German Foreign Office Going Back To Windows 901
A user writes "The German government has confirmed that the German Foreign Office is to switch back to Windows desktop systems. The Foreign Office started migrating its servers to Linux in 2001 and since 2005 has also used open source software such as Firefox, Thunderbird and OpenOffice on its desktop systems. The government's response to the SPD's question states that, although open source has demonstrated its worth, particularly on servers, the cost of adapting and extending it, for example in writing printer and scanner drivers, and of training, have proved greater than anticipated. The extent to which the potential savings trumpeted in 2007 have proved realizable has, according to the government, been limited – though it declines to give any actual figures. Users have, it claims, also complained of missing functionality, a lack of usability and poor interoperability."
Sad (Score:5, Interesting)
Linux or Windows desktops? (Score:4, Interesting)
Driver Costs Not Realistic, Says Article (Score:5, Interesting)
A comment from someone in the government shows that this isn't going down without a fight. The FO's answers to inquiries claimed driver costs were high. Officials say that something's wrong if writing drivers costs more than refitting the entire bureau with new Win/Office licenses.
Microsoft invests Billions in... Germany? (Score:5, Interesting)
Someone at the top of the ladder @ Microsoft must have seen where this was going.
http://www.businessweek.com/news/2010-10-06/microsoft-s-ballmer-to-invest-billions-in-cloud-data-centers.html [businessweek.com]
Writing printer and scanner drivers?? (Score:4, Interesting)
It makes me wonder what arcane version of Linux they were using - or what kind of obscure brand of printers and scanners they insist on using. Any serious manufacturer these days supports Linux.
Now I know not all printers have Linux drivers available; yet this migration has been going on for five years and has been planned probably for years before that.Easy enough to replace equipment that comes to the end of its life span with equipment that's known to work with Linux. At least that is assuming they have a serious and competent IT department.
One has to wonder ... (Score:5, Interesting)
what the number of security / virus issues was (or wasn't ) during the period of using Linux in the office ? I do tech support for a medium sized school district and we are constantly getting pretty sophisticated phishing emails to some of our staff. And some staff still fall for them or send out emails or try to reply ... Fortunately we are 70% Mac based so most of that just blows by.
The issue with teachers is that they regularly email parents and students who may have infected PCs and their email addresses are then harvested.
The rest of the article says it best (Score:5, Interesting)
Almost no need for comments here in Slashdot as the second half of the article "balances" the initial assertions.
Essentially, one group in a political party is against the use of F/OSS in favor of Microsoft and other BSA groups' products. They give arguments that do not contain any figures to support their claims. The article indicates this much but also asserts that the costs of creating various forms of support for hardware are CERTAINLY less than the costs of Windows and other software licenses. (You can almost certainly expect Microsoft to step in to offer discounted license costs to the German government to prove that's not true as they have in the past)
With all that said, it certainly does show there is still an uphill war going on where hardware support is concerned. Without question, the battles have mostly been won though the determination of developers, hackers and crackers where the results are an extensive pool of hardware supported under Linux. Trouble is, hardware development hasn't stopped and new ways to shut out access to Linux users have been added as it goes on. One that gets under my skin most recently is NVidia's Optimus technology that has made the use of the nvidia gpu impossible on my little alienware.
Until hardware makers are legally inhibited from doing so, this will go on for as long forever or until Windows becomes the next IBM or Novell. (Nobody believed IBM on the desktop could be killed off... nobody believed Novell on the server could be marginalzed either and they both happened. Why anyone thinks Microsoft Windows will still dominate in 5 years amazes me. They might, but they might not -- things are changing rapidly and there is still lots of government support and development of Linux around the world.)
Just tools (Score:3, Interesting)
Here is the incredible truth:
Software is just a tool used to accomplish something else. The Real People Out There use what works for them, not what they believe in.
Computer people should stop with the religion wars already, it's frankly ridiculous...
Re:Sad (Score:5, Interesting)
Apples and oranges.
Germans don't have as much of a need for credit cards because they either prefer to pay cash or they use their bank cards (basically authorizes the store to debit the money straight from the respective bank account). Not that different from the US where people are still using checks but simply without the need to waste tons of paper and thanks to international agreements the electronic payments are possible across borders.
That's why credit cards are looked at in this manner. They're either used to buy something on credit (read: pay with money you don't have) or in most cases an inconvenient necessity to buy from foreign vendors or for the occasional foreign customers.
Re:Economically sound? (Score:3, Interesting)
I am sure that with the money they spend in Windows licenses, they could have bought new compatible printers and scanners. Come on, most high grade, networked all-in-one printers and scanners are compatible with Linux.
You're assuming that's the sort of gear that's at issue. My bank in Canada uses small receipt printers at each teller's desk. They've also had cheque scanners that read the codes at the bottom, often printed in MICR toner.
While I don't know that the decision isn't ridiculous, I'm not going to assume it is. They may not be having problems with large-scale group printers that we all know can be made to work (well). It may be smaller, industry-specific gear that has lead to this problem. We don't know. So I refuse to play couch-rocket-scientist and tell them how they're doing it wrong and don't know their jobs.
Send programmer reinforcements (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:One of these things is not like the other. (Score:4, Interesting)
I live in Geneva, and here everything government does supports Linux. The government is using open source software everywhere and they haven't complained a bit about it. Just the opposite. Software for taxes is available on Windows, Linux and MacOS X. Although I don't think is FOSS (haven't seen the license yet).
I've been migrating people to open source servers and desktops in Latin America for years, and sometimes I've found the classical resistance from users. I mean, you really must give the users a great experience in order for them to like the switch. I've seen users complain vocally when forced to use old desktop environments (particularly old KDE releases). But usually if you move them to a more modern and better configured desktop system they appreciate it, especially if they're coming from Windows XP or older.
Printer support was quite ugly in the olden days, not to mention the odd (but functional) Xsane software for scanning. Things have been getting better in the last two years, but still these German users probably had to deal with some pretty ugly things. They may have been switched too early.
Linux is mostly ready for the desktop now: for an office clerk desktop is good enough, even better. For a programmer is excellent. For most people is fine. But there are some proprietary software that some people won't be able to do without. Fortunately it isn't Microsoft Office or Internet Explorer anymore, so we've gained some ground. People are happy with OpenOffice.org and Firefox/Chrome these days, they have even started dreading some bloated proprietary packages already (e.g. Internet Explorer).
We're nerds, for us a command line is enough, but for users change is stressful enough. And there's the issue of the helpdesk people, who feel really threatened by the switch, especially when they're not so smart, like is usually the case in government positions. Supporting Windows means upgrading antivirus and formatting computers. Most users have administrator access in their machines, so no problems with file permissions or the like. Windows networking is dead simple, and desktop hardware support for Windows is really easy to get. It's ugly, inelegant, but it's there, and it sort-of works, and its quirks are well-known. Habits get engrained.
The lesson to learn here would be to look at what the users need. Look at the shortcomings they might find, and anticipate them. If you know they'll need to use Xsane to scan, because they need some complex stuff, provide some documentation in a Wiki already before the migration. Provide little howtos on common tasks. Make the documents editable by them. Give them help and let them help one another. Move the users to the new system in small groups and have a technical person exclusively assigned to help the last migrated bunch of ten or so. Don't ram change down their throats, let them drive it.
If the company is large enough, hire some expert programmers, or a programming outsourcing firm to improve on some open source packages that are essential for business. That will not cost so much.
If there's technical people that dread change, that will refuse to upgrade their skills and embrace the new OS, _fire them_, Change is necessary and your team needs to be able to cope with it, especially the technology people.
Re:I have faith that this thread will remain civil (Score:3, Interesting)
It's not simply chicken and egg.
I've recommended linux to my friends who are using netbook, i.e. mostly sharing common configurations with no obscure hardware expected.
Whilst they don't have driver issues, the most common complaints are:
- Poor and inconsistent UI. They particularly hated that Ubuntu was swapping the buttons around often.
- Many open source software are feature-incomplete when compared to their commercial counterparts.
- Linux desktop (esp. Ubuntu) is very unstable when it comes to updates; half the time the updates would break something for them.
Re:Send programmer reinforcements (Score:2, Interesting)
Off course, we NEED programmers. But, programmers who understand that the Average Joe does not know or are required to know all the mysteries of one CLI.