The State of Munich's Ongoing Linux Migration 203
Posted
by
timothy
from the es-geht-immer-noch dept.
from the es-geht-immer-noch dept.
christian.einfeldt writes "The Munich decision to move its 14,000 desktops to Free Open Source Software created a big splash back in 2003 as news circulated of the third-largest German city's defection from Microsoft. When it was announced in 2003, the story garnered coverage even in the US, such as an extensive article in USA Today on-line. Currently, about 60% of desktops are using OpenOffice, with the remaining 40% to be completed by the end of 2009. Firefox and Thunderbird are being used in all of the city's desktop machines. Ten percent of desktops are running the LiMux Debian-based distro, and 80% will be running LiMux by 2012 at the latest. Autonomy was generally considered more important than cost savings, although the LiMux initiative is increasing competition in the IT industry in Munich already. The program has succeeded because the city administration has been careful to reach out to all stakeholders, from managers down to simple end users."
Linux at home for the city employees? (Score:5, Interesting)
Doing OK, in spite of bumps in the road (Score:5, Interesting)
Over the years I've read a great deal about various efforts to belittle and undermine it. The Munich Limux Watch blog seems like an attempt to systematically discredit the entire project. I'd love to find out who's behind it. I doubt it's directly supported Microsoft, but I'd wouldn't be surprised if there is some business interest, perhaps a disgruntled IT supplier or even a public sector employee who doesn't want their desktop system changed, behind it. Perhaps some clever Slashdot reader can find out more.
Don't be surprised that there are unexpected costs on a project of this size and complexity. Think about similar projects in the (semi-)public sector, some of which had factor 10 cost overruns and were abandoned (for example: Denver airport luggage processing system). In the end, the ability to actually complete the project, even if years late, and the long-term cost savings will determine its real success. [See my signature below]
We shouldn't expect Limux to have an instant pay back. Even though the operating system is free, the installation scripting, customization, roll-out, training and support have real costs, which will take years to amortize. The gain will only be in the long-term when the infrastructure to support Limux is in place and saves from not having license costs associated with forced upgrades are realized.
Further, you must bear in mind that Munich is a pioneer in even attempting to replace a major Microsoft based infrastructure with open source software. They are having to to do everything from scratch, which I'm sure increases the cost.
Munich's Limux project is a battleground for Microsoft. It it succeeds then it will become the model for similar initiatives. This could make non-Microsoft desktop systems a real alternative for large institutions. This is Microsoft's disaster scenario, and could ruin their monopoly hold on the marker. They might even have to, gasp, compete.
Re:Doing OK, in spite of bumps in the road (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Both sides of the story (Score:3, Interesting)
And look, already a comment on the Switzerland story.. maybe the first of many? Who knows? *shrugs*
From http://limuxwatch.blogspot.com/2009/05/switzerland-acknowledges-that-there-is.html#comments [blogspot.com]:
Anonymous said...
Someone linked to your blog on /. and it is not going well for you, your ideas, or your writing style. You might want to disable your comments section - just based on my analysis of your failure to grasp the basic tenants of reporting.
June 28, 2009 5:25 AM
Re:Doing OK, in spite of bumps in the road (Score:1, Interesting)
About limuxwatch. Why is it posting anonymous? It doesn't look like very honest hiding your identity. It is very very likely that it limuxwatch is connected to business interests (MS?)
I absolutely agree, Mr T. Zetter. Clearly the only reason somebody might want to post anonymously is that they are secretly being paid by Microsoft/Big Oil Companies/Big Pharma/Al Quaeda/the Dutch.
I believe all anonymous posting on the internet should be banned, and hopefully you will agree with me. The only problem I have is that sometimes people don't believe that I am actually called Mr Anonymous Plusfivefunny Coward!
Re:Both sides of the story (Score:3, Interesting)
Definitely beats shoveling the money to american robber baron company by any stretch.
Though the exact effect on Germany's balance of trade depends on other factors, including the EUR/USD exchange rate and global state of the economy.
Re:Both sides of the story (Score:5, Interesting)
You say this as if it's necessarily a bad thing.
It's a good idea to get things done as quickly as possible, generally speaking, but you should also give them as much time as necessary to do them PROPERLY.
Munich, it seems, was under no particular pressure to rush the project through and meet and arbitrarily-set deadlines so that shareholders would be satisfied or so that a C*O would be able to collect his bonus. Isn't it better to take a few more years and actually do the job well, in a way that will ensure the resulting "ecosystem" and infrastructure is going to last, than to rush it and have it all fall apart in 5 or 10 or even 20 years?
Of course, this is Slashdot, so chances are you're the libertarian sort who hates anything that's been touched by the "government". Which is fair enough, but you shouldn't confuse cause and effect: if you want to hate the government, do so because the things it does are objectively bad. If you automatically view everything the government does as bad for no other reason than that it's the government (which you hate) that did it, then you've got it backwards - you've slipped from reason into more or less blind ideology.
Re:A success? Some people disagree... (Score:5, Interesting)
As Microsoft strives to migrate their core technologies from the desktop onto the Web, so too is their propaganda machine migrating from the established press to the informal social web. Microsoft shills are invading social web sites everywhere - in forums, discussion groups, comments to news items, edits to Wikipedia, manipulation of search engines, comments to blogs - posing as innocent participants to promote their agenda and counter wide spread complaints about their shady marketing practises. Even in the comments section of blogs by Microsoft employees on their own corporate site they employ sock puppets to say the things the author felt inappropriate to say directly. They race to place their shill postings at the top spot in the comments section of news and blogs, or perhaps they are given advance notice enabling them to do this where they are a sponsor.
The evidence is here on Slashdot for all to see, without embellishments from me. What I say here is amounts to only a digest of hundreds of postings by others. A careful investigator can see for himself the evolution of discussions on Microsoft related issues, especially those accusing them of their usual hard ball tactics. As one reads from Slashdot's historical record on through to recent times, the evolution of Microsoft's efforts to pervert Slashdot's discussions becomes readily apparent. Microsoft's ambition is to twist internet discussions around a full 180 degrees until these discussions become a platform for propaganda from Microsoft's "Ministry of Truth". A study of the comments of the shills posted here can be cross-correlated with postings on other sites. Their pattern of saturating a discussion with shill postings, and the repeating of mindless memes becomes obvious. Their harassment, ridicule, and suppression of criticisms is designed to intimidated those who would speak out against them. They seek to establish and enforce a discipline of giving Microsoft "fair treatment" and their propaganda the same consideration and respect a real person would deserve.
In the process they are destroying Web 2 as we know it. This insidious attack on the infrastructure we rely upon to form our opinions in a complex world has both a direct and an inhibitory effect on free speech as a side effect.
We must stop this while it is in its infancy. Once it fully established, it will become much more difficult to root out, and other ruthless corporations, organizations, and even governments will want to emulate the success of Microsoft's campaign. This is the nightmare vision of the end of the social internet as we know it.
Yeah, sure, like if private companies were better. (Score:3, Interesting)
Several big failures of the UK's government's IT strategy has been due to the sheer incompetence of the *private* contractors.
Or what about train companies in the UK, or highway operators in Mexico. In both cases the original "investors" cashed in on their shares as soon as they could and left a mess behind that the government has had to paid.
I can also say that, having worked all my life in private industry, your comment, which seems to imply government=ineptitude could easily apply as well to major well known corporations.
It is ironic that now that governments are having to bail out banks (not for the first time mind you, in Mexico we got deeply into debt to avoid the collapse of the financial system during the 90s), car manufacturers and insurers there are still people out there equalling government with incompetence.
Re:Both sides of the story (Score:2, Interesting)
"Bad thing" was not my intention.
Perhaps I should have added that to me it looks like they're doing the right way. I sorta figured that claiming it as 'mere' "government job" and then providing their good plan would be enough for people with a sense of irony. In any case it didn't see that anti-libertarian knee jerk aggression coming -- I really don't think libertarianism is worth any attention at all. It's a prime example of dead-on-arrival ideology.
Moving target? (Score:3, Interesting)
Making an assumption here, but perhaps Open Office's release of two major versions [wikipedia.org] during the project's lifecycle may have something to do with the delay.
If I was running this show, I'd have uber-time blocked off for compatibility testing to make sure key stakeholders (see, "important people with important spreadsheets") were happy, even if that meant delaying roll-out for the next major OOo release.
How to getalong with the Germans ... (Score:3, Interesting)
So ten per cent success rate considering the incredibly short work week state employees enjoy is not just going well, it's an unprecedent level of efficiency.
Actually, you just have to look at German doors. (Score:3, Interesting)
I'm living in Berlin now and of the things which hits me hard just about every day (literally) are the bloody doors.
German doors aren't mere convenience items, they are designed to stop tanks. British doors in comparison are made of cardboard, mainly for show, you can swing one open with a flick of the wrist. Attempt that with a German door an you will be nursing a sprained shoulder for the rest of the week. Clearly it's a design intention that going through a door should be something one does with care and aforethought.
Re:Most importantly, why is he posting in English? (Score:3, Interesting)
Why Munich is important (Score:3, Interesting)
At the start of the early 2000s there was essentially a controlled experiment about implementing Linux on the desktop.
In the first category we had companies like AutoZone, Burlington Coat Factory and Pep Boys that never had developed a Windows culture to begin with. These were Unix shops (generally SCO or Solaris) and they transitioned quickly (within a year or 2) and easily (say under 100 man years) to Linux.
In the second category we had technology knowledgeable companies that wanted to transition to all Unix/Linux, and considered it important but not critical. IBM, Oracle, Sun (Sun Java desktop) being leading examples. They failed, believing it was not worth the distraction even though this failure was quite embarrassing. In many people's estimation they gave up much too quickly.
In the third category we had places that wanted to transition to Linux for ideological reasons. Most of them found the processes daunting and gave up. Munich is a great example of the 3rd category. They have some technical depth but not a technical user base. They have financial resources but are somewhat cost constrained. And they had a Windows culture. That is Munich is sort of a good case study for most companies that are not IT focused. When Munich is successful they will provide a wonderful example that it is possible and how to do it. Right now they provide a caution of the complexities.
Don't be ridiculous (Score:3, Interesting)
Do you think there is a time limit? Munich is nearly 900 years old - what would be the rush? I think they are going about it in an interesting fashion; first transition to open source software that runs on Windows (OpenOffice, Firefox, Thunderbird). Only when people are used to this software do they start transitioning the desktops. Seems pretty sensible to me and it looks like they are playing a long game here.
Yahoo Stock Message Boards Also Suffer From This. (Score:3, Interesting)
I used to follow some small stocks on Yahoo for a while. The message boards became almost useless because there were a few trolls who would post endlessly the same things over and over again on totally obscure stock message boards. They would usually get replied to but would never argue. They would just post the same thing over and over again. This is probably the best indicator of a sock puppet or troll. They never argue or reply to criticism. They just keep posting the same crap over and over again and just wait for non-sock puppets to get bored of them and stop posting which lets them dominate the forum.
Most of these robotic stock bashers were probably paid by hedge funds that were shorting stocks. Microsoft has an enormous marketing budget. It would be easy for them to run a campaign like this.