again.

      Realistic answer:

      . . . probably for the same reason that the US government is using software from SAP, produced in Germany, an enemy state of the US in the current government's eyes.

      --
      Schroedinger's Brexit: The UK is both in and out of the EU at the same time!
  2. Re:Interesting dilemma by Calydor · · Score: 3, Interesting

    After dealing with German bureaucracy for the past eight years I can assure you, the German government's list of interests doesn't include "Get shit done".

    --
    -=This sig has nothing to do with my comment. Move along now=-
  3. Re:Shame by Tough+Love · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Who benefits by replacing inherently secure Linux with malware magnet Windows? Russia does most certainly. And just need to coopt as few as one official, a few weeks of over-the-paunch sex should do it, easier than winning at Russian roulette.

    --
    When all you have is a hammer, every problem starts to look like a thumb.
  4. Re: Shame by spyfrog · · Score: 2, Interesting

    I work in this industry and there is laws here that state that we have to have specific tests and development for this kind of software and the suppliers simply doesn't want to support Linux or any other platform than Windows. Most doesn't even support OSX. The only alternative to comply with the laws and use Linux would be a internally developed system. Security isn't something that the laws in this field take into account so Windows problems there doesn't count unfortunately.