Wienux, a Linux for Vienna

Quoting:In a setback for the City of Vienna's three-year-old open-source migration programme, city authorities decided on Wednesday to scrap most of the systems that have so far adopted the city's custom-built Linux distribution, instead approving an €8m migration to Windows Vista.

The Vienna district council on Wednesday formally approved a budget of €8m (£6.3m) for migrating Windows 2000 systems to Vista and Office 2007, according to a report from Österreichischer Rundfunk (ORF), the Austrian national public service broadcaster.

The Vista migration will include 720 kindergarten systems that had been migrated to Wienux, a Debian-based Linux distribution developed internally by the city's IT body.

"This is a major setback to the city's Linux migration," said Marie Ringler, a member of the district council and representative of the Vienna Green Party, according to the report.

A key factor in the rollback decision is software used in a kindergarten language-learning programme called 'Schlaumäuse', which requires Internet Explorer, according to city officials quoted in the report.

http://news.zdnet.co.uk/software/0,1000000121,39429910,00.ht... i wonder....how much bribe money is here involved???

Yeah... I can only imagine it must be a bribe, or sheer stupidity, because running something that requires Internet Explorer on Linux is a very easy problem to fix... you just run Internet Explorer. It's one of those apps that actually work quite well under many flavours of WINE.

$$$$$$$

There's also the question: Does it just SAY it requires IE? Or is it actually dependent on IE only features/activex/etc.?

Silly geeks, asking such irrelevant questions. What's sad is not how so many people are easily bought, but for how cheaply.

How do you migrate a Windows 2000 box to Vista? Heck, that 100% new equipment, I wonder what this cost Microsoft in backroom bribes?

Its not like they can't pull 2, 3 or 10 billion dollars from the M & B Gates Fund for preservation purposes as it is...

Quoting:running something that requires Internet Explorer on Linux is a very easy problem to fix... you just run Internet Explorer.

Vienna doesn't only have to worry about technical problems, they also have to use their software in a legal way. It might be forbidden to run IE on Linux (and it is IIRC).

Quoting:I wonder....how much bribe money is here involved???

When Munich wanted to migrate to Linux, I remember S. Ballme pausing his Alps holiday and going to Munich. Maybe he was on holiday in the Alps again? Vienna is rather close to the Alps...

HKW,

So you are telling me the Boomer visited and did a quick snow job on the city Vienna? Is that you want me to believe?

I assume it wasn't recent, being so late in the Spring with what I thought was a deficit of precipitation in the Alps this year. You people are all too cynical for my tastes, I think this falls in the realm of a religious experience of a transcendental beatitude. A veritable Miracle I say!!

Just wonder if they need some help laundering the loot. My rates are low, and I get those damn dollars converted to small denomination Euro coins lickiity split (for a fee). All they need is the goons to carry away the loot.

> It might be forbidden to run IE on Linux (and it is IIRC).

I don't believe it is. I believe you can only run it if you have a "licensed product" (i.e. Windows) though. Fortunately, that includes Windows 98 and such.

OK, you can find the EULA here:

http://www.virtualacuity.com/james/article/swliability/ie6li...

Here is the relevant section:

NOTE: IF YOU DO NOT HAVE A VALIDLY LICENSED COPY OF ANY VERSION OR EDITION OF MICROSOFT WINDOWS 98, MILLENNIUM EDITION, WINDOWS NT 4.0, WINDOWS 2000 OR ANY MICROSOFT OPERATING SYSTEM THAT IS A SUCCESSOR TO ANY OF THE FOREGOING OPERATING SYSTEMS (EACH AN "OS PRODUCT"), YOU ARE NOT AUTHORIZED TO INSTALL, COPY OR OTHERWISE USE THE OS COMPONENTS AND YOU HAVE NO RIGHTS UNDER THIS SUPPLEMENTAL EULA.

This doesn't specify that IE must be installed and used on the relevant operating system, only that you must have a licensed copy of one.

There's a second section dealing with multiple copies, but that doesn't apply in this case. Of course, IANAL.

Thats nice, except that if I remember correctly at least 2 court cases (one of which was the monopoly case) have ruled that the browser is not an operating system component.

How that applies to this would be interesting, other than them saying that they dont want thier software on anything other than MS products. I'm not sure if that clause would even hold up in court though. If I buy an engine the manufacturer cant tell me what I must use that engine in, be it a lawn mower, car, truck, boat or hot tub. They can refuse liability or warranty under some configurations, but they cant dictate the actual use.

This just goes to show how entrenched Microsoft Technology is. The writers of the package probably can't even produce a Linux version, given their dependency of Microsoft technologies.