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Munich Delays Linux Conversion 181

Posted by ScuttleMonkey from the slow-and-steady-wins-the-race dept.
It doesn't come easy writes "A short blurb over at The Register reports that Munich has decided to extend the pilot phase of their Linux migration project. One smart move mentioned: Many of their office workers will switch to OpenOffice on Windows first where it is comfortable, easing the transition."
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Munich Delays Linux Conversion More

Munich Delays Linux Conversion

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  • waiting for the discount offers from microsoft to (Score:4, Funny)

    by TCaM ( 308943 ) on Wednesday September 07, 2005 @12:07AM (#13496705) Homepage
    start rolling in?

    • Re:waiting for the discount offers from microsoft (Score:5, Informative)

      by strider44 ( 650833 ) on Wednesday September 07, 2005 @12:15AM (#13496764)
      They rolled in a few months ago. Missed the boat a bit there I think.
    • I find nothing wrong with it if it would bring the price down. It was interesting to read recently that the price of Vista is rumored to debut at $99, which some people at MS consider a low price (?) Apparently Microsoft is hoping people will have a more positive incentive to upgrade to the new software, instead of letting their existing OS slip into obsoletion. Of course, this would also mean more people would go out to the stores and buy the OS, raising profit margins and revenue... I still consider t

    • Re:waiting for the discount offers from microsoft (Score:5, Informative)

      by rm69990 ( 885744 ) on Wednesday September 07, 2005 @12:55AM (#13497022)
      Already did. The MS solution was cheaper at the time. Munich still decided on Linux. They want full control over their IT infrastructure in the future, right down the souce code level, something Microsoft can't offer.

  • Open Office is Open Office... Or is it? (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Nerd Systems ( 912027 ) * <ben@[ ]dsystems.com ['ner' in gap]> on Wednesday September 07, 2005 @12:08AM (#13496712) Homepage
    I am a little confused here... why the switch to OpenOffice on Windows first, then to Linux second? Is that not an extra step, that could be totally done away with?

    Isn't OpenOffice on Windows the same as OpenOffice on Linux? I see in the story at The Register that they have various office templates and scripts that they want to port to OpenOffice, yet why waste time removing Office from each machine, then installing OpenOffice, then getting all the scripts and templates to work, then having to recreate things when done again in the Linux environment? Why not just cut out the middle steps and go directly from Office on Windows, to OpenOffice on Linux?

    People, am I missing something here, or would it not just be best to just go to Linux with openOffice functionality directly, and not even bother with this middle step? If you ask me, it sounds like something else here is amiss, as their reasoning seems flawed to me...

    I can understand people being concerned about switching from a Microsoft Windows environment, using Office for their word processing, spreadsheet, database, and presentation tasks... yet as far as things go, Linux can do the same things with OpenOffice just as easily...

    Also, Linux has a web browser, music player, everything that a company could need to do business with, and these days, with the majority of applications that companies needing built on web-based infrastructures, there really is very little reason to run Windows these days. Of course some companies still have applications that are Windows-only, but with time I can see more applications being able to function on Linux...

    Another bonus of running Linux is the amount of spyware that will be cut down drastically, as windows is well known for how easy spyware can infect it and totally ruin a system image. If they would just hurry up and switch to Linux, so many problems would be solved...

    Oh well, at least they can build cars right over in Germany...

    • Re:Open Office is Open Office... Or is it? (Score:5, Insightful)

      by stoanhart ( 876182 ) on Wednesday September 07, 2005 @12:16AM (#13496774)
      Proably because switching to OpenOffice will require enough people to relearn or do things they have always done differently. If they change the OS on them too, it is too much at once. Let them get used to OO first, then change the OS.

      makes sense to me.

      • I don't see why that would matter OOo is pretty similar to ms office, not much relearning to do. Like the parent said it would be more effective to do both transitions at the same time, but then again I'm usually wrong with these kind of things

        • It's the fancy stuff. (Score:2, Insightful)

          by Agarax ( 864558 )
          They are mostly worried about the fancy stuff that no one but secretarys ever use. It's mostly there, but the shortcuts might be different, ect.

          Can you imagine what most geeks would do if copy went from ctrl-c to ctrl-k or something like that?

          Just a thought.

          • You mean like copy is Ctrl+C sometimes, y in Vim, C-w in Emacs, etc?

            I rarely have any trouble, except when I try to do things like "copy next word" or "copy this line" that aren't available in the application I'm currently in.

        • It's not so much that OO is almost the same as MSO.

          It's more about psychology. People generally don't like change. And big change is more disrupting than small change. Part of that comes from fear of the unknown.

          You get people transitioned to OO still on their familiar windows platform. It gets them used to the new OO system, while also helping build confidence in the overall changes to come.

          While it might make more sense from an IT standpoint to just make the change and be done with it, from a human ma
      • Yeah, I hope they're considering rolling out other F/OSS packages during the transition, too. Firefox and Thunderbird on Windows come to mind as easy to adapt to while learning OOo.
      • Probably because switching to OpenOffice will require enough people to relearn or do things they have always done differently. If they change the OS on them too, it is too much at once. Let them get used to OO first
        The wouldn't have to if the interface to Open Office wasn't gratuitously different from MS Office.

    • Re:Open Office is Open Office... Or is it? (Score:5, Insightful)

      by xploraiswakco ( 703340 ) on Wednesday September 07, 2005 @12:24AM (#13496835) Journal
      Yes you are missing something, OpenOffice on both platforms is the same. The idea is the users will have a chance to get use to OpenOffice, before they have to get use to linux.

      Which quite honestly is a bigger change than changing from M$ Office to OpenOffice.

      The effect will be that they will be able to convert there templates and scripts while still using an OS they are comfortable with, then copy those Templates/scripts to there Linux setup once they are accustomed to OpenOffice.

      You and I may have no problem changing OS'es just like that, but they are dealing with general users that wont be, and will simply be expecting there computers to just work.
      • The idea is the users will have a chance to get use to OpenOffice, before they have to get use to linux.

        Which quite honestly is a bigger change than changing from M$ Office to OpenOffice.

        You and I may have no problem changing OS'es just like that, but they are dealing with general users that wont be, and will simply be expecting there computers to just work.

        Having performed exactly this sort of migration, I completely disagree. It is the switch between Office systems that is the main issue. For a typical
    • I am a little confused here... why the switch to OpenOffice on Windows first, then to Linux second? Is that not an extra step, that could be totally done away with?

      Explain to me how the switch from Office on Windows to Open Office on Linux is not two steps to beging with. I would say going to Open Office first, then to Linux would more easing into OSS then the other way around. Switching your OS is a much bigger step than switching your word processor/office suite software. And if you switch your OS to L
    • Quote: He explained that when a department has a small number of simple Office macros and templates, but a large number of complex applications, it is easier to switch to OpenOffice on Windows before switching to Linux.

      What you missed was the 'large number of complex applications.' To me this implies that there are applications (outside of Office) that will need to be 'transitioned.' They'll need to wean people off the applications or create Linux-compatible equivalents.

    • Re:Open Office is Open Office... Or is it? (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Nefarious Wheel ( 628136 ) on Wednesday September 07, 2005 @12:45AM (#13496970) Journal
      I am a little confused here... why the switch to OpenOffice on Windows first, then to Linux second? Is that not an extra step, that could be totally done away with?

      Training, primarily, as well as care and feeding of the myriad process monkeys with their taproots in the flow.

      Seriously, large organisations - including municipal governments - are notoriously risk-adverse. Not adverse to change, but adverse to unmanaged change. And if you're working with people who are extraordinarily process-minded (the nursing profession comes to mind) then you're not going to get the ball over the line without showing a step-by-step progress from point A to point B. Smaller steps will be seen as less-risky, and therefore better. Chaos in any bureaucracy is considered irreligeous.

    • First, I am not at all surprised by this delay. Munich is undertaking something extremely massive. I figure it is going to take maybe 2-3 more years to make it happen. Undoubtedly this delay has happened because they have found that some of their internal apps/web apps/etc. don't work as well on Linux and they are working on porting them over. This is to be expected and is hardly the end of the world.

      Secondly why migrate the apps first? Think about it. You want to make sure everything works. This usually means migrating in stages and slowly. The last thing you want to do is migrate everything all at once and then have to shut down everything for a month while you rebuild certain areas of your infrastructure. So you start with the easiest to replace areas (Mozilla/Firefox, OOo) and work down from there. You have some people on a pilot program using Linux and finding all the issues with it, and this makes it easier to migrate additional areas. Also moving everyone over to OOo as soon as possible makes a lot of sense because it helps the people on Linux use the same software as the people on Windows.

      Ideally this pilot program would be done by those people with the least specific requirements and the fewest software tools they rely on. Once these users are stabilized, then you can expand the pilot to a larger group with slightly more complex needs. And so forth. I figure that a well orchistrated migration of a large organization will take at least 3-5 years to complete assuming all goes well.

      • Mod parent up! (Score:3, Insightful)

        by khasim ( 1285 )
        Massive changes almost never work.

        The best way to approach this is to have a lot of small steps. That way, any minor advance that has a problem can be rolled back without killing the entire project.

        The trick is to space out the changes that the end user has to deal with so they don't get overwhelmed by them.

        And neither do your techs.

        It's all about the migration plan.
    • People, am I missing something here, or would it not just be best to just go to Linux with openOffice functionality directly, and not even bother with this middle step? If you ask me, it sounds like something else here is amiss, as their reasoning seems flawed to me..

      For the IT department, switching the O/S is more complicated than switching the office suite because of all the details (user accounts, profiles, mail, printers, and so on).

      But for a end user which spend most of its time in the mail client,

    • Isn't OpenOffice on Windows the same as OpenOffice on Linux? I see in the story at The Register that they have various office templates and scripts that they want to port to OpenOffice, yet why waste time removing Office from each machine, then installing OpenOffice, then getting all the scripts and templates to work, then having to recreate things when done again in the Linux environment? Why not just cut out the middle steps and go directly from Office on Windows, to OpenOffice on Linux?

      What I got from re

    • Re:Open Office is Open Office... Or is it? (Score:5, Informative)

      by iabervon ( 1971 ) on Wednesday September 07, 2005 @02:41AM (#13497467) Homepage Journal
      I see in the story at The Register that they have various office templates and scripts that they want to port to OpenOffice, yet why waste time removing Office from each machine, then installing OpenOffice, then getting all the scripts and templates to work, then having to recreate things when done again in the Linux environment?

      Probably because they'll install OpenOffice before removing MS Office, so they can continue to use their scripts and templates while they get them working in OpenOffice. It's a lot easier to write a new version of your templates if you can see how the old version works with software you have available.
    • Comment removed based on user account deletion
    • "Isn't OpenOffice on Windows the same as OpenOffice on Linux? I see in the story at The Register that they have various office templates and scripts that they want to port to OpenOffice, yet why waste time removing Office from each machine, then installing OpenOffice, then getting all the scripts and templates to work, then having to recreate things when done again in the Linux environment? Why not just cut out the middle steps and go directly from Office on Windows, to OpenOffice on Linux?"

      It is about the

  • Blarg - a non story (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Crowhead ( 577505 ) on Wednesday September 07, 2005 @12:14AM (#13496755)
    Who here, who as ever worked on a large scale project, has not experienced delays?
    • Delays are common all around the world.
      But I think that holding back to check a few more issues (when no deadline is fixed on stone) is a good attitude to be prised.

      If more managers were keen to "hold back and take a fairly good look at it" instead of "rush for delivery" I'm sure the overall quality of work would benefit enormously.

      My 2 cents ;)

      --
      Grammar Zealotes: please spare a non-english [lastknight.com] writer
    • most of the large projects I have worked on have failed outright. At first I thought it was me but then read about this being typical of programming projects, and most erps fail as well.

      see http://www.it-cortex.com/Stat_Failure_Rate.htm [it-cortex.com]
      for a good start on the stats.

  • Sounds like a good idea (Score:3, Insightful)

    by ReformedExCon ( 897248 ) <reformed.excon@gmail.com> on Wednesday September 07, 2005 @12:15AM (#13496765)
    It's nice to see a successful government project, even if it is something as relatively minor as a computer systems switch. Yes, okay, switching computer systems is a pretty big deal if you are a system administrator or applications developer for those systems. But from the general public (the ones whom the system is meant to serve) perspective, it should all be pretty transparent.

    To see such a move going so well that they intend to do more of it is certainly heartening. I know that I wish the American government would allocate its funds better. Switching to low-cost, high-quality solutions like Linux provides us taxpayers with more bang for our buck.

    Let's see how well it goes in Germany and see what lessons we can take away from it!
    • Switching to low-cost, high-quality solutions like Linux provides us taxpayers with more bang for our buck.

      True and not true. Supporting American companies is Good® for America - but the governments efforts should be for funding open source software, this is true.

      There is no reason that the government shouldn't be able to enter into contracts for solutions. Blanket contracts are another story all together. It doesn't work with Halliburton and it doesn't work with Microsoft. Spending tax money on some pr

  • Nothing to see here (Score:5, Insightful)

    by strider44 ( 650833 ) on Wednesday September 07, 2005 @12:17AM (#13496787)
    All that's happening is that they're waiting a little while for the workers to get comfortable with the office suites first. There's no hesitation about switching to Linux. Munich is a big city folks, you can't just say "We're going to change to Linux . . . wait for it . . . NOW!"

  • Office compatibility (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Bob54321 ( 911744 ) on Wednesday September 07, 2005 @12:19AM (#13496808)
    Although the compatability between Microsoft Office and OpenOffice has definitely improved, it would be interesting to know how much trouble is had in this region. The switch to OpenOffice because it is free arguement does not take into account the amount of time spent trying to make old documents work. If it could be shown by a large organization that all is good many more may make the switch
    • How many times? Free as in speech not free as in beer.

      The advantages of using OpenOffice are not, primarily, cost based (although that is a consideration), it's the fact that the City of Munich has ultimate control over what happens with their software. They can review the source code, they can modify the source code, and they are beholden to one less American corporation.
      • How many times? Free as in speech not free as in beer.

        Actually, more like free as in speech and free as in beer, but not free of consequences. Even if I gave you all the free beer you'd like, there'd be consequences to your present (intoxicated), short-term (headache) and long-term (health issues) condition. All that should be counted in the TCB (Total Cost of Beer) :)

        Kjella

  • Somewhere in Redmond... (Score:5, Funny)

    by cpu_fusion ( 705735 ) on Wednesday September 07, 2005 @12:20AM (#13496814)
    Somewhere in Redmond, Ballmer is abusing a chair.
    • that is furiously, hilariously funny and you should be ashamed of yourself.
    • I know that by "abusing" you meant "throwing" but I couldn't help but think of Ballmer humping it.

      Now my brain is dirty.

    • Re:Somewhere in Redmond... (Score:5, Funny)

      by linguae ( 763922 ) on Wednesday September 07, 2005 @01:54AM (#13497295)

      Another scene today at Balmer's office in Redmond, Washington

      Adjunct: Good morning, Mr. Balmer

      Balmer: Good morning to you, sir. I'm smelling the nice aroma of freshly printed $100 bills coming to our empire today. Hopefully Windows Vista and MS Office 12 preorder sales are through the roof. I can hear geeks online shouting about the virtues of IE 7, Avalon, and C#. Do you have any good news to tell me today, sir?

      Adjunct: Well, I'm afraid another one of your customers made a switch. This time, it's Munich, and they're dumping MS Office.

      Balmer: WHAAAAAAT! They're switching? To what?

      Adjunct: Well....

      Balmer: Please don't tell me it's OpenOffice. Just tell me it's not OpenOffice.

      Adjunct: It is. They're switching to OpenOffice.

      Balmer then roars into a rage. Roaring and pounding his chest with his fists, he then picks up a chair and throws it at his table, splitting the chair into two.

      Balmer: "I'm going to f***ing bury Munich, I have done it before, and I will do it again. I'm going to f***ing kill OpenOffice."

      Balmer: "I'm going to kill every single OpenOffice developer that I find. Them dang developers. Developers. Developers, developers, developers, developers...."

      Balmer then runs around the entire Microsoft campus like an angry 800-pound gorilla and sings his "Developers" hit.

  • Some questions (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Mostly a lurker ( 634878 ) on Wednesday September 07, 2005 @12:25AM (#13496843)
    I have a strong feeling that the City of Munich is typical of large, long standing MS Windows/MS Office organizations. It would be really interesting to know what the most challenging issues involved in the switch are and whether any look set to prove intractable. Some likely suspects I can see are
    • User resistance: people like to stay with what they know rather than being pushed to use something unfamiliar.
    • Extensive use of MS Office only features such as VBA or features that work differently in Open Office.
    • Applications using Active-X or other COM controls that are not easily converted to WINE or similar.
    • Third party software products that are only supported under Windows.
    • What else?
    There is probably a /.er somewhere who, at least anonymously, could tell us.
    • In any large organisation who must keep accounts, budgets etc. there is usually enough VBA in circulation to sink a battleship. Anyone up for a decent VBA emulator or transition/conversion product?

    • Re:Some questions (Score:5, Informative)

      by Advocadus Diaboli ( 323784 ) on Wednesday September 07, 2005 @01:01AM (#13497065)

      Let me try to remember what I heard on the speech of Florian Schießl at the LinuxTag 2005.

      User resistance: people like to stay with what they know rather than being pushed to use something unfamiliar.

      True. To convince the users they did a sort of "tournee" through all departments and showed them how Linux looks like. And they got some funny feedback like "I didn't expect to see a GUI".

      Extensive use of MS Office only features such as VBA or features that work differently in Open Office.

      True. One of the biggest problem is a custom installed VBA something installed by a "primadonna". Its a hard job to convince the people to change to something completely new.

      Applications using Active-X or other COM controls that are not easily converted to WINE or similar.

      I have no details on that, but it could be an issue as well.

      Third party software products that are only supported under Windows.

      According to Mr. Schießl they contacted all their software vendors who provide specific applications and asked them if a Linux port is available or if they can port it to Linux. The feedback to this action was very little so Munich needs to find new partners that are able to provide Linux apps as well.

      What else?

      Mr. Schießl pointed out that switching is not that easy since the service that the municipality is offering has to remain "online". People would get a lot annoyed if they couldn't register for a car number plate because the city is switching to Linux. So they have to develop a strategy that does the move, but transparent to the citizen that expects full availability of the services.

      One other issue could be that since the Munich solution is based on Debian and Debian did the transition from Woody to Sarge recently that might affect the schedule as well. Maybe there are some dependencies on custom software that need to be adjusted to the new environment now. Even if I think that shouldn't be a big deal we need to keep it in mind.

      • Isn't VBA being depreciated for .NET? You can put a wrapper around the COM, but it isn't really "managed" code, right? So all those VBA and COM man-hours are going out the window anyway...

        • Re:Some questions (Score:3, Insightful)

          by Kadin2048 ( 468275 )
          The key words are "being depreciated." That doesn't change anything about the installed user-base who depend on VBA applications or tools. It means they would have had to change anyway in the near future, but that's irrelevant now that the move to Linux has been announced.

          Now, all the effort at replacing them will be blamed on the OS switch, as opposed to just being written off as a necessary upgrade in order to use the new framework and remain competitive. And of course the end users will still bitch and m
    • What else?

      Interoperability with other business units/companies/organizations.
      OOo is good, but still falls down sometimes when conversing with outide units using MSOffice.

  • Extending a pilot project is A Good Thing (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Nefarious Wheel ( 628136 ) on Wednesday September 07, 2005 @12:26AM (#13496851) Journal
    ...because extended pilot projects tend to expand into a full rollout when pulled by demand, when people see what they're missing and pull strings to have the pilot extended to them.

    This is often a much more sure road to successful acceptance than big-bang rollout projects, where any issues tend to be magnified in that short window when the powers that be see themselves politically vulnerable to errors in execution and might pull the plug.

    When going after user acceptance, a pull is better than a push; if users want the change, they're on your side and will work to show the change in the best light. When pushing the technology out to people who would rather have a bit of control over the process, you risk their ire if you tread on their schedules.

  • It's no wonder the transition is taking time... (Score:5, Funny)

    by Rocketship Underpant ( 804162 ) on Wednesday September 07, 2005 @12:34AM (#13496903)
    I can't imagine waiting for Gentoo to compile on 30,000 PCs. ;)

  • it isn't OpenOffice's fault (Score:5, Insightful)

    by yagu ( 721525 ) * <yayagu@[ ]il.com ['gma' in gap]> on Wednesday September 07, 2005 @12:42AM (#13496950) Journal

    One point I see made constantly (wonder how many MS shills there are out there) is the concern and finger pointing at OpenOffice about ensuring smooth interoperability and compatibility with Office documents. This is frustrating.

    First (but not foremost) in my opinion the sooner "compatibility with Microsoft" is dropped as the IT yardstick (really it is just a canard), the better. As posted in previous /. articles there are other and emerging standards. The other standards aren't necessarily better (since that's an esoteric discussion unto itself anyway), but I can think of one that in the long run if adopted hints at greater interoperability than seen in a long time.

    Second (and foremost AFIC), I've posted on this point many times (hmmm, time to start keeping a list of links), there really isn't such a thing as Microsoft and Office interoperability and compatibility. It's time to push back and start pointing that out to the puff-piece MS standard bearers. How many times have you wasted valuable time at a meeting while attendees share paper copies of the pre-distributed incompatible (with their version of WORD) Word documents? If you don't remember, you're not trying.

    It's just not OpenOffice's fault anymore, and it's time to start defending it. I know it's a long shot. I know it's a long haul. And I know I'm getting modded troll and flamebait.

    • Re:it isn't OpenOffice's fault (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Nefarious Wheel ( 628136 ) on Wednesday September 07, 2005 @01:15AM (#13497131) Journal
      First (but not foremost) in my opinion the sooner "compatibility with Microsoft" is dropped as the IT yardstick (really it is just a canard)

      Sorry, *ding* thank you for playing, join us in reality as soon as you're ready. In your own time, don't rush.

      It isn't compatibility with Microsoft that's at issue, but compatibility with business systems that are bulwharked with rivers of existing code. VBA code stuffed inside the gentle spreadsheet and word doc. There are cubic miles of it in banks. This must be managed, and it's a massive change. Yes, they will be far better off from the experience, but there are up-front costs to convert that must be addressed and not to do so would be seen as grossly negligent. Bureaucrats (and yes, I speak fluent Bureaucrat) must be seen as covering all the bases before they make the change. MS standards (particularly document standards and those devilish EULA's) are ugly on so many levels, but nobody wants to push their existing business systems over a cliff to accomplish the change any quicker than they can.

      It ain't ideology, it's survival.

    • Well, I'm supposedly an MS Shill because I don't believe the usual Linux bullshit, but whatever...

      First (but not foremost) in my opinion the sooner "compatibility with Microsoft" is dropped as the IT yardstick (really it is just a canard), the better.

      This is correct, in a larger sense. The only way OpenOffice will be successful is if they can drop the "compatibility with Microsoft" claim. That is to say, when your primary measuring stick is comparing your product to the other guys and saying "Hey, we're a

  • Yes, people will bitch (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Stonent1 ( 594886 ) <stonentNO@SPAMstonent.pointclark.net> on Wednesday September 07, 2005 @12:44AM (#13496963) Journal
    I've been moving people away from 2000 Pro at work to XP Pro and a few have complained that "It's too different! I can't learn this" even with the classic windows theme installed. Some people will fuss for no good reason. My only motivation is all the 2000 systems are still joined to a NT4 domain that is being taken away. Then people bitched when we went from Office XP to Office 2003. If you force things upon people they'll adapt quickly, but if you give them too many options it could take years to get them moved over to something different.
    • If you force things upon people they'll adapt quickly, but if you give them too many options it could take years to get them moved over to something different.

      In a corporate setting where the owner or the person properly appointed by the collective will of the owners(shareholders) it's perfectly fine to force things on employees.

      This is a city in Germany. After the previous century, I would suspect that the German people are going to be quite resistant to the idea of having anything forced on them.

      LK
      • Umm...perhaps I'm misunderstanding, but this is happening on computers owned by the city, and used by city employees. Key word: employees.

        Not citizens, not townspeople. Government employees, on their work computers. These are the 'end users' in this discussion, not the actual recipients of the government's services.

        Nobody is saying that the customers (in this case, the citizens who get their services from the government) have to change anything. In fact it seems as though one of the main objectives of the m
        • ...The way you wrote your comment, you'd think that the Free Software gestapo were going to go kicking down people's doors and forcing them to install Debian at home.

          You suddenly hear loud goose-steeping footsteps and your door breaking in..

          AND suddenly, the lead penguin has a RAIL GUN!!!!!

          "DEBIAN OR DIE, MS weenie!"

          (you survey that many are wearing white sheets with RMS's face masks)

          You begin to realize that you really are in Hell.

  • Yes, there's a delay (Score:4, Funny)

    by WhiteWolf666 ( 145211 ) <{sherwin} {at} {amiran.us}> on Wednesday September 07, 2005 @01:46AM (#13497253) Homepage Journal
    This obviously means the death of Linux.

    After all, these opensource nuts are the only ones that experience delays, and its only because of the poor caliber of opensource programmers.

    Microsoft, of course, never experiences delays. If they had gone with a Microsoft Solution 3 years (projected started in 2001), they'd be running on Longhorm, ahem, I mean, Vista, today!

  • Smart Move (Score:4, Insightful)

    by nukem996 ( 624036 ) on Wednesday September 07, 2005 @01:52AM (#13497284)
    Most of the people will be using three applications that are found on both Linux and Windows, OpenOffice, Mozilla Firefox, Mozilla Thunderbird. Getting them used to OpenOffice(hopefully the beta its sooo nice), Mozilla Firefox, and Mozilla Thunderbird will help ease things out when they are finally on Linux and the users will have to get used to the Linux desktop environment(I would suggest KDE). Anyway if they are really afraid I know there are many skins to make Linux look like windows, they should consider that to.

  • Am I the only one who read (Score:3, Funny)

    by commodoresloat ( 172735 ) on Wednesday September 07, 2005 @02:33AM (#13497432)
    Munch Delays Linux Conversation?

    I had to blink for a second; I knew slashdot has some slow news days but that takes the cake; is it now news that someone had to stop talking about Linux long enough to eat some food?

  • "Munich's attempt to migrate to Open Source ends in total disaster! Billions wasted! Budget destroyed! Fires! Floods! Dogs and cats living together! MASS HYSTERIA!"

    ];)

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