Munich Open Source Switch 'Completed Successfully' 275
Qedward writes "Munich's switch to open source software has been successfully completed, with the vast majority of the public administration's users now running its own version of Linux, city officials said today. In one of the premier open source software deployments in Europe, the city migrated from Windows NT to LiMux, its own Linux distribution. LiMux incorporates a fully open source desktop infrastructure. The city also decided to use the Open Document Format (ODF) as a standard, instead of proprietary options. Ten years after the decision to switch, the LiMux project will now go into regular operation, the Munich City council said."
Why did it take so long? (Score:4, Informative)
10 years is a long time to switch, I can see that being an impediment to other cities following suit. Are they sharing details of the changeover experience? It would be quite valuable to have a list of the major problems that made this take a decade rather than a year.
Re:Why did it take so long? (Score:4, Informative)
Re:It'll cost them more in the long run (Score:0, Informative)
Doing this sort of thing to spite Microsoft is silly.
Whatever they save on licensing fees will end up being spent on support, and then some. Playing computer politics with the taxpayer's money is irresponsible. There's a good reason why Microsoft is the standard for business computing and that's because their products are almost always better than open source.
There is, indeed, a very good reason. It only has a little to do with the free market and their actual products. It has more to do with unethical behaviour, ruthless exploitation, luck, and adequate products.
Re:Other Motives (Score:5, Informative)
No "perhaps" about it. I've been an admin in a lot of different mixed shops and the ratio of servers to admins is always better for *nix than for Windows, true for both servers and desktops. Gotta love ubiquitous scripting tools and absence of Patch Tuesday.
Re:help (Score:5, Informative)
Start here - http://www.smallbusinesscomputing.com/biztools/article.php/10730_3932591_2/Top-5-Open-Source-Alternatives-to-Microsoft-Exchange.htm [smallbusin...puting.com]
A 1000+ users isn't that many nowadays. Sogo, Zarafa, Zimbra should manage that without too much trouble. I'd check for the other groupware / calendar features that your users depend on before seriously considering a switch.
And there's always hosted mail / hosted Exchange. I think some of these are really running Exchange on the backend but so long as they provide the features and fully support Outlook or whatever mail client you're using, I don't think it matters.
Here's a vid from Sogo demonstrating Outlook compatibility, narrated by a very boring robotic voice - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1hcBSB4Kxww#t=292 [youtube.com]
Re:Other Motives (Score:4, Informative)
Yes it is.
We have alternatives. Those alternatives won't mix with the base system like oil+water because our system is modular.
Re:Other Motives (Score:4, Informative)
It's no more difficult to maintain a custom distro than a custom Windows installation. In fact, many organizations have their own "Windows distro" that comes with preconfigured and preinstalled software and properties.
I'm guessing you, and many others for that matter, think that since they have their own distro, they must be coding themselves almost everything they use. This is simply not true. Simplified version is they just select what software they want to use and install it off the official Ubuntu repositories.
Re:ODF (Score:4, Informative)
Re:good for them! (Score:5, Informative)
Warren won't buy Microsoft stock because the entire world would be throwing insider trading accusations at him.
I—well, Microsoft is a special case because Microsoft is off bounds to us because of my friendship with Bill and if we spent seven months buying Microsoft stock and during that period they announced a repurchase or increase of the dividend or an acquisition, people would say you've been getting inside information from Bill. So I have told Todd and Ted and I apply it myself that we do not ever buy a share of Microsoft. I think Microsoft is attractive but that—but we will never buy Microsoft. It—people would just assume I knew something and I don't, but they would assume it and they would assume Bill talked to me and he wouldn't have. But there's no sense putting yourself in that position.
http://www.cnbc.com/id/45290263 [cnbc.com]
Re:Other Motives (Score:2, Informative)
This may be completely irrelevant, but one thing that has effectively kept OSS out of the server room are certifications like FIPS and Common Criteria. Some operating systems (OS X, RedHat, SuSE) have passed these tests, but oftentimes, most have not, and auditors wanting to know why something doesn't have these pretty pieces of paper are about as bad as dealing with software license audits.
Re:Other Motives (Score:2, Informative)
How else can Microsoft claim that paying for Windows has cheaper TCO than using Linux and controlling your own destiny?
That presents me with exactly two choices - either you have figured out something that has eluded every major IT organization around the world for the last 20 years OR you are wrong.
I suspect the latter to be the case.
I work in K-12 education, and we pay MS about $35/desk for all their latest software per year. With that, along with all the server software we use (it's factored into the above per desktop cost), we get Active Directory, System Center, etc. to help us manage our environment.
Please price out an alternative deployment for 1,000 desktops and laptops that provides a level of desktop management equal to the one provided with the MS solution... I'll wait. When we made a cursory look into management suites for Large Linux deployments we found their cost to be a multiple of what we were paying MS ($100/desk per year for management suite v. $34/desk per year for the MS solution suite)...