Munich is struggling with its planned migration from proprietary software to open-source applications, according to news stories in the German press that paint an increasingly gloomy picture of what had originally been widely described as a shining success story for Linux.
Munich Open Source Plows Ahead
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Eugenia Loli
Ex-programmer, ex-editor in chief at OSNews.com, now a visual artist/filmmaker.
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are never a cake walk.
What this looks like are a number of people aren’t pleased with the switching process and having many apps rewritten, and are leaking the current problems out to the world. Seeing this being done so so early is a bad sign. At some point this Munich project will be abandoned.
And to help Munich save money, are Suse and IBM giving the option of LTSP clients? And was the re-write of custom vb/delphi/access/ie apps included in the proposal?
Also, German (and Euro) finances are not hot – they’ve already busted the cap on the budget deficit.
In fact the project leaders are still optimistic about the project, even though it is a daunting task. From the article:
Project LiMux team members said that the current problems aren’t insurmountable and aren’t directly connected to the use of open-source applications. […] The migration plan is more complex than simply replacing Windows with Linux, according to an outline provided by the Munich information department. Studies on open-source security, desktop ergonomics and the software components’ stability and compatibility with other applications will be included in the process. […] “Right now we are proceeding as planned, and we have no hints or signals that the city counsel is regretting or reconsidering their decision to move to Linux,” said [Peter Hofmann, LiMux project manager].
They do seem to confirm that they will be using emulation to run some legacy Windows apps, as was discussed last year:
Munich may opt to install an emulation program on city workers’ computers that will allow Windows applications to run on Linux.
This makes a lot of sense in the context of a large-scale migration.
This is to be expected. Munich is a trailblazer here moving a large number of systems from windows to Linux. The problems seem to be more financial and contractors learning the new system than any real problems with Linux itself. While this may give M$ some fuel to add to it’s TCO arguments these problems will be lessend by the time others follow Munich’s path
“Right now we are proceeding as planned, and we have no
hints or signals that the city counsel is regretting or
reconsidering their decision to move to Linux,” said
Hofmann.
Then thing is that they knew it would cost them more up front and they preferred open source anyway.
But somebody has to do it, right? Overall, I think the Munich project will be a success story, because the people involved seem to believe in it enough to stick to it through to the end.
In retrospect, I think maybe us Linux people shouldn’t have shown so much unbridled optimism. In my case anyway, I saw how relatively smooth the transitions had been at places like ILM, and failed to realize that the Munich situation was so much more complex. Of course, any large scale transition of corporate machines is complicated, and Linux is certainly not a magic bullet that eliminates that complexity.
“Munich may opt to install an emulation program on city workers’ computers that will allow Windows applications to run on Linux.”
Doesn’t this defeat the purpose of switching to Linux? I have seen this in the past. They say “oh we will just use is for transtition purposes” then someone gets lazy and it becomes this huge cludge that takes a lot of time to administer.
This conversion is the litmus test for Linux/OSS. It will be used as an example for a long time to come. Based on this article though it seems that it may fail because of the technically challenged people trying to do it, rather then any deficiencies in Linux/OSS. What a shame.
Does anyone know the requirements and what was proposed? Like what packages – SuSE, SAP, OO, Ximian, Wine, etc? Any IBM software? SUN? And what 3rd party software the system must interoperate with as used by other government agencies. I’d like to see a software system diagram.
Their current system is WNT and Office97. Why not wait for Linux to mature a couple of years more? Because MS has terminated support for WNT?
If the projects problems are making it into the press, you have to wonder how bad it really is?
The comment about “resistance to change” is telling. A lot of the workers are probably rebeling against having Linux forced upon them. Every little thing that doesn’t work as well as before is just further irritation.
I think that any organization that wants to try to switch platforms, needs to do it slowly over the course of several years.
$23.7 million! – That is a staggering amount for a council to fork out for one piece of software, presumably the price of office isn’t included in this figure either?
I’m not a Linux fan by any stretch of the imagination but it’s not difficult to see the logic in what there doing in Munich.
$23.7 million! – That is a staggering amount for a council to fork out for one piece of software, presumably the price of office isn’t included in this figure either?
And the linux solution cost them $35 million. And office is included in the price for the microsoft solution. The point of switching was for long term freedom, not short term economy.
So was the switch a good idea? I’d say its way too early to tell. So some users don’t like the new systems. Really? Shocking. Did anyone expect everyone to rejoice at learning a new system? Sheesh.
Time will tell if the mass migration was a good idea or not. Personally I think it might have been a good idea to do it more gradually. Ie, move to openoffice, mozilla and other open source applications on the desktop, and linux on the servers and then migrate the desktops to linux, department by department.
I don’t know if I misunderstand you but I didn’t imply or mention anything about short term economy, in fact my closing comment illustrates quite explicitly the very same point as your reply to me I think.
I don’t understand where is the problem and what’s keeping them from getting the Suse people to come to the offices and start installing linux as they planned in the first place. Maybe starting with a few computers, see the reaction and how people can interact with the new os and apps, and just then make an idea of how much training is needed. As some IT guy said, it shouldn’t be more difficult to train people from office 97/2000 upgrade to openoffice than the training required for upgrading to office xp. Cause this is the most used app in offices, right? Letters, faxes, presentations, charts, etc – openoffice does them. And if I’m not mistaken, but haven’t them bundled staroffice in the deal?
Why the negative news about migrating? I guess Balmer and Gates have opened a big bottle of champagne when they heard the news.
they don’t need to pay closed licenses evermore (excuse my bad english)
They used very old MS product even if they change from it to XP or w2k, they will have _a_lot_ of problem.
Bah, big deal – they’ll get use to it… Namely, if you’ve ever taken a bit of interest of what those municipal clerks or whatever are doing it comes basically to:
a) doing some of their arcane paperwork stuff with their set of office applications – it’s the same usage pattern that led to the invention of screensavers.
b) bitching about everything.
Of course “a” includes one-player card games and “b” includes OS rants (I bet they were complaining big time over MS Windows).
I remember, in 1980s they would have put those people in front of one of those green CRTs and ask them if they knew “how to use a computer or not” – those guys and gals are just spoiled
Legacy applications run just fine under XP. I run an application compiled in 1983, and AFAIK, Office XP or 2003 can open documents from any Office previous version. Compatibility is a strong point for MS, it’s well known.
> Also, German (and Euro) finances are not hot – they’ve
> already busted the cap on the budget deficit.
The problem is not the “huge” deficit… it’s the fact that the EU has placed a cap on it, as opposed to the US’ administration who don’t care about budget deficits.
That’s driving the Dollar into its downward spiral, which further hurts the (export oriented) German economy… go figure.
The problem is not the “huge” deficit… it’s the fact that the EU has placed a cap on it, as opposed to the US’ administration who don’t care about budget deficits.
That’s driving the Dollar into its downward spiral, which further hurts the (export oriented) German economy… go figure.
Well unlike USDs euros are not fiat money for buying oil… countries need not to accumulate huge reserves of dollars that – let’s face it – come from a country that is in huge debt. Normally the currency of sucha a country would have dropped even lower (since their money is not much of a value if you can trade it back for something valuable), but with whole of Asia buying USDs like crazy to keep the trade with the US profitable and with before mentioned petro-dollar bonus, the US can well afford to run such huge deficits _and_ debts abroad.
It’s like buying a TV set with a check everybody knows will bounce, but sice it never really returns to bank (it is swaped on gas stations instead) – noone really cares.
For now. What goes around …
oops! some misplaced “nots” in my reply above. Oh, well it’s off-topic anyways.
I can see it now…”How do I install WebShots?” I’ve worked in the public sector as a computer technician. The vast majority of people do one maybe two core jobs (on their computer that is). The rest of the computer is used for email, chat, websurfing, and installing adware, spyware. It’s a nightmare. Non technical people in working in the public sector are also VERY good at complaining. At least that’s what I’ve seen.
So they’ve got an entire IT dept. that knows Windows and nothing but, a bunch of secretaries that can’t install their adware, and we wonder why all the noise. The project will work only if the people at the top say “make it happen or it’s your job.” If they waver at all it very well could fail.
I completely agree with future. Compatibility is really good with Microsoft. I can still run 50% of my turboC programs in XP. This is the kind of support industries expect. I appreciate Microsoft in this regard, they have put huge effort in making sure that people upgrading to future version of windows does not have to go through the pain of Migration.
I bet Munich guys are repenting over their decision to do mass migration to Linux.
On a sidenote, i think Microsoft will face problems with longhorn, i don’t think longhorn will be able to provide that level of compatibility because from what i have heard, longhorn is going to be a different OS at user level.
Having been on LPI courses, Linux +, and having messed with Linux for a few years, it is not a surprise that Munich has hit trouble.
Linux, a form of Unix developed by geeky people to offer themselves a free Unix, is now a mature, friendly, workable system in some areas like server, development, others.
There is a lot of hype behind the current push for Linux. Sometimes this is correct and the product fits. However, people are blinded by the hype, and end up believing that one product, idea, ideal, political answer fits as a solution. Whoever decided at whatever point that they would implement an OSS solution to the whole problem needs to be fired. IT supply and support is not a political adventure. It is not about trying to prove to the wider world that you can have balls the size of footballs and role it out like confetti.
Time and time again, you see people pushing the envelope TOO far, without smart and careful analysis of the situation. Ideals like wiping windows out of your organisation in a heartbeat and just rolling out Linux just like that (que snap of fingers) only comes from people too stupid to evaluate the hype, and look into the reality.
Last I heard, Munich have had to role out VMware to emulate windows stuff. Thats a failure, and proves that their applications were not thought about before the switch.
The same applies to IBM, who not so long ago leaked a report to the greater world of their internal effort to move as much business process over to Linux, a laudable goal. However, the real business issues now mean they are talking about porting MS Office over to Linux, a product they have no ownership, source code, or access to, and one that MS has already stated, they are not involved with.
Linux has made terrific progress. But its got a long way to go. I wish people would actually calmly sit down and carefully look at where it fits well, far more often, and apply that carefully to their business process. It does’nt hurt microsoft when people screw up, and it does’nt help the business you hoped would benefit either.
Right now, I doubt very much that the training, and issues that Munich has run into are fun for anyone there. The user community alone is one area where its not being welcomed, and the bottom line is they are the customers who will eventually make the call on this.
*Note on LPI exams:*
Baffled by a couple of things
1. All conf files should end in .conf
2. Why the hell is everything non standard? Xtransfer.log is the FTP log. Why not call it http://ftp.log
Some careful thought on standards, inside the OS that people claim follows and enforces good standards might be a good place to start..
AdmV
As the old saying goes, pioneers get arrows in the back. The trouble is, *somebody* has to be the first to attempt such a large-scale migration to Linux. It’s not surprising at all that the project is running into difficulties. The question is whether these difficulties can be overcome. It would be a huge PR victory for Microsoft if Munich were to admit defeat. I don’t think IBM or SuSE can allow that to happen.
@Eugenia Loli-Queru
Again its all about how you bring us an article…
You copied the headline from wired news without reading the article..If you had read this article, You would have noticed that the project managers are very positive about it but there are some points that need more attention and do not quite work as needed. The problem with your (wired news) headline and short description is that it does pretend its all cumbersome and there alomst going back to Windows. Nothing is more untrue. Please try to remeber this is one of the biggest projects in the german ICT.
Off course there are problems. I wonder if you ever worked in a big ICT envoirment, i doubt it.
Every ICT project of this size has problems in fact i state thst every ICT project has problems, Financial and/or technical.
If they use VMWare or any other Windows emulation toolkit, they are defeated anyways. Because Microsoft already offered them a deal which was cheaper than Linux but they did not take it because they did not want properietary applications, and running windows emulation will essentially be opposite to that.
One way or the other, i think Munich guys got screwed up due to hype.
By the way, Adm V excellent post and very refined views. I wish companies in OSS business stop using Linux as a wh**e to make money and be true well wisher of the community and standardize linux. xtransfer.log damn it would have taken me a while to guess that its ftp log, the person who named it should be kicked for putting name like that for sure.
> i don’t think longhorn will be able to provide that
> level of compatibility
It will. Dos/Win16/Win32 API are still present, but in a separate sub-system. Visicalc (20 years!) works fine with the current alpha version.
It will hard for MS to convice people to ugrade to Longhorn for many reasons, so compatibility *is* strategic for them.
“It’s like buying a TV set with a check everybody knows will bounce, but since it never really returns to bank (it is swapped on gas stations instead) – noone really cares.”
That is exactly how paper money (as opposed to gold) works. If everyone handed in their paper dollars and demanded the value in gold, these checks would bounce. A dollar is just a check.
The fundamental question is how many of these paper (or digital) tokens should be printed. Make too many and you get inflation.
Using emulation for some of their apps that cannot port (e.g. because the supplier went out of business), was part of the plan right from the beginning.
Troll and Future perhaps never went through the Great Word-Excel Changeover, or if they have, it’s been forgotten (too soon).
In 1997, MS decided they needed to sell more copies of Office, so they released new versions of Word and Excel that opened old documents just fine, *but* – no one using previous versions could read documents done in the new versions.
This proved to be so unpopular among MS’s customers that they eventually released software that enabled older versions of Word-Excel to read documents created with the new versions. I became a minor hero by being the first to discover these on MS’s site and download them for everyone in the office.
This was a rather clumsy illustration by MS of the fact that *they* control compatibility. Want your old program to work, or want to be able to read documents created in new versions of MS software? Fine, pay up.
Upward compatibility matter. Heterogenous network is a challenge, and it’s hard to mix up old and new, even in the Linux World.
The taxpayer should not be the group who pioneer this. In harsh daylight, running windows under VMware means YOU still have to pay license fees, thus you bear double costs. The number of IT projects undertaken by government in these areas, and the high level of failure mean that I am against projects like this.
The tax payer in this instance suffers, higher cost, possibly poor staff morale, poor service, and maybe broken back office functions.
I do not doubt that SUSE and IBM will work extrememly hard to correct issues, however, that does’nt bode well, not everyone is going to be able to call in and pay the big boys to correct fundamental problems. So far the savings mooted are being wiped out by extra costs, user issues and problems. As for the project managers who are positive, what do you expect them to be? Negative?
Don’t believe the hype and base your processes on fact and capability, not mooted suggestions on what might be feasable.
Your comment below:
“As the old saying goes, pioneers get arrows in the back. The trouble is, *somebody* has to be the first to attempt such a large-scale migration to Linux. It’s not surprising at all that the project is running into difficulties. The question is whether these difficulties can be overcome. It would be a huge PR victory for Microsoft if Munich were to admit defeat. I don’t think IBM or SuSE can allow that to happen.”
“IT supply and support is not a political adventure. It is not about trying to prove to the wider world that you can have balls the size of footballs and role it out like confetti.”
1) Politics is everywhere; everything is connected with politics.
2) NSA backdoor rings a bell?
@ Bas. Good point, fully agree.
You don’t need to use VMware. You can use Wine if all that they need is to emulate a few specialist applications. For applications that are only used selectively, Terminal server could be deployed.
You are aware that the Munich plan is very conservative in terms of cost projection and deployment, right? There are issues and hidden costs with upgrading from previous versions of Windows to the newer ones that are not included in the Microsoft deal. Furthermore, by the time it is 2005, the desktop front would have progressed immensely.
By then Microsoft would be pushing Longhorn, creating new upgrade pressure. Do businesses need features like WinFS? If we don’t need the new features, why do we need to pay to upgrade. There will be less and less incentive to upgrade. Microsoft knows this and will discontinue support on older products sooner. And they will face enormous pressure, like what’s happening with Win98. Right now Microsoft is doing OK, but if more of this happens, MS will support it’s product for shorter and shorter periods in trying to milk out revenue.
By switching to Linux, Munich is hoping to jump out of this stupid cycle. When the time comes to upgrade computing infrastructure, there are a number of vendors to choose from, not just one. This can even be open to competitive bidding.
“The taxpayer should not be the group who pioneer this.”
“Should”? Who do you think you are? Every city and country handles their money different, not exactly like you think it “should” be.
“The number of IT projects undertaken by government in these areas, and the high level of failure mean that I am against projects like this.”
Please backup your statement with sources and facts.
“In harsh daylight, running windows under VMware means YOU still have to pay license fees, thus you bear double costs.”
Right. But, the situation you sketch is wrong: they already have licenses for Windows. They only have to pay licenses for VMware and how much that is, how they handle that, etc is something i don’t know thus can only speculate about. They don’t _have_ to run Windows and VMware on every single PC of these 14K, that’s what i do know for sure and consider as possibility.
I’d also like to add that this IS debatable because according to EU law it is illegal to require one to buy something if it is free. Ie. MS considers MSIE part of the OS therefore requires you to have a license, but in EU this is illegal because MSIE is free as in no cost.
“Do businesses need features like WinFS?”
If they do, they can just as well use an OS which supports ReiserFS4 by then (Linux, …).
“As for the project managers who are positive, what do you expect them to be? Negative?”
Honest.
Bye,
“The tax payer in this instance suffers, higher cost, possibly poor staff morale, poor service, and maybe broken back office functions.”
Air. While you’re at it, please also proof the 5 consequences you’re certain about backed up with both facts and sources and 2 you’re not certain about (“posssibly”, “maybe”) backed up with a thoroughly put rational. Thanks,
“The taxpayer should not be the group who pioneer this.”
That is correct. The taxpayer should not bear this burden. There are other areas this could be done if you want government to evaluate technology, rather than in a live delivery service area. You might argue that this is the correct place to do this, however, I doubt the citizens of Munich will agree with you.
“Should”? Who do you think you are? Every city and country handles their money different, not exactly like you think it “should” be.
Fine. However, I reserve my right to critique people on a performance basis EVEN IF THEY Operate in the oft non monitored governmental areas. I firmly believe in people in government being fired if they do not deliver.
“The number of IT projects undertaken by government in these areas, and the high level of failure mean that I am against projects like this.”
This information is available from vastly more sources than I, if you wish to claim government and the IT areas it implements provide good figures, feel free to show them.
“Please backup your statement with sources and facts.”
I’m sorry, I’m not going to enlarge this further, there are widely available figures showing the levels of success and failure, and I am sure you are smart enough to go and dig them out.
“In harsh daylight, running windows under VMware means YOU still have to pay license fees, thus you bear double costs.”
“Right. But, the situation you sketch is wrong: they already have licenses for Windows.”
I am sorry, BUT I don’t know that. If they bought their computers on OEM basis that is highly questionable. If they have another licensing scheme that they use, then again, there are caveats. However, you may be right, and I may be wrong.
“They only have to pay licenses for VMware and how much that is, how they handle that, etc is something i don’t know thus can only speculate about. They don’t _have_ to run Windows and VMware on every single PC of these 14K, that’s what i do know for sure and consider as possibility.”
Fine, however, you started to argue about this, so I’ll take it further. Assuming they have old PC’s in areas where they used to run the older applications, they will have to upgrade the PC to run Linux and/or VMWARE. Its these kinds of issues that are going to double your costs. Then you have to train each user not just in Linux, in Windows, and in your App, but in VMware as well. Then you have to support the added levels of complexity, backup, support.
“I’d also like to add that this IS debatable because according to EU law it is illegal to require one to buy something if it is free. Ie. MS considers MSIE part of the OS therefore requires you to have a license, but in EU this is illegal because MSIE is free as in no cost.”
I’m sorry, I believe a company can sell, or release its software under its own terms. I choose to respect the GPL, so I also should have the courage to accept the license others sell their product by.
“Do businesses need features like WinFS?”
“If they do, they can just as well use an OS which supports ReiserFS4 by then (Linux, …)”
Your arrogance precedes you.
“As for the project managers who are positive, what do you expect them to be? Negative?”
“Honest.”
Being honest is a good value to have. However, as I said, I would not ever expect people rolling something out to be negative about it, or if they are you have issues.
AdmV
I’m sorry, you seem to be pissed that people critique something that occurs to people like Microsoft on a daily basis.
If you create a system, and then make the claims regarding desktop, Windows replacement, Windows Application replacement, and areas like lower costs, better end user satisfaction etc etc, you have to accept the issues, problems and find the solutions.
I did’nt create some false issues about Munich, those issues are discussed now in public, they are real, they are not going away, and you will have to view the serious issues with a little more thought rather than assume everyone hates Linux.
Unless I am mistaken you would prefer people bought into the hype, whereas I would prefer a little more thought, planning, and a lot less political motivated installation.
AdmV
“Air. While you’re at it, please also proof the 5 consequences you’re certain about backed up with both facts and sources and 2 you’re not certain about (“posssibly”, “maybe”) backed up with a thoroughly put rational. Thanks,”
I wasn’t terribly impressed with the article, aside from the fact that Munich’s IT developers are having a problem converting it didn’t really discuss too many specifics.
The one thing that did shock me was a comment in this thread saying that IBM has pulled back on their commitment to move to linux. Is this true?
IBM never said they were doing what people claimed.
They are still however moving whatever they can over to Linux. I don’t believe thats changed, nor their will to move to OSS whereever possible.
AdmV
Jud, do you even understand the meaning of upward compatibility. Upward compatibility is one of the hardest thing to provide and MS is one of the very few companies which provide upward compatibility in some cases like Visual Studio, Office etc.
The example you sought is not good enough, because if tomorrow word has a new file format to provide me with better features, i am ok that my new word document are not compatible with the old word as long as i have an option to save them in legacy word format, which is always an option with Microsoft products. But if you demand that MS never change the document format, then i will say its a foolish demand.
What is more important in real world is, backward compatibility, atleast in windows all future version of windows and MS products are backward compatible.
Compare windows backward compatibility with linux and you will get your answer. And please don’t give me you got source code you can compile it sh*t, i am not interested in compiling my perfectly running applications again on OS upgrade, ok?
In windows, my 95 apps works like a charm on XP and i never need to worry about application compatibility. Specially in XP, with the new emulation layer, the support got even better for legacy apps.
If they use VMWare or any other Windows emulation toolkit, they are defeated anyways. Because Microsoft already offered them a deal which was cheaper than Linux but they did not take it because they did not want properietary applications, and running windows emulation will essentially be opposite to that.
Not at all. Emulation (btw VMware is not Windows emulation but PC emulation) is very useful when you do a massive migration, because it means you don’t have to replace all of your legacy apps at once. It makes sense, really.
Well, I was expecting the WinTrolls to descend on this piece of news like vultures on carrion, and I guess I was right. Again, if you read the article, it’s not as negative as the headline suggests. But you cares about that when you’ve got an agenda!
“In windows, my 95 apps works like a charm on XP and i never need to worry about application compatibility. Specially in XP, with the new emulation layer, the support got even better for legacy apps.”
I only have one thing to say about that Bull$h!t. win 95 apps work like crap and crash even more oftern in XP than they did in 95, 98. I have customers that can not go buy xp and install it because I can’t get them off those damn applications. They would rather stay with win 98. I did get them to try it, but they couldn’t figure out how to use win XP. Also Being backword compatible is the only feature microsoft excells in, but the again they change things so often to lock out competitors, they have to be.
“Upward compatibility is one of the hardest thing to provide and MS is one of the very few companies which provide upward compatibility in some cases like Visual Studio, Office etc.”
Well, it doesn’t have to be that difficult, if you use a file format that is properly engineered, defined and specified, like the (simple) ASCII standard.
Dennis Richie, for example, was able to recover some stuff from 1972: http://cm.bell-labs.com/cm/cs/who/dmr/notes.html :
“When we got a PDP-11 around 1971, we did get DECtape, and did save some material, though not enough. A few years ago Keith Bostic and Paul Vixie resurrected a PDP-11 DECtape drive and offered to read any old tapes we might have around, and I sent several to them. These notes are among the small treasures discovered there.”
The problem with the Word format is that is intentionally binary in order to keep competitors from providing compatible word processors.
There is no reason why simple documents could not be kept upward compatible, as Richie’s notes show.
“That is correct. The taxpayer should not bear this burden. There are other areas this could be done if you want government to evaluate technology, rather than in a live delivery service area. You might argue that this is the correct place to do this, however, I doubt the citizens of Munich will agree with you.”
Correct? Hello? It is an opinion.
First, wether it is right or wrong to have a taxpayer pay for something is something which has everything to do with politics. For example in the case of science (and universities for example), which is also progressive and uncertain, this is also the case; taxpayers pay that. Politics and the democratic process: the city council in Munich is chosen by the civilians of Munich. Therefore, what the city council does is what the civilians of Munich have voted for (on a sidenote i don’t agree with this process myself but this is how it currently works). So wether you as UK civilian agree with that or not DOES NOT matter in our current system. You can vote for your city, please do so!
Second, according to the project investigation it’ll save money on the longer run and this has all been investigated so it it is on the longer run believed to be an advantage for the taxpayer.
When investigated i think it is good to do so, no matter which area. It isn’t jumping in the cold water anymore then, IMO. And, afaik, it has been investigated.
“I’m sorry, I’m not going to enlarge this further, there are widely available figures showing the levels of success and failure, and I am sure you are smart enough to go and dig them out.
This information is available from vastly more sources than I, if you wish to claim government and the IT areas it implements provide good figures, feel free to show them.”
I claim? I claim exactly nothing, regarding that.
You are clearly switching the burden of proof. I wish you to: “Please backup your statement with sources and facts.” since you claim there are so many sources, it should be easy for you to provide us these to back up your statements, right? Stop running away. Start backing up your point.
You see, the italic line is what i claim now regarding this.
“I am sorry, BUT I don’t know that. If they bought their computers on OEM basis that is highly questionable. If they have another licensing scheme that they use, then again, there are caveats. However, you may be right, and I may be wrong.”
Ok, that sounds like reasonable possibilities. We both don’t know the facts regarding this.
“I’m sorry, I believe a company can sell, or release its software under its own terms. I choose to respect the GPL, so I also should have the courage to accept the license others sell their product by.”
I believe they can so too, but i am also very sure the law is above anyone’s terms and that any exclusive rights granted by the law apply over any terms.
“”If they do, they can just as well use an OS which supports ReiserFS4 by then (Linux, …)”
Your arrogance precedes you.”
Whatever. Source: http://www.osnews.com/story.php?news_id=5970
“Being honest is a good value to have. However, as I said, I would not ever expect people rolling something out to be negative about it, or if they are you have issues.”
Not ever? Well you must have a very misantropic view of people then, like as of everyone cannot admit mistakes and do not have any self-criticism at all? As i see it in this situation, why lie about the current state when it isn’t going well and when they don’t believe in it? It’ll come out anyway, sooner or later. Since this project is very pioneering, hot news, and therefore the stakes are high it is better to not play around with the facts but stay focused on the truth instead — imo.
“If you create a system, and then make the claims regarding desktop, Windows replacement, Windows Application replacement, and areas like lower costs, better end user satisfaction etc etc, you have to accept the issues, problems and find the solutions.”
True, but these have been investigated before the project started. It wasn’t a jump in cold water, except that no known project of this magnitude has done it so.
“I did’nt create some false issues about Munich, those issues are discussed now in public, they are real, they are not going away, and you will have to view the serious issues with a little more thought rather than assume everyone hates Linux.”
Please don’t talk for me, i don’t like that. I never claimed “everyone hates Linux” what you said, i don’t believe in it at all, and my point is the following:
that you did not provide facts which can be proven authentic, did not provide any URL’s to back up your wild assertions in any of your posts and still do not and actually try to switch the burden of proof to me!
“Unless I am mistaken you would prefer people bought into the hype, whereas I would prefer a little more thought, planning, and a lot less political motivated installation.”
See, “hype”. Talking about calling names.
The thought and planning stage is already over. Other than that, if you are so certain about that they’re doing it all wrong, dude, why not contact them?
” But somebody has to do it, right? Overall, I think the Munich project will be a success story, because the people involved seem to believe in it enough to stick to it through to the end. ”
The only time something is a success story is when you get it done with no flaws or problems. Munich has had both. I feel sorry for them because yes, being first is never fun. But SUSE and IBM put this out there for personal gain, they wanted this press release so bad that they couldnt wait. Now, when Red Hat helped migrate Dreamworks and ILM over to their product, you didnt hear about it until it was done and the migration was complete. SUSE and IBM brought all this attention to Munich when it didnt need to be and now yes, any problems they have in migration are going to be heavily recorded and scrutinized.
Sure there are going to be implementation problems, thats what open source is about, getting it to work. Those people over there have no shortage of skilled IT workers that can build-up the desired infrastructure. It’s an opportunity to enhance the skills base locally and they should take advantage of it.
Someone had to be first to perform a transition of this size. It wouldn’t have been an easy thing no matter if you were going from Linux to Windows, or Windows to Linux.
There will be lessons learned, mistakes made, and some huge headaches. They will in time get it right, but it’s not a matter of just dashing in the door and installing software.
Many of you apparently have never worked on anything larger than your own home network. It’s simply not the samething.
Before this is all over, Microsoft will probably sell Munich the software they needed to begin with (at a higher cost than they could have had it during Ballmer’s pitch), and write a highly featured white paper on the whole mess proving that the TCO of Microsft solutions is less than OSS solutions.
Then most of the people posting here can hurl epitaphs at the Munich government for being sellouts.
From the article:
Reports in Computerwoche also stated that local vendors who currently code applications for the city were experiencing problems in developing applications for the open-source operating system, since they are more familiar with Windows than Linux.
It would be interesting to know what development tools they are using on Windows. Since the portability seems to be about zero, a good bet would be Visual Studio.
Good luck trying to get a MS certified VB developer to write code for Linux.
“First, wether it is right or wrong to have a taxpayer pay for something is something which has everything to do with politics. For example in the case of science (and universities for example), which is also progressive and uncertain, this is also the case; taxpayers pay that. Politics and the democratic process: the city council in Munich is chosen by the civilians of Munich. Therefore, what the city council does is what the civilians of Munich have voted for (on a sidenote i don’t agree with this process myself but this is how it currently works). So wether you as UK civilian agree with that or not DOES NOT matter in our current system. You can vote for your city, please do so!”
Thats how you see it. However, as I said, you seem to have accepted that the people of Munich should now pay millions more to carry out a Political move to OSS, something which seems to overshadow true technical merit and thus draws much scrutinisation. I don’t think your view on Munich is fair to the people, IF you happen to feel that Microsoft use the end user as a damn guinue pig, the OSS should avoid doing the same for a higher price tag at ALL costs.
“Second, according to the project investigation it’ll save money on the longer run and this has all been investigated so it it is on the longer run believed to be an advantage for the taxpayer.”
This is IT. I tend to view IT as 3-5 years in general lifespan for much of it, and the current timeframes look like 2005, which if so, I doubt that you or anyone else can possibly even consider now pitch on that score.
“I believe they can so too, but i am also very sure the law is above anyone’s terms and that any exclusive rights granted by the law apply over any terms.”
Really, and yet I would agre that you would deeply bitch about SCO, am I right?
“Whatever. Source: http://www.osnews.com/story.php?news_id=5970“
Look, is that how you would implement Munich? I think you have to look more closely than a single news item.
“Not ever? Well you must have a very misantropic view of people then, like as of everyone cannot admit mistakes and do not have any self-criticism at all? As i see it in this situation, why lie about the current state when it isn’t going well and when they don’t believe in it? It’ll come out anyway, sooner or later. Since this project is very pioneering, hot news, and therefore the stakes are high it is better to not play around with the facts but stay focused on the truth instead — imo.”
I think you misinterpreted what I said. I said that the people rolling it out SHOULD be positive. And you can discuss hurdles and problems, even if they are negitive in impact on the project in a positive way. Stop assuming I am the enemy here.
“True, but these have been investigated before the project started. It wasn’t a jump in cold water, except that no known project of this magnitude has done it so.”
Thats a fair comment, but, they would also not be at the problem level they are at with a vastly larger cost over run unless they hit problems they did not for-see. Clearly everyone can agree that Linux, like Unix has a way to go for new end users, especially in a business situation.
“See, “hype”. Talking about calling names.”
Sorry, like I said, the OSS community is near incapable of looking at issues with an open mind. You prove the case, becoming defensive almost to the point of delirium.
“The thought and planning stage is already over. Other than that, if you are so certain about that they’re doing it all wrong, dude, why not contact them?”
What should they have done? I believe they should have chosen to evolve the IT rather than try a revolution, a revolution the tax payers in Munich will now bear the brunt of in many ways, and given Germany has many problems now, and the EU is demanding public monies be cut down to reasonable levels, I would really appreciate you not using the EU in part of your sermon. Germany nor Munich can afford this ‘stunt’, and the EU laws you stipulated regarding IE are near irrelevant.
AdmV
Bill,
That will always be a possibility. I think sometimes you have to realise that at this point in time, replacing windows with a linux offering may not be a very good option/fit/choice. And blindly following OSS in the face of reality happens too damn often. When people started talking Vmware/Wine that should have made people look more closely, and they should have taken the users/user training requirements into a lot of their thinking.
Windows is not Linux and Linux is not Windows. Shoving a user in front of it won’t help you in the least.
AdmV
“Before this is all over, Microsoft will probably sell Munich the software they needed to begin with (at a higher cost than they could have had it during Ballmer’s pitch), and write a highly featured white paper on the whole mess proving that the TCO of Microsft solutions is less than OSS solutions.
Then most of the people posting here can hurl epitaphs at the Munich government for being sellouts.”
First off, a little detail: The german federal budget and the Munich city budget are totally different beasts. Germany is in debt, Munich is one of the richest cities in Europe; that’s the way things go in federal republics. Read & learn.
Anyway, in this thread i read a lot of criticism along the lines that the citizen pays for an ill-conceived experiment. The main argument seems to be that the GNU/Linux solution is wasting public money. This implies a very monetarian definition of “waste”. But money is not all to consider here!
Do you consider it waste to ensure a long lifespan of your data? Do you consider it waste to empower the citizens to choose what software they wish to use to access public data? Do you consider it waste to regain complete authority over the deployed software? In short, do you consider it waste that your administration becomes vendor independent, format agnostic and open accessible?
Citizens are entitled to access their data and they shall be able to do this whichever way they like. And sorry to say, all technical deficiencies included, GNU (Linux or whatever) is way ahead in this category and and very lonely at the top.
I can’t understand how someone can neglect civil liberties, they are the reason we can parlor here. Right now, people all over the world fight and die, and through the last few centuries fought and died, for liberty and freedom and you turbo-economic advocates would throw it away for 12 million dollars?
Munich may be wasting money, but you would waste our liberty. No thanks, Adam Smith would puke in his grave if he could see such fallacious weighting.
It would be interesting to know what development tools they are using on Windows. Since the portability seems to be about zero, a good bet would be Visual Studio.
Good luck trying to get a MS certified VB developer to write code for Linux.
Yes, most of them are using VB.Net/Delphi/Access, which let them build db front ends extremely fast. What on linux even approaches the productivity of Delphi? I’ve searched and found NOTHING. I can build 3 tier Delphi data-bound “rich-clients” very fast, saving my clients huge amounts of money (on one project, my client’s internal team offered to write an app in ASP for $200k – i did it on delphi for less that 10% of that).
Until Linux/BSD’s have a full fledged Visual RAD db product, like Delphi or VB, they are going to get little headway in the corporate world. I bet Munich has tons of Paradox, Access, VB, Delphi, and Powerbuilder apps – all db related.
Maybe Mono will be the solution for this. But why aren’t data-bound RAD frameworks being built for languages like Python? now that would be outstanding.
“What on linux even approaches the productivity of Delphi?”
I thought Kylix is basically Delphi for Linux and it is supposed to be compatible with Delphi.
There seems to be a free Open Edition for writing OSS software:
http://www.borland.com/products/downloads/download_kylix.html
It doesn’t seem like most people actually read the article.
They are not scheduled to be completely switched over until the end of 2005. That’s two years away and this proposal was made in May. They are not just jumping into this. The transition was expected from the very beginning to take 2.5-3 years.
They are switching from win 3.1, 95, and 98. Switching to 2k or XP wouldn’t exactly be a cakewalk either. Granted, backwards compatibility would make a difference but there are bound to be problems when moving from a much older OS to a much newer one.
The article also explains how the setbacks have no direct connnection to open source. This is a problem with the implementation of the migration. This is not a problem because it is Linux. This is a large project and there are bound to be hiccups. I, for one, am still optimistic about the project and until it is years late, over budget, or dead in the water, I will hold back any severe criticisms.
Like I said, making this political when dealing with technical is’nt going to get the job done, nor would it ever.
AdmV
“What on linux even approaches the productivity of Delphi?”
I thought Kylix is basically Delphi for Linux and it is supposed to be compatible with Delphi.
Yes, Kylix is a true RAD, but unfortunately it looks like Borland is abandoning it.
Fine. However, I reserve my right to critique people on a performance basis EVEN IF THEY Operate in the oft non monitored governmental areas. I firmly believe in people in government being fired if they do not deliver.
Then make your criticisms when all is said and done. This is not a failure by any means. It is still early and time will tell how this turns out. The plan is not even intended to be finished until almost 2006.
I’m sorry, I’m not going to enlarge this further, there are widely available figures showing the levels of success and failure, and I am sure you are smart enough to go and dig them out.
That’s a cop out if I ever saw one. If they are so easy to find then please provide some links.
I’m sorry, I believe a company can sell, or release its software under its own terms. I choose to respect the GPL, so I also should have the courage to accept the license others sell their product by.
That doesn’t matter as much of the law. You cannot release something under a license that breaks the law. The license is not valid if it breaks the law. The world doesn’t have the same laws as the United States and they have no obligation to follow them. If a company wants to release software in another country it is their obligation to make the licensing terms legal.
I must be a lot older than most who have commented on this.
I have done Migrations from Dos to Windows 3.1, from 3.1 to 95 ,from 95 to 2000 and just recently from 2000 to XP.
And let me tell you that every single one is extremely hard on the end-user who do not like to change, in there view it just works and they dont ussually care about new features, and if you put some thought to it you cant blame them.
And when doing all these migrations not everything was seemlesly backward compatible, there are always issues with some vendors applications breaking ( bad code in most cases ) but same can be said for Linux software, I run many apps that have worked since 2.0 Kernel days and a lot that does not ( probably also a good/bad programing practises thing.)
Anyway my point is that no IT migration project is easy and always faces resistance, even when migrating from one MS product to another. ( many times from IT folk who dont like to change there skill set.)
This project is going to be extremely difficult, and I am 100% sure that they knew it would, they will end up changing much slower than they wanted but I hope they succeed.
I have few words for my fellow Linux Zealots:
Don’t be a cry cry baby, if Linux or OSS Screwed up, deal with it, don’t be defensive, it ain’t gonna help buddy. In fact the way you defend Linux is going to get it screwed even more.
You guys can’t even have an open mind discussion, if at all i say positive about Microsoft, you feel i am anti linux and makes me feel so alienated. Get over it, i use linux when i like it, in fact i have one redhat 9.0 at one home computer, i contribute to GPL when i have time and when i think it will not harm our industry. So Atleast please don’t be defensive and turn off other peoples by being a pro-linux-alienate-other-army.
Linux is no magic bullet to every solution and it will never be.
At the end of the day, i think Munich government screwed up, by spending more money and now in doubt of reverting their decision or atleast not getting what they wanted. VMWare is damn expensive too.
And this has created more bad PR for Linux than you guys realize, its better for Linux community to get their act together and publish only factual information and stop spreading hype that Linux is a magic bullet, because 1 or 2 more failure of this kind, and trust me Linux will stand behind many more miles than it is today in the race for desktop.
“Thats how you see it. However, as I said, you seem to have accepted that the people of Munich should now pay millions more to carry out a Political move to OSS, something which seems to overshadow true technical merit and thus draws much scrutinisation. I don’t think your view on Munich is fair to the people”
Emphasis added.
1) The people of Munich don’t pay anything more as it seems now. They pay tax anyway. Whatever it is spend to is decided by the city council. Like i said, i don’t agree with this process, but this is how it goes.
That has nothing to do with “how i see it” it is 100% “how it currently works”. There’s no discussion needed about this, because this is simply how the political system works. We can discuss this is right or not and wether the people of Munich should have decided more directly wether they want this change or not and a lot more political aspects. I prefer not, because this is imo the wrong site and place to discuss that. So let’s just accept that, ok?
On to point 2:
2) Afaict this isn’t a mainly political move. It is an escape from vendor lock in and therefore a freedom and cost benefit. If it saves costs on the longer run because of that -which is believed by the analysts-, i think it is good, also for the people of Munich because a part of their tax will then be spend on other specific parts or tax will be lowered.
“IF you happen to feel that Microsoft use the end user as a damn guinue pig, the OSS should avoid doing the same for a higher price tag at ALL costs.”
Not only the end user. I also find this statement a bit broad because the TOTAL costs (!= only the costs for SuSE) is expected to be on the shorter run higher, but on the higher run lower.
That said, does SuSE do the same vendor lock-ins as Microsoft does?
“This is IT. I tend to view IT as 3-5 years in general lifespan for much of it, and the current timeframes look like 2005, which if so, I doubt that you or anyone else can possibly even consider now pitch on that score.”
Yeah, ofcourse, the conservative “the future is uncertain” argument. Come on man, this is cheesy. You don’t know what will happen tomorow either, perhaps you get a car accident!
I believe anyone else who investigates can get a vision about the future provided they have access to certain current facts, circumstances, et al which apply for Munich. I hope for them they hired quality people to investigate it.
Therefore, you can in some degree know what’ll happen if you investigate it good enought. You distrust their analysis? I have no reason to suspect that.
If they don’t change they still HAVE the vendor lock-in i think we don’t have to debate Microsoft isn’t gonna change. Bill Gates is no nerd, Bill Gates has studied marketing and has always acted like that. He just has a nerd image. If you look to the history is Microsoft you can recgnize the “embrace & extend” and vendor lock in all over the place.
(on a sidenote i have plans to investigate that whole history and write it down [with complete references ofcourse]. I’m just searching for other people who want to join the effort because all alone this is too much work)
“Thats a fair comment, but, they would also not be at the problem level they are at with a vastly larger cost over run unless they hit problems they did not for-see. Clearly everyone can agree that Linux, like Unix has a way to go for new end users, especially in a business situation.”
I think we all agree too it isn’t on every aspect; the question is therefore: on which aspects and what can “we” do about it.
“Sorry, like I said, the OSS community is near incapable of looking at issues with an open mind.”
Great generalisation. Great flame.
“You prove the case, becoming defensive almost to the point of delirium.”
I prove your stereotype. Fine. I’m glad!!!11 Great flame.
“What should they have done? I believe they should have chosen to evolve the IT rather than try a revolution, a revolution the tax payers in Munich will now bear the brunt of in many ways, and given Germany has many problems now, and the EU is demanding public monies be cut down to reasonable levels, I would really appreciate you not using the EU in part of your sermon. Germany nor Munich can afford this ‘stunt’, and the EU laws you stipulated regarding IE are near irrelevant.”
Have you contacted them?
PS: when will i see the URL’s? Will it be before or after my beard is longer than RMS his beard? Seems to me we’re both rather repeating what we’ve already said. I believe the analysts have done their job right. If you believe this is not the case i seriously suggest you contact them and inform them of your analysis. That said, i think any futher discussion is pointless and i’m not interested in your flames & stereotypes -to which i never ran into- either.
Later,
“First off, a little detail: The german federal budget and the Munich city budget are totally different beasts. Germany is in debt, Munich is one of the richest cities in Europe; that’s the way things go in federal republics. Read & learn.”
Hear, hear! This is true. It applies to other cities too. The very same applies to cities in my country (NL). I can’t comment on every EU or European country, but i think it ain’t unique. Think about it: what use would it else be to chose for a political leader (major & friends) in your city? The political party in power in a city can heavily differ from that of the province or country, and indeed it _does_ sometimes!
The other side of the story is that some expenses which are in the benefit of the province are paid by the province, and for some projects indeed the government itself pays but that doesn’t happen much and if it does it is investigated well. Sorry, but i don’t think this applies here, because this isn’t in the benefit of the province or country.
You are another one of “Hear no evil, see no evil” OSS Army. It is a very fair judgement today to say that switching to OSS has cost more to Munich for now. Who has seen long term, may be it will save them money, may be it won’t. That is future. But as of today, they screwed up, they made a wrong decision with Linux migration and if they revert, this will be a tight slap on the face of all “Blind OSS zealots”.
The day you people can appreciate good things in windows and good things in Linux and make a fair comparison, you will succeed, because today due to this feeling of blind competition, linux is not even gaining much in Server market, where its strength is clearly more than windows. Microsoft with solutions like Small Business Server is really pulling up in server business too.
IBM was so right to quote that it will take few more years for Linux to reach desktop.
On a sidenote, The way Linux distro makers are pimping linux, i don’t think that anybody will save lots of money unless they go for a free distro and take the pain of maintaining it.
<quote>I can’t understand how someone can neglect civil liberties, they are the reason we can parlor here. Right now, people all over the world fight and die, and through the last few centuries fought and died, for liberty and freedom and you turbo-economic advocates would throw it away for 12 million dollars?</quote>
I sincerly hope it’s only you who takes the whole Linux vs Windows thing so seriously!
I don’t mean to be disrespectful but that paragraph is so over the top it’s disturbing.
At first I wondered if you simply used this paragraph for effect but after rerreading your full post I suspect not
Watch the news from time to time there are far higher priorities in the world than Linux.
Yes, Kylix is a true RAD, but unfortunately it looks like Borland is abandoning it.
Also, Kylix based apps don’t seem to work anymore with recent linux distributions using the Native Posix Threads Library. Some day Linux really has to discover binary compatibility.
I couldn’t agree more.. When I initially read about the Germans going over to OOS like Linux etc. my imediate thoughts were “I hope they have better luck then I ever have”, I’ve tried numerous Mandrake’s, several RedHats, several Debians and several other versions of Linux… I’ve never ONCE had a pleasant experience of stability, if it be numerous coredump files getting put all over the place, X locking up, or applications plain crashing on me where I have had to use an X Killer to get rid of the garbage left on the screen… And I have to say i’ve not had overly great luck with FreeBSD either, as much as I like that ( mainly nVidia driver issues there to be honest).
Upon saying this, I knw there are people who don’t have stability issues, and all power to them
.. but the OOS’s have left a bit of a nasty flavour in my mouth to be honest. I think if these places want to ditch companies such as MS that charge a bucket full of money for a 50cent CD burn then I say good on them… but I think it pays to shop around, there are other options.
“The day you people can appreciate good things in windows and good things in Linux and make a fair comparison, you will succeed, because today due to this feeling of blind competition, linux is not even gaining much in Server market, where its strength is clearly more than windows. Microsoft with solutions like Small Business Server is really pulling up in server business too.”
Your statistics, basis, common ground, etc? I readed at Netcraft something different… which rather implies “replacement”.
Source: http://news.netcraft.com/archives/2004/02/16/number_of_sites_runnin…
“It is a very fair judgement today to say that switching to OSS has cost more to Munich for now.”
That’s funny because i just readed that they’re still investigating on how exactly they’re gonna switch till spring 2004, and because the project hasn’t ended. You can only judge such after the project deadline is over or when it’s implemented; not now just yet.
Who says “screwed”? Only some vocal group here on OSnews.com. No really, these people all know what they’re talking about they know more about the situation than the analysts and researchers who work for this project in Munich. FFS, goi work there, go give them feedback, you arrogant pricks.
Source: http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=96948&cid=8288749
“IBM was so right to quote that it will take few more years for Linux to reach desktop.
On a sidenote, The way Linux distro makers are pimping linux, i don’t think that anybody will save lots of money unless they go for a free distro and take the pain of maintaining it.”
$50 for a distribution which keeps on running for 5 years whereas you pay $100 for Windows -excluding ie. Office and any additional products- for 5 years is cheaper, isn’t it? Besides the political aspect ofcourse…
I am volunteer for an organisation which allows people to freely use the internet using XFce and Galeon (we tested several WM’s and DE’s. XFce was chosen after feedback from several of our users). Non-technical people easily learn our in-15-minute-customized configuration. Our only problem is the electric bill; no technical problems. Thousands of other people also use Linux as their desktop already.
“The desktop is not ready” is therefore a generalisation which cannot be applied everywhere. At best it is relative and yes i take it as true for some situations. Some solutions are complex too (ie. requires emulation). If there are aspects on which it doesn’t run well or easy or <fill in> then let’s point these out and contribute in fixing them!
I’ve never had any problems running Linux.
Bla bla bla and finally:
“Right now we are proceeding as planned, and we have no hints or signals that the city counsel is regretting or reconsidering their decision to move to Linux,” said Hofmann.
Funny to see this big Windows server ad on the middle of this “article”
Geez what type of computer are you running. I havent had any problems /w my:
Compaq Presairo 5447
Cicero AMDXP 2200+
IBM Aptiva (my first computer
)
Custom built AMDXP-2600+/512MB/120GB
But then again I am pretty 31337 for a 17yr old.
Your personal experience won’t be the same as the expereience in Munich. They have 14K computers there. It seems likely to me that they don’t have all the same hardware configuration while it also seems likely to me they do all have the same hardware configuration. I think it’s gonna be a mix, and how exactly i don’t know.
That said, when such a problem is identified on one hardware configuration and solved, it is solved on the other one too. Better yet make an image for these PC’s which are the same. They’re gonna polish the specific distribution (SuSE) for their computers.
The vary same is true for MS Windows.
Really, a business or organisation which wants to run on Linux is different than one (1) home user PC.
I had problems with the propritary Nvidia driver too on one of my PC’s i admin -which isn’t mine- but why should one care when one doesn’t want hardware acceleration? On the specific PC, it wasn’t necessary so i figured i better use the GPL one.
How many of these 14K PC’s need hardware accelaration? Problem at least minimized. On a side note i’d advise not to use NVidia’s + OSS because NVidia doesn’t provide an open driver. Unfortunate when one already got ’em…
They should have taken MS’s cheap offer, and pushed everybody from their ancient systems onto the current MS platform – which would probably last them 5-7 more years. This would have led to the least disruption.
Then, once that tough upgrade is done, specify that all new app development is done using cross-platform technologies – like php apps in a web browser. Also load Open Office on each machine, anyway. Then mandate all new documents/spreadsheet work happens through OO, MS office is a backup to maintain current work.
Again, though, we come to the point that there are no apps like Access/Delphi/VB in the Linux world, which makes them inherently non cross-platform
“while it also seems likely to me they do all have the same hardware configuration.”
..should have been..
“while it also seems likely to me they don’t all have the same hardware configuration.”
The only time something is a success story is when you get it done with no flaws or problems.
——–
Then every single Windows -> Windows transition ever made has been a failure. I remember when my dad’s office switched from UNIX terminals to PCs with DOS. People bitched and moaned. They did the same thing when they moved from DOS to Win 3.1. People bitched and moaned very heavily when they moved to Win 95. The entire Win 9x era was one long bitch-and-moan session, because those were perhaps the least stable OSs ever to come out of Redmond. Somehwere in there, the government forced them to move from WordPerfect to Microsoft Office. People *really* got angry about that, partially because Office sucked in comparison to WordPerfect at the time, and partially because of all the shortcut keys and everything people were used to stopped working. To this day, my dad complains about how easy the WordPerfect 6.0 interface was, and how complicated Word’s is. Windows 2000 met with mixed reactions — it was more stable than Win 9x, but also slower and had compatibility issues. No large office migrations go off flawlessly. Even if you switched from Win 3.1 to OS X Panther, people would still complain. And there would still be application issues. The key is to see if the cost of moving, in the long term, is outweighed by the benefits of moving. That’s what defines a successful migration.
At the end of the day, i think Munich government screwed up, by spending more money and now in doubt of reverting their decision or atleast not getting what they wanted.
This is not at all the impression that the article gives. I’m all for being honest with the problems that Linux may have, but what you’re doing is putting a negative spin on what is really a neutral story. Yes, they’re having some challenges, which is to be expected when you migrate that many computer systems. However, they have no intention of reverting their decision. Also, using VMWare or some other type of emulation was already being discussed six months ago as a way to keep running legacy Win3.X apps.
You can hardly whine about “hear no evil see no evil” Linux advocates when you’re no more honest with you “hear only evil see only evil” attitude.
Very well said. I remember when my office switched to Win2K (and from Office 97 to Office 2000). Even though there was no real problems with migration, people still complained, sometimes about the smallest of details. The truth is that people don’t like to change, even when it’s for the best. As such, if we were to apply Roberto’s stringent standards, there would be no successful migrations ever.
Hi
Dont be an idiot. this is nothing about stallman. this is about migration and its problems. whats wrong with you eh/
Jess
If you can’t formulate your arguments without resorting to personal attacks and insults, then you have no arguments at all.
You must really enjoy being modded down…
I would just like too point out again that IBM and Novell/SUSE can’t afford for this project to fail. They will make it work and are strong enough too suceed.
Once it has suceeded it will be the basis for many similar projects on a much larger scale.
Like Linus said about the development of the kernel the destruction of Microsoft will be a purely unintentional side effect.
…mix politics with technical decisions. Is it any surprise that it’s a failure? Now they have to cobble together an emulation layer and still pay licenses. If I was a taxpayer in Munich I would be outraged. But since it’s open source that’s all that matters.
How can you call it a failure when it’s not supposed to be done until late 2005?
They don’t have to “cobble” anything, emulation works. And they already have the licenses – why would they pay for them again?
It wasn’t politics that motivated the Munich decision, but long-term planning. Meanwhile, you should think your arguments through before you post your FUD.
Let’s see. They’re already paying $12 million more than the MS solution. They’ll have to pay for vmware licenses or pray that wine will work, which it won’t. They’ll still have to pay MS licensing fees. It’s already a failure. The costs will never be recuperated. It was a political decision made with disregard to technical ones. Not only that, but it makes Linux look bad for others contemplating a migration.
They’re already paying $12 million more than the MS solution.
$12 million less up front. What part of “long-term investment” do you not understand?
They’ll have to pay for vmware licenses
For which I’m sure they’ll get a sweet discount, especially if they are considering Wine.
or pray that wine will work, which it won’t.
Why wouldn’t it? Wine works great with recent MS apps, why would legacy Win3.X apps (which are the ones that are at stake here, btw) be much harder – especially since IBM has access to the Windows 3.1 source and could bring Wine up to par on some issues, should they arise?
You’re making a lot of assumptions, and they’re quite dubious. That does not make for a very convincing argument.
They’ll still have to pay MS licensing fees.
No they won’t! They already have MS licenses since those are legacy apps…think about it for a minute.
It’s already a failure.
Nope. If you’d read the article, you’d see they’re having normal migration problem. It wouldn’t be any easier if they were going from Unix to WinXP, you know.
The costs will never be recuperated.
Please provide us with the budgetary forecasts that led you to that conclusion.
It was a political decision made with disregard to technical ones.
Actually, it was an economical decision. It makes more sense in the long run. Of course it won’t be easy to migrate that many systems – you’d have to be a fool to expect otherwise.
Not only that, but it makes Linux look bad for others contemplating a migration.
Of course, as an anti-Linux advocate, it’s pretty clear that you’d try to portray this in the worst light possible. However, others who are considering migration will get the facts, not the headlines.
You also have to factor in major costs with having to be beta testers for buggy open source business software. That alone is going to kill them.
I doubt they’ll install beta software – they’ll go for official versions. No need to be “cutting edge” here!
Please stop your FUD.
As Microsoft advances its business software technology with Longhorn, .NET, and new Office suites, where do these people go to for their new software needs? Do they hire expensive programmers/contractors to fullfill their needs? Can they rely on part-time open source programmers who are unaccountable? If Novell(Suse) pulls a redhat and decides to pull their supported distro from free download are the costs going to be any better when they have to pay Novell(an American company) those expensive support contracts, or do they choose to pay expensive consultants to maintain the systems. Heck, Novell could change their mind and just ditch the distro all together.
There are lots of certainties to be betting your future desktop/business needs on. Munich isn’t an IBM who can roll their own distro and provide all the software for their business desktops.
“They’ll still have to pay MS licensing fees. It’s already a failure.”
This has already been discussed.
“As Microsoft advances its business software technology with Longhorn, .NET, and new Office suites, where do these people go to for their new software needs?”
All above doesn’t matter for the current applications will do fine with the current VM/Emulator. Future changes matter not at all.
Only thing is Office, perhaps. Ie. Munich civilian at home fills something in, in .doc for example. OO.o can read Office documents. Microsoft better release ther new specifications else they might run into lawsuit trouble again.
“Do they hire expensive programmers/contractors to fullfill their needs? Can they rely on part-time open source programmers who are unaccountable?”
They rely on SuSE. Why is that a problem?
“here are lots of certainties to be betting your future desktop/business needs on. Munich isn’t an IBM who can roll their own distro and provide all the software for their business desktops.”
SuSE does that. Do you think like, they’re gonna use the official SuSE CD’s for all these computers? That would be so ultimately stupid. One make’s an image for that (TFTP + NFS, CD, etc – lots is possible). Companies already do that with Microsoft Windows too, be it wth 3rd party tools (Norton Ghost; good FLOSS clone is for example “partimage”). It’s legal to do so with Microsoft Windows as long as you have a license (one always pays for the license not for the OS; you don’t own the OS anyway). What do you think an OEM ships? The standard installation of Microsoft Windows? All those who don’t are spending useless hours which could be spended way better.