Munich to Go Ahead with Linux After All 142
Saeed al-Sahaf writes "According to Groklaw and the German publication Heise (it's in German, of course) Munich's mayor Christian Ude has held a press conference, in which he said that the bidding process for the switch from Windows to Linux will go forward as originally planned, despite patent issues. InfoWorld (in English), quotes Bernd Plank, a spokesman for Munich town hall, saying that he expected that the administration would take a maximum of 'two to three weeks' to decide whether the EU's Directive on software patents could affect the city's plan to switch to Linux, and that would be no 'dramatic setback.'" We reported this earlier as well, but now that it's making the rounds again in English, more of us can read it without resorting to Babelfish.
Discounts? (Score:4, Interesting)
Why (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Discounts? (Score:1, Interesting)
green party is for open source (Score:4, Interesting)
the article suggests that stopping the linux roll out and citing software patents as a roadblock was a way to wake up the government and public to get them to see why software patents is a bad idea
Re:green party is for open source (Score:5, Interesting)
Even FFII was surprised about Munich's initial press release, Hartmut Pilch wrote [ffii.org]:
Re:Linux Community Support (Score:5, Interesting)
I guess they'll do their best, whatever that is
Re:Discounts? (Score:5, Interesting)
IIRC, there was. The Munich government reps who were involved in the decision making were insensed that Microsoft didn't make their best offer when asked the first time, but in steps. I certainly know enough people who would have jumped at Microsoft's offer, but the germans were apparently insulted. There's also the likelihood that they were focused on Long Term TCO rather than short term, which was all Microsoft was really offering them. Look at what's going on with Microsoft since, all the patching (which in recent stories highlights the expense of testing, certifying and accepting patches and understanding their impact on software already in use.)
They're showing uncharacteristic good sense and courage in making such a decision... one would almost be convinced these weren't bureaucrats, but aliens who have taken the place of the bureaucrats.
Re:Discounts? (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:This might be political?!? (Score:1, Interesting)
I don't think Red Flag has anything to do with the Asian OS project. The CJK "alternative OS" project began last year or so, but Red Flag [distrowatch.com] started in 1999. Most importantly, it only supports Chinese, not Korean or Japanese. Although KDE's standard tool sets may have other two languages available, I doubt that Red Flag's own management tools do. The Asian alternative OS is yet to come out.
I still have to agree with you on your comment. Non-US governments are moving so that they don't have to depend heavily on products of US corporations. The impact of this move is more than money-saving.
Asia (Score:4, Interesting)
Not paying any attention to China and Korea. China has the man (and woman) power to develop and manufacture their own processors. And they're already switching over to Red Flag. At some point, companies on both sides will have to exchange documents in a format that is intra-compatible. More than likely, American companies will convert their documents to something the Chinese can use, negating MSFT Office's proprietary format. The only way MSFT could combat this, directly and in their current spirit, is by not allowing conversions from within Office or Windows.
I honestly believe China will bail us out of this whole mess. Just give them a bit more time; they're industrious people.
Re:Why (Score:4, Interesting)
Ha!
I recently heard that *half* of all legal books published around the world are in German.
The reason being that German (especially tax) law is so complicated.
Even when this story is only half true it would be remarkable.
Of course there is not necessarilly a lawyer for every book :-)
Re:Show respect (Score:4, Interesting)
I know that it seems to be the thing to do at the moment over here (as well as in other Western countries) if you are a larger employer to go running around demanding all kind of silly stuff and shouting "Do to my bidding, or I will move to Elbonia/fire all my workers and replace them by robots or do something else undesirable". But to be honest, those companies either never put up or they wanted to do those unpopular things in the first place and were just looking for a pretense so the public blames politics and not those companies.
Part of this used to be part of the usual haggling between companies and cities about tax advantages, subsidizing, whatever, and usually both of them got something out of it to show for their efforts. Today some companies (Siemens, Daimler etc.) seem not to understand what is decent and reasonable and what not and I am sure the public will pay them back sooner or later one way or the other.
Regarding Microsoft: If MS really would state to the major of Munich that they would leave the city if Munich does not buy MS they would make themselves look like complete fools. And by that they would basically force the city to decline any offer MS could make, for ever, even if they paid them money to install their software. MS is a lot, but they are neither stupid nor bad tacticians.
That doesn't mean that they don't tell the relevant people "Oh ! Don't buy that hobbyist stuff ! Bad things will happen !" But every company does that when a customer wants to leave (a former co-worker experienced something like that when switching a large project from IBM to Sun some years ago, it must really have been funny), and all those threats and promises do not have any real meaning and value.
Re:Gun, foot, bang. Ouch! (Score:3, Interesting)
The city could have done much better. For instance, Munich could have applied to the EC asking for a grandfather clause in the patent legislation, arguing that the current proposal essentially criminalizes acts which were legal at the time they were committed. Alternatively, after their first stunt, they could have recovered by saying: "No, we haven't stopped the process indefinitely, we're waiting for this committee to report to reopen bidding." Instead, they're reopening bidding with some vague contingency that they'll stop if the committee reports the wrong way.
So, somebody please send these guys a clue. I'm told that air freight is really cheap these days.
IBM or HP must license their patents to Linux (Score:2, Interesting)
One of Linux's large benefactors needs to step up and protect Linux under the aegis of their existing patent portfolio, with some kind of cross-licensing arrangement. Or HP or IBM buys Novell to the same effect. If they care enough about screwing Microsoft to the wall they will need to protect linux (define it somehow) in this manner eventually.
Software patents have gotten out of hand but at least linux has a godfather or two that can and should step in to defend it. IBM or HP should make some announcement about cross licensing some patents to linux dispel the evil spin being applied to linux in the current press. A small portfolio of patents that is enough to make Microsoft or anyone hoping to attach linux on patent grounds realize their own weaknesses and want to avoid endless retaliatory patent litigation.