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City of Vienna Chooses Linux 268

Posted by timothy from the penguins-ah-kuhl dept.
Bill Kendrick writes "Back in January, ZDNet reported that the city of Vienna, Austria was looking to move at least a portion of its desktops to Linux. Well, it looks like it happened (in German; use the fish). Their official distro is based on Debian with KDE, and is called WEINUX." Update: 07/06 12:49 GMT by T : Several readers wrote to correct the spelling here: the correct name of the distro is "WIENUX."
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City of Vienna Chooses Linux More

City of Vienna Chooses Linux

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  • Gawd (Score:5, Funny)

    by Craig Davison ( 37723 ) on Wednesday July 06, 2005 @03:20AM (#12992025)
    Buncha Wieners.

    • Re:Gawd (Score:5, Funny)

      by larkost ( 79011 ) on Wednesday July 06, 2005 @08:31AM (#12993087)
      The first time I was in Vienna (named Wien in German) I arrived just in time for Wienerfest. It took me two days to finally realize it was not about sausage. My German has improved since then.

  • All right (Score:5, Funny)

    by aixou ( 756713 ) on Wednesday July 06, 2005 @03:23AM (#12992036)
    The Linux katamari picked up another city. A few more and we'll be able to level up!

    • Re:All right (Score:5, Informative)

      by eobanb ( 823187 ) on Wednesday July 06, 2005 @03:52AM (#12992142) Homepage
      In case anyone doesn't get this joke, it's in reference to a Japanese video game called Katamari Damacy (Damachii) with a cult following. It involves rolling a small sticky ball around through towns, cities, and the countryside that picks up objects (starting with small objects, like thumbtacks); as the ball grows bigger, the ball is able to obtain larger objects, like cars, and so on, eventually being able to pick up entire large pieces of the landscape. This is actually a great analogy to the growing popularity of Linux, I think. As the marketshare and mindshare of OSS grows, so do its chances of scoring a big customer, like municipal Vienna. Hobbyists are the paperclips, and the cities are, well, the cities. I applaud both OSS developers and Vienna for making this happen.

  • The distribution is called "WIENUX" (Score:5, Informative)

    by quigonn ( 80360 ) on Wednesday July 06, 2005 @03:23AM (#12992041) Homepage
    It is called "WIENUX", not "WEINUX", as the city of Vienna is called "Wien" in German, not "Wein" (which means wine in German, and has nothing to do with Vienna).

    • Re:The distribution is called "WIENUX" (Score:2, Funny)

      by Anonymous Coward
      The post was written while taking 2 bottles of Wein, not Wien, i guess thats why ;-)

    • [...] not "Wein" (which means wine in German, and has nothing to do with Vienna).

      It also means "cry" (as an imperative), which is something some austrian microsoft minions might do now

    • Slashdot ought to call it Viennux then.
      I wonder why it is that most French cities have their original names in English but so many German/Austrian cities (Vienna, Munich/Munchen, Koln/Cologne, etc) do not..?

      • Re:The distribution is called "WIENUX" (Score:5, Informative)

        by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 06, 2005 @04:06AM (#12992200)
        Because the english names are the old/middle- german names, as the English-source-race Angles and Saxons left what is now Germany a long time ago, whereas the English-source-race Normans came to england from what is now France much later. Like still calling "New York" "New Amsterdam".

        • Re:The distribution is called "WIENUX" (Score:5, Informative)

          by Sique ( 173459 ) on Wednesday July 06, 2005 @04:51AM (#12992345) Homepage
          It's not only that, it's also connected to the fact, that French is a roman language, related to the Latin, which in the middle age was the language of choice for international relations, where German is... hum... a germanic language ;)

          So English often has a romanized version of the german name for german towns, while for french towns the name is already roman, thus no change.
          An example would be Muenchen -> Munich.

          A second factor is that the west and south german towns often have roman roots and were founded by roman soldiers as frontier towns and castles to defend the Limes (the roman border) against the Germans. Those towns have a 2000 year old latin name, which is still reflected in English, but the german name was heavily changed due to bad spelling and pronounciation by the inhabitants.

          Examples for the later:
          Koeln, latin name Colonia Agrippina -> Cologne.
          Wien, latin name Vindobona -> Vienna
          Trier, latin name Augusta Treverorum (this one is Trier in English too ;) )

          For north and east german towns the english name often is the german one, because those towns were founded much later and started out either with a german name anyway (Hamburg, Bremen...) or have a name that is derived from the old slawic name (Berlin [this one is still slawic], Drezdany -> Dresden, Lipa -> Leipzig, Kamenice -> Chemnitz), where only the german name survived.
          • Trier, latin name Augusta Treverorum (this one is Trier in English too ;) )

            Actually, "Treves" is used in English as well.

            What is really interesting is looking at old maps. You can usually find all kinds of variants. Usually they're not even self-consistent. E.g I looked at an english map of central Europe where Belgrade was "Belgrade" (anglified slavic name), but Novi Sad was "Neusatz" (german name), and several of the surrounding towns had Hungarian or Slavic names or Germanified versions, or even angli
            • This is, because Beograd (today's name) was called 'Belgrad' also in German (there could have been another german name, maybe it was Weissenburg, german translation for Belgrad = white castle or white town, for a short time.) Novi Sad in fact was founded by Austrians, so in the beginning it had the austrian-german name Neusatz.

    • Re:The distribution is called "WIENUX" (Score:5, Funny)

      by Zog The Undeniable ( 632031 ) on Wednesday July 06, 2005 @04:48AM (#12992339)
      I don't know. The good people of Austria - one of my favourite places - certainly drink a lot. It's legal to drink at the age of 16 [1], and you should see the amount of lager those oompah bands put away during a concert (basically each musician has a big glass under his chair and swigs half of it after each song; waitresses with big jugs (oo-er) come round and refill them at regular intervals.

      [1] in the UK, amusingly, the legal drinking age is *5* if at home with a parent/guardian present. But then we exported all the Puritans to the US ;-)

    • I guess we know which side of the "linux" pronounciation debate they're on.
    • Vienna (Wien) was originally a Roman settlement called Vindobona which is latin for 'good wine'.

    • It is called "WIENUX", not "WEINUX", ...

      They're missing some good wordplay here. If they package the WIENUX distro together with WINE, to run Windows apps, the resulting package should obviously be called WEINUX.

      There's gotta be a bunch more good English/Deutsch puns in there ...

  • Ambitious targets (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Mattygfunk1 ( 596840 ) on Wednesday July 06, 2005 @03:24AM (#12992043)
    It is up to the individual workers to choose if they prefer a KDE Desktop or a Microsoft based system. The officials expect that about 4,800 machines can run KDE in the short term.

    That's a very ambitious target if they are only offering it, not saying "you will use this".

    __
    Funny Adult Videos and Pictures [laughdaily.com]

    • I agree, I don't see why they wont migrate acrosst to it, the basic user only needs email, internet & office products which all can be operated easily from KDE, they don't really need to know powerful desktop functions.

      They should aim to make Linux the standard SOE & using Microsoft products to support users who require more specialised programs.

      PD in basic linux isn't hard especially with KDE.
      • The "basic user" who is only using it for email/internet/office is going to be very afraid to switch, unwilling, upset and just generally not happy about the change. I've seen it happen in my workplace, where a large number of the workers are just barely competant in Windows to do what they want. Try to force a new operating system on them, and you'll have mass revolt.
        It's better to offer it as an option, and slowly push it. It also gives them a chance to work out the kinks on the users who don't mind as

      • Re:Ambitious targets (Score:5, Insightful)

        by drsmithy ( 35869 ) <drsmithy&gmail,com> on Wednesday July 06, 2005 @04:40AM (#12992318)
        They should aim to make Linux the standard SOE & using Microsoft products to support users who require more specialised programs.

        Amazing how quick the battlecry goes from "users should have choice" to "users should use linux"...

        • Re:Ambitious targets (Score:5, Interesting)

          by Freaky Spook ( 811861 ) on Wednesday July 06, 2005 @05:04AM (#12992383)
          Im just coming from the economical side, I work as a technician in public schools and the money that the Government spends on software licences for M$ products is huge.

          90% of all my problems are troubleshooting desktop problems with WinXP and also problems with Word, Excell & Outlook. I am not saying that by using Linux these problems will disapear, but it will be cheaper to support these Programs because less is being spent on software licencing.

          Its simple economics the only difference between a Linux system & Windows system for users who only need to use the basics is price, why spend X amount of dollars on one thing when you can get the same result much cheaper.

          I do believe in choice, but I don't see the logic in going to the expense of something because its believed to be easier, I am not completley Pro linux, but in a government environment where Tax payers are paying for everything, the best value alternative seems much more appealing.
        • or perhaps it's amazing how quick the price goes from $200 a computer to $0 a computer. (I would have chosen euros but I don't have the key on my keyboard...)

        • Re:Ambitious targets (Score:5, Insightful)

          by replicant108 ( 690832 ) on Wednesday July 06, 2005 @06:31AM (#12992634) Journal
          Nice attempt at a straw man argument.

          The battlecry (as you term it) is actually "customers should have choice".

          In a corporate environment the customer is the organisation.

        • There's no conflict at all here - users DO have choice, and all the GP said is, he thinks they should choose Linux and not choose Microsoft, based on certain valid technical and economic considerations. What's the problem exactly? Are you trying to imply that anyone who expresses an opinion on which they honestly think would be the best choice must inherently be making a purely ideological decision? That a truly unbiased person would always only express totally neutral opinions? Are you trying to subtly man

        • Organizations should have a choice. Choosing a mixed setup is rarely wise because of the support cost. Going for a pure Microsoft, Apple or Linux solution wlll almost always be preferable.

          Of course some flexibility is a good idea. If the user has special needs, knows what he is doing, and understand that he will not get support from the IT center, he can choose another platform than the organizational standard.

        • Re:Ambitious targets (Score:3, Informative)

          by sloanster ( 213766 )
          Amazing how quick the battlecry goes from "users should have choice" to "users should use linux"

          drsmitty misquoted the poster and confounded "should use linux and ms windows" with "should use linux" - and this error somehow adds up to "insightful"?
      • "the basic user only needs email, internet & office products which all can be operated easily from KDE, they don't really need to know powerful desktop functions."

        Ok, normally I hate these types of introductions (and my issue with them is somewhat accurate even now - "I like the thing but I hate it"), but I use Linux in my professional life, will push for it everywhere I will ever work, and use it for many things in my private life. I really do not like windows, but unfortuantly for some uses relying o
        • "Saying that - this attitude is *exactly* what kills Linux on the desktop. "

          Linux on the desktop is dead? Wow how did I miss that news? Here I thought linux on the desktop was growing. That every day more corporations and cities were migrating more desktops to it. That entire countries were contomplating migrations to linux desktops.

          Silly me, I was just looking at the exploding numbers, the constant improvement, the slew of commercial support and the backing of big time enterprise players like HP, Novell

      • Re:Ambitious targets (Score:4, Insightful)

        by JamesTRexx ( 675890 ) on Wednesday July 06, 2005 @06:17AM (#12992587) Journal
        I think this is better. Let those that are afraid to switch to Linux hear from their own colleagues how well it works, and see how little they're affected by spyware and virusses. Then they'll switch voluntarily and have no reason to start complaining about how they're forced to give up windows.
    • Also from the article:

      ..confident that the voluntary migration to WIENUX and OpenOffice.org will be a positiv experience. "we assume the number of people who will change to WIENUX will not exceed some hundred in the first year. Many will just watch how well it works, before they decide" means Lic. Engineer Gillich.

      The move to Linux in Munich is on a massive sale, whereas in Vienna it is just a small experiment (some 100 users). The move to OpenOffice is not on a small scale though. OpenOffice will be

  • Spelling Mistake (Score:2, Informative)

    by dr.matrix ( 36588 )
    Because Vienna is "Wien" in German, that's "Wienux".

  • Why must... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by concept10 ( 877921 ) on Wednesday July 06, 2005 @03:32AM (#12992078) Homepage
    We get the report when a decent sized city and/or organization switches to Linux? I would rather read some reports of how the transition to Linux was, what software they use, initial user reactions to the OS. You know basic shit like that.

    • Re:Why must... (Score:5, Insightful)

      by /ASCII ( 86998 ) on Wednesday July 06, 2005 @03:53AM (#12992145) Homepage
      Well, Slashdot is a news aggregator, basically a collection of interesting links. Since Slashdot does not employ any investigative journalists, they simply can't decide their own content. Try contacting a site that actually writes real articles, and ask them to write the article you want to read. If they do, I'm sure the Slashdot editors will happily link to it.

  • nice approach (Score:4, Insightful)

    by scheuri ( 655355 ) on Wednesday July 06, 2005 @03:35AM (#12992087)
    I like the idea and the approach, that the city turn s to linux on the desktop AND using a own distro for this.

    After all, with this everything is implemented THEY need, nothing more and nothing less...they take advantage of the biggest advantage of OSS:
    Choice!

    Instead of using a company or existing product per se (I know, its based in Debian), they changed it to their needs and they offer a voluntary change for the employees (at least at the beginning).

    I wish them luck and hope they will make progress fast.

  • This means nothing to me. (Score:3, Funny)

    by ettlz ( 639203 ) on Wednesday July 06, 2005 @03:54AM (#12992150) Journal
    Oh, Vienna!

  • It has to be said... (Score:3, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 06, 2005 @04:27AM (#12992269)
    How long before we see a big, nasty, 7-CD distro, with lots of packages, called "Penux"? /ducks, posting anon

  • Clarifications (Score:5, Funny)

    by ardor ( 673957 ) on Wednesday July 06, 2005 @04:46AM (#12992334)
    I'm Austrian, and want to clarify some stuff I keep hearing about Austria by tourists:

    * no, we are not the country with the kangaroos
    * no, we don't have a Nazi government (I keep hearing that from Americans all the time)
    * our Wiener Schnitzel is really tasty, yeah
    * our kids don't go to school by skiing (well, most of them don't)
    * we don't eat much sauerkraut. That's what Germans do.
    * never confuse us with Germans. We really don't like that. Its like confusing americans with canadians. They eat us alive if we do this.
    * We don't wear Lederhosen all the time.
    • no, we don't have a Nazi government (I keep hearing that from Americans all the time)

      Yep. That's Australia [abc.net.au]

    • Re:Clarifications (Score:2, Funny)

      by Anonymous Coward
      not to forget:

      * virtually NOBODY in Austria has ever heard of "The Sound of Music", let alone seen it. And those who have were shocked, disgusted and terrified.

      • Re:Clarifications (Score:3, Interesting)

        by m50d ( 797211 )
        The people from the town know about it and hate it (some of the family servants are still alive, and the woman wasn't actually very nice at all). Go there and sing it in the nastier parts of town and see how long it takes to get your head kicked in. Like yankee doodle in texas, so I hear.
    • * no, we don't have a Nazi government (I keep hearing that from Americans all the time)

      Those damned Yankees keep getting things back to front.

    • Re:Clarifications (Score:2, Insightful)

      by NicklessXed ( 897466 )
      we don't eat much sauerkraut. That's what Germans do.

      No, we don't. Well, at least most of us don't - you couldn't force me to eat that crap. But there are weirdos everywhere...

    • Re:Clarifications (Score:5, Funny)

      by gibodean ( 224873 ) on Wednesday July 06, 2005 @05:53AM (#12992499)
      I'm Australian, and want to clarify some stuff I keep hearing about Australia by tourists:

      * yes, we are the country with the kangaroos
      * no, we don't have a convict government
      * our meat pies are really tasty, yeah
      * our kids don't go to school by sitting in a kangaroo pouch (well, most of them don't)
      * we don't have sex with sheep. That's what New Zealanders do.
      * never confuse us with New Zealanders. We really don't like that. Its like confusing americans with canadians. They eat us alive if we do this.
      * We don't wear akubra hats all the time.
      * Yes, at the olympics they once played the Austrian national anthem when we won gold.

      • Re:Clarifications (Score:5, Funny)

        by mabinogi ( 74033 ) on Wednesday July 06, 2005 @06:45AM (#12992681) Homepage
        I'm a New Zealander, and I want to clarify some stuff I keep hearing about New Zealand by Australians.

        * Yes we are the country with the sheep
        * We use the sheep for meat and wool, and are not entirely sure what Australians think sheep are kept for, or why they would immediately jump to the conclusions they do.
        * Every famous Australian is really a New Zealander.
        * Every one of them.
      • * we don't have sex with sheep. That's what New Zealanders do.

        Correct: Australians don't have sex, they drink beer. New Zealanders have all the sex with frustrated Australian women. The fleece is just there to confuse the Australian men (and it's comfy out there in the desert).

        * most Australians ARE called Bruce
        * most Australians go out in drag on Saturday night and are then called Sheila (this is very confusing for NZ sex tourists!)
        * all gay Australians live in London, England's West End (beware of girl
      • I'm New Zealander*, and want to clarify some stuff I keep hearing about New Zealander by tourists:

        * yes, we are the country with the tazmanian devils
        * no we don't have a Monarchy government
        * our fishes are really tasty, yeah
        * our kids don't go to school by swimming (well, most of them don't)
        * we don't have sex with sheep that's what Australians do.
        * never confuse us with Australians. We really dont' like that. It's like confusing Americans with Canadians. They swear at us incomprehensibly if we do this.
      • I'm a New Zealander, and want to clarify some stuff I keep hearing about us from Australians.

        * yes, we are the country with the kiwis
        * no, we are not a state of Australia, so we definitely do not have a convict government.
        * we invented the pavlova desert, and our pies don't contain marsupials
        * our kids don't go to school by riding flightless birds.
        * we don't have sex with sheep. Neither do we have a song where the lyrics say "Tie my kangaroo down sport".
        * never confuse us with Australians. It's bad enough
      • so Question for you:
        What Happens when an Australian decides to emigrate to new Zealand?

        Answer: The average IQ of both countries goes up

        Reverse the countries if you happen to be from NZ
      • I'm an Iowan, and want to clarify some stuff I keep hearing about Iowa by tourists:

        * yes, there is a lot of corn grown around here
        * yes, we do hold those silly caucuses here to help select the presidential candidates
        * those Iowa chops are really tasty
        * most kids don't walk two miles to school. They ride a school bus.
        * we don't have sex with sheep. I won't comment about the pigs, though.
        * don't confuse us with Ohio or Idaho. We really don't like that. It's like confusing americans with canadians. Worse act
    • Ah, but you do wear clogs... don't you?

    • Re:Clarifications (Score:2, Informative)

      by RasputinAXP ( 12807 )
      Having been to Austria twice (Vienna and Salzburg, nothing in between unfortunately),

      * Nope, there's no kangaroos
      * No, there's no Nazi government
      * The Wiener Schnitzel IS quite tasty. I've always loved veal.
      * It DID snow both times I was there, and both trips happened to be in April. Snow doesn't stick to the ground in Wien though.
      * No sauerkraut to be found
      * Certainly not German.
      * I only saw Lederhosen once, and that was on TV. I didn't catch all of it, but I think it was a German character anyway.

      I plan
    • we don't eat much sauerkraut. That's what Germans do.

      But you should try Käsekrainer (please don't ask me how it's called in English). It's like a bratwurst with cheese in it. You can find it at the various Würstlstandl (like sausage/hotdog-stand). Best served with a piece of bread and mustard (your mileage may vary).

      b4n

  • Follow Up Story (Score:5, Insightful)

    by gregarican ( 694358 ) on Wednesday July 06, 2005 @04:57AM (#12992365) Homepage
    I have read a decent number of articles about cities choosing to adopt Linux but would be more curious to read a follow up story of how the transition went using hindsight, say a month later, a year later, etc. What were the major obstacles and how were they overcome? After the dust settled how does worker productivity and cost effectiveness stand? These sort of facts could help start a domino effect where other IT execs could build cases to present to their respective PHB's in order to make the switch.

    Kind of like some of the countless U.S. reality shows where people and houses are made over (e.g. - The Swan, The Biggest Loser, Extreme Home Makeover). Rather than short term focus I'd love to see the shows check in a year later to see how things look. That's more indicative of true success and failure.

    • What were the major obstacles and how were they overcome?

      My impression is that in most of those heavily-hyped cases, nothing ever wound up happening at all.

      Rather than short term focus I'd love to see the shows check in a year later to see how things look. That's more indicative of true success and failure.

      I believe Joe Millionaire wound up ditching the shy kindergarten teacher for the bondage video model he had previously relegated to second place, if that's any help.

      • My impression is that in most of those heavily-hyped cases, nothing ever wound up happening at all.

        The city of Largo seems to have done well and they are even looking to hire people with general purpose computer/Linux knowledge.

        Largo Loves Linux [canopener.ca]

        Enjoy,
        • The fact that the only major* Linux desktop deployment anyone ever talks about is Largo's migration five years ago is the primary reason I'm skeptical about the rest of those stories.

          (To the degree that a small city that will probably be subsumed by the Church of Scientology in the next few decades qualifies as "major"...)

  • Human translation of article (Score:5, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 06, 2005 @05:06AM (#12992388)
    Since the babelfish translation is beyond discussion, here's a human-translated version. I'm not a native speaker of English, so excuse some mistakes. I omitted some paragraphs at the end, otherwise everything is complete. Pretty interesting article actually :-).

    ---

    Correspondence of the Office of the Mayor (July 5th, 2005)

    WIENUX-Day: Viennese Solution for Open Source

    Open Source in Vienna (Wien) - Presentation of WIENUX

    Vienna (RK). Today Stadtrat (city councillor) member Rudi Schicker presented the current status of OS-usage in Vienna during a media conference in the main public library of Vienna. Together with Gemeinderat (councillor) A. Schieder and Nationalratsabgeordnetem (member of national parliament) Josef Broukal, WIENUX was presented, the version of Linux prepared for use in the city of Vienna. During a WIENUX information day, employees of the city of Vienna could get information about WIENUX and OpenOffice.org and try out Linux and OpenOffice.org on the spot. As Schicker emphasizes: "it's not about making decisions so to say from above, but giving the employees individual freedoms where possible, for a creative administration, ".

    Vienna has already used OSS products for several years in the server area. Because of the positive experiences made, the development of OSS standard componentes for desktops has been observed for some time, and their use been investigated in study. The MA 14-ADV (IT department???) administrates 18,000 PCs, 8,200 printers and 560 servers. Most desktops run under Windows 2000, whose support by Microsoft will last until 2010, but there is not that much time. "Every five to seven years, a great pressure to migrate evolves, even if you skip over one to two versions" points out department head Dipl.- Ing. (engineer) SR Erwin Gillich. Therefore a migration of the systems would be due three years earlier, at the latest 2008, in contrast to Munich [another Linux deployment], where the time pressure was much greater because of obsolete hard- and software.

    Open Source study

    During a study, a comprehensive inventory of the sw used on every PC was made and used as a basis for finding the migration potential. The results of the study "OSS in the Magistrat Wien" show, that about 7,500 PCs could use the licensing-cost-free OpenOffice.org instead of MS Office. 4,800 of these PCs could even be switched to an OSS operating system.

    In October 2004, a working group was started, which worked on the use of OS sw on the desktops of the Magistrat. The requirement was to develop an open source platform which can communicate with the existing MS infrastructure. The results are the custom-tailored operating system WIENUX and the use of OpenOffice.org. Both are offered by the MA 14-ADV in the course of a "gentle product introduction" beginning in June 2005.

    Voluntary switchover

    The most important consideration is voluntariness: Those who want to can choose the open source way; who is attached to the old products, may stay there. The licensing-cost-free operating system WIENUX was developed based on Debian with the KDE (Kool Desktop Enviroment) desktop. Firefox is used as the web browser, emails can be accessed using MS Outlook WebAccess, there is also an SAP-access and various additional tools. WIENUX is under the so-called GNU/GPL (GNU General Public Licence).

    OpenOffice.org

    OpenOffice.org, which is also free of licensing cost, is the counterpart to MS-Office, which the Magistrat currently uses. It can be installed in a cross-platform fashion on both WIENUX- and MS-Windows-PCs, an can be used in parallel to MS-Office under Windows2000. OOo comprises the programs Writer (for writing documents), Calc (for making tables), Impress (for presentations), Draw (drawing program), Base (DB module) and Math (scientific formula editor).

    Making experiences

    In order t

  • Difficult to overstate the importance of this (Score:4, Interesting)

    by SimianOverlord ( 727643 ) on Wednesday July 06, 2005 @06:34AM (#12992645) Homepage Journal
    I don't think many slashdotters really realise the significance of Wien, and so the importance of this move. I don't blame them, Wien is part of the German speaking world, and so the local importance of the city and its habits is really only appreciated by German speakers like myself and not the general readership. Let me just say - this is very significant indeed.

    Historically, Wien has always been to the german speaking world what Carthage was to the Greeks - the centre of learning and the export of culture and ideas. Although its importance waned somewhat in the early 20th century, the Cold War and events since has cemented its position as the premier exporter of German business innovation.

    So, instead of reading Wien in the summary above, in a few years you can read it as "Germany and Austria". My bet is, such is the influence of Wien, that a successful Linuks experiment will "trickle down" into emulation by a whole host of cities throughout the german speaking world. Linus deserves a pat on the back for his bargaining prowess.

  • Younux (Score:2, Funny)

    by HumanTorch ( 568372 )
    Younux, Wienux, We all nux for Linux

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