Munich Municipality will get rid of Linux at workstations
It took as many as 10 years for Munich (Germany) to think about how to get rid of Linux at workstations. In 2004, the city council decided that it would be cheaper and more reliable to transfer 15,000 computers to Linux, abandoning Windows and other Microsoft products. According to the South German newspaper Suddeutsche.de (the largest daily newspaper in Germany), due to the countless complaints from users, the city plans to sign a contract with an independent expert group to develop a plan to get rid of technically lagging and non-functional software.
What do we hear? It turns out that the desire to switch to Linux was caused only by political motives.
The problems that have become more and more obvious every year are the same flaws that industry representatives, including Microsoft, have warned about. Linux is hard to update and maintain, “free” does not mean free, technical support is limited, and the use of open source software can lead to incompatibility with the rest of the world.
Josef Schmid, deputy mayor of Munich, shares with us that which department of the government cannot be taken, employees simply suffer from using Linux at workstations.
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"And besides, we got the impression that Linux is a very expensive decision due to the fact that we have to make a lot of improvements on our own."
Curiously, if you look back, the transition took 10 years. After the decision to move was made in 2004, until 2006, migration did not even begin due to persistent problems and failures. And only by December 2013 it was possible to say that the project was successfully completed.
Ten years from concept to project completion. And only a year to understand that it’s worth getting rid of Linux.
Note from the translator :
Many thanks to hedgehog from Germany for eliminating several factual translation inaccuracies.
In addition:
What were the inconveniences that so ruined the life of the employees of the municipality?
After reading the original article, you can highlight the following points:
1. Free software, unfortunately, noticeably lags behind Microsoft software in terms of functionality.
2. For the normal operation of mail on smartphones, we had to install a separate mail server (Exchange?).
3. There is no software for normal integrated work with mail, contacts and meetings.
Those who have a calendar in Outlook from and to are scheduled with meetings, and booking meeting rooms and automatic selection of meeting time to attract maximum participants is a daily procedure, they will understand this requirement.
4. Sharing information with citizens and other municipalities is difficult, as the latter uses Microsoft software.
(For example, you send the form, and the answer is an abracadabra. The municipality works for the citizens, not for the software religion.)
5. They expected that simply “Linux is cheaper” due to the absence of a fee for licenses, but in practice it turned out to be a very expensive solution due to the need for self-development of functionality
(Present in commercial products from the "box")
PS: It is curious to observe how the technical community seems to be joyfully, in a karmic way, trying to “crack down” on “dissidents”. After all, we want to see the world only from one side - the victories of open source software throughout the galaxy. And no one dares to point out to us the shortcomings and failures of expensive free software projects.
Original publication: www.sueddeutsche.de/muenchen/muenchner-stadtverwaltung-von-microsoft-zu-linux-und-zurueck-1.2090611
Munich Linux Distribution: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LiMux
What do we hear? It turns out that the desire to switch to Linux was caused only by political motives.
The problems that have become more and more obvious every year are the same flaws that industry representatives, including Microsoft, have warned about. Linux is hard to update and maintain, “free” does not mean free, technical support is limited, and the use of open source software can lead to incompatibility with the rest of the world.
Josef Schmid, deputy mayor of Munich, shares with us that which department of the government cannot be taken, employees simply suffer from using Linux at workstations.
')
"And besides, we got the impression that Linux is a very expensive decision due to the fact that we have to make a lot of improvements on our own."
Curiously, if you look back, the transition took 10 years. After the decision to move was made in 2004, until 2006, migration did not even begin due to persistent problems and failures. And only by December 2013 it was possible to say that the project was successfully completed.
Ten years from concept to project completion. And only a year to understand that it’s worth getting rid of Linux.
Note from the translator :
Many thanks to hedgehog from Germany for eliminating several factual translation inaccuracies.
In addition:
What were the inconveniences that so ruined the life of the employees of the municipality?
After reading the original article, you can highlight the following points:
1. Free software, unfortunately, noticeably lags behind Microsoft software in terms of functionality.
2. For the normal operation of mail on smartphones, we had to install a separate mail server (Exchange?).
3. There is no software for normal integrated work with mail, contacts and meetings.
Those who have a calendar in Outlook from and to are scheduled with meetings, and booking meeting rooms and automatic selection of meeting time to attract maximum participants is a daily procedure, they will understand this requirement.
4. Sharing information with citizens and other municipalities is difficult, as the latter uses Microsoft software.
(For example, you send the form, and the answer is an abracadabra. The municipality works for the citizens, not for the software religion.)
5. They expected that simply “Linux is cheaper” due to the absence of a fee for licenses, but in practice it turned out to be a very expensive solution due to the need for self-development of functionality
(Present in commercial products from the "box")
PS: It is curious to observe how the technical community seems to be joyfully, in a karmic way, trying to “crack down” on “dissidents”. After all, we want to see the world only from one side - the victories of open source software throughout the galaxy. And no one dares to point out to us the shortcomings and failures of expensive free software projects.
Original publication: www.sueddeutsche.de/muenchen/muenchner-stadtverwaltung-von-microsoft-zu-linux-und-zurueck-1.2090611
Munich Linux Distribution: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LiMux
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/233813/
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