Maybe, maybe not

Story: Munich considers dumping Linux for ... GULP ... Windows!Total Replies: 6
Author Content
BazBear

Aug 20, 2014
6:08 AM EDT
Munich is doing a complete IT review, and won't even think about what changes they may make until after it's done.

http://lxer.com/module/newswire/ext_link.php?rid=205071
nmset

Aug 20, 2014
7:53 AM EDT
I tend to think they will revert, money rules, politics rule, it's ought to be no more than a friendly behaviour between US and EU politics, remember Russia may become a less frienldly customer to MS and Oracle, the Chinese don't want Windows 8... ...
jdixon

Aug 20, 2014
8:09 AM EDT
Municipal budget decisions are made by politicians on the basis of politics and political connections? Who knew?
mbaehrlxer

Aug 20, 2014
9:55 AM EDT
10 years in the running and no noise about complaints until now? do you think all the employees are afraid to speak up?

if gnu/linux was really so bad that it would warrant a switch back then the outcry would have been a lot louder, from multiple sources, and it would have come years ago.

the fact that the project was completed without such an outcry shows that gnu/linux is capable to do the job, and what we are hearing now is the voice of a one person who, because of his position is getting more attention then he deserves on this issue.

the whole of munich government except this one person has no intention to switch and the review (which is very welcome) will only confirm that.

germany does not have a tradition of government leaders who call the shots and everyone else falls in line. so even as mayor he is not in the position to make decisions that the city council disagrees with.

munich will not switch. please do not feed the rumor mill.

and should the review discover that a switch back is needed then the munich government will have to answer the question how it managed to silence all the complaints until now. that's right, it managed that because there were not many complaints.

greetings, eMBee. (the above is just an opinion. it is not thoroughly researched, except for reading a few german articles and applying first hand knowledge of the german political system)
me1010

Aug 20, 2014
10:27 AM EDT
@mbaehrlxer

While the conversion project is a decade old, I would imagine that most users were converted in the last 2 or 3 years. There were several false starts over that decade and there's a huge learning curve for the IT staff to convert PCs. After the first 1000 or so machines, the process would have been streamlined. So, it shouldn't be too surprising that there are seemingly more complaints now than during the previous 8 or 10 years.

I do agree that the FOSS community is missing a really great Outlook replacement. There are several options, but they don't run as well as Outlook. Outlook is about the only application that MS got 'right'... and after several decades of FOSS, there should be a decent replacement, but there's just not... Evolution is terrible. I used it for years, and finally just abandoned it due to bloat and poor imap compatibility. Thunderbird has a very odd feel to its use. I tried to get used to it several times, but the interface was too odd for me... felt very foreign to my mind. So, at the moment I'm using Sylpheed, which is truly great for email. And I'm on the lookout for outlook [GNU/Linux]. It would be great if Munich decides to fund an Outlook replacement project...
Bob_Robertson

Aug 20, 2014
10:38 AM EDT
Me1010, I only disagree in that Excel is also an extremely capable product.

With the known partnership of Microsoft and the NSA, I cannot imagine any foreign government wanting to be anywhere near Windows.

And as Me1010 suggests at the end, it's not about just saving money. It's about what could be accomplished with that money as an alternative to making Bill Gates a bigger busybody than he already is.
TxtEdMacs

Aug 20, 2014
11:57 AM EDT
[serious+]

If you follow some of the international news sites, it seems that the Germans have been caught doing to others to which they so strongly condemned, when it is done to them. That is, they spied at the highest levels upon Turkey, U.S. and other allies using the Deutsch S.S.* So a switch is not automatically nullified by their experiences with NSA's prying eyes.

[/serious]

As always,

YBT

+ Mostly - but forgive me, you should know by now how hard that is for me.

* Untie the underpant's knots, just means Secret Service. I do not know German well enough to state it exactly natively.

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