Open Source Cities Followup — Munich Yea, Vienna Nay

We're catching up on two stories of municipal engagement with open source software: Munich (which decided to go OS in 2003) and Vienna (2005). E5Rebel brings us news that Munich has stayed the course. But bkingaut informs that Vienna has decided to migrate back to Windows (Google translation) — to Vista no less. The migration of 720 computers used in kindergartens will cost the city about €8M. The given reason for all this is a language test application for the kids that only works with MS IE and won't be made compatible (by the producer) with Firefox until 2009.

so...

[Laebshade]

IE4Linux? Not exactly legal, but hey...

Re:

[apathy maybe]

WINE?

Re:

[Anonymous Coward]

ies4linux is a wrapper for installing and running IE with Wine. So, yes.

Re:so...

[morgan_greywolf]

Who says IES4Linux isn't legal? Microsoft's EULA for IE states that all you need is valid license for a valid Microsoft Windows OS on each computer you install IE on.

There are numerous methods for obtaining such a license without directly paying for it.

Re:

[mweather]

Yeah, like buying any non-apple computer from an OEM. All the schools' computers probably came with a Windows license.

Re:

[Technician]

There are numerous methods for obtaining such a license without directly paying for it.

Unless you build your own, most PC's come with a valid license. Who cares if it is uninstalled and replaced by Linux. It's still a valid license.

Re:

[jonnyj]

When I installed IES4Linux, I didn't have to agree to any EULA at all. I have no contract with Microsoft and I've made no agreement with them regarding my usage of the software that they freely distributed to me. Provided I respect their implied copyright by not distributing it further, I'm not sure what claim that they could ever have against me.

Re:

[Kjella]

When I installed IES4Linux, I didn't have to agree to any EULA at all.

Well, it IS covered by a EULA. I doubt any judge will care how you got around it, no matter what creative excuse from "a script did it" to "my neighbourhood kid must have agreed to it" you use. Of course, noone is going to bother YOU on your home PC, but if you rolled this out on an official network they might. Also I think the ies4linux are doing a very creative reading of the EULA [microsoft.com], ignoring the next two sentences:

"General. The OS Components are provided to you by Microsoft to update, supplement, or repl

Re:

[MrResistor]

The A in EULA stands for Agreement. I'm sure you knew that already, but you seem to be confused about what that means, so let me spell out some important legal realities for you:

A EULA is a contract.

Contracts are only valid when both parties agree to them.

Copyright law does not require a use license.

Re:

[RareButSeriousSideEf]

Or license a Windows Terminal Server with just as many concurrent CALs as they need for this one temporarily-incompatible app?

Price that out vs. converting all 720 physical computers to nonfree software from the OS up, and that for one app that will be compatible in a year.

Ummm.. What?

[TubeSteak]

How come nobody is asking the obvious question:
Why the hell does this software need a browser?

If fetching the content through the internets is a big deal,
then code a standalone program to do so. It isn't *that* complicated.

Stupid developers

[Swizec]

Who in their right mind makes something work on a browser that doesn't work well, but neglects to do it for a browser that is easier to develop for?

Re:Stupid developers

[mrbluze]

Who in their right mind makes something work on a browser that doesn't work well, but neglects to do it for a browser that is easier to develop for?

Obviously someone who is friends with the people who give out contracts for kindergartens in Vienna.

Re:

[morgan_greywolf]

Obviously someone who is friends with the people who give out contracts for kindergartens in Vienna.

Or at least has adequately greased palms.

Re:Stupid developers

[Swizec]

Wouldn't it be better to offer Vienna to pay, say, a mere eighth of the money needed to transfer to Vista (a million euro) to the developers so they make their software work with what Vienna already has?

Any decent manager would go for that.

Re:Stupid developers

[mhall119]

Or pay some other developers to make an open-source version of the software.

Abso-fricken-lutely

[Anonymous Coward]

I am dumbfounded that they are spending 8M Euro to make a switch primarily for ONE application. If you have that money to spend, tell the bloody web app vendor to fix their broken app or you will move to a competitor. Heck, I bet for substantially less than 8M you could sponsor an open-source project to CREATE A NEW APP FROM SCRATCH.

Re:

[dave87656]

I am dumbfounded that they are spending 8M Euro to make a switch primarily for ONE application. If you have that money to spend, tell the bloody web app vendor to fix their broken app or you will move to a competitor. Heck, I bet for substantially less than 8M you could sponsor an open-source project to CREATE A NEW APP FROM SCRATCH.

That's just the front they're using. Who's going to argue against the children? Whenever they use the "kids" as the reason, I suspect corruption.

Re:Stupid developers

[Knuckles]

And, not surprisingly, this is what a politician of the Greens in Vienna suggested to do (it's in the article).

Re:Stupid developers

[Anonymous Coward]

In the UK at least, the companies that write the software for exams are MS partners. They have a vested interest in making schools Microsoft.
The Uk regulatory body (OfQual) does not hinder them

Re:

[locofungus]

However, they're becoming irrelevant anyway.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/education/7434463.stm [bbc.co.uk]

Tim.

Re:Stupid developers

[Arthur B.]

Someone who relies on a windows plugin probably. I bet the web site is really an ActiveX application.

Re:

[kiehlster]

State/Government contractors? Why follow the write-once-use-anywhere model when you can guarantee job security by writing it only for IE and later get a new contract to rewrite it for Firefox and so on and so forth?

Re:Stupid developers

[LWATCDR]

Simple answer.
IE has a market share of over 50%.
If you develop for the web you MUST develop for IE. It doesn't matter that Firefox is easier to develop for because it is still extra work.
If you are going sell anything that works on a web browser IE support is mandatory.
I along with a lot of other people feel that Firefox is also mandatory for anything you put on the Internet. If you are building a site you don't want lock out big percentage of potental users. I do tend to write for Firefox and then port to IE but IE support is without a doubt mandatory.

Microsoft has it right. Developers, Developers, Developers! People don't use an OS they use applications. I love Linux but I have to keep a Windows for work and for FSX.

If the programs you use don't run on an OS that OS is useless to you.

Re:Stupid developers

[mweather]

"IE has a market share of over 50%." I can write a web app that works on Firefox 1, 2 and 3 with the same exact code. Can you do that with IE 5,6 and 7? No. So stop pretending that IE in all it's incarnations is the same browser. No single version of IE has more than 30% market share, which makes it about equal with Firefox.

Re:Stupid developers

[LWATCDR]

You don't get it.
You are correct that IE 5,6, and 7 are different but that doesn't matter.
If it works in IE 5 it will probably work in IE 6. IE 7 was a little harder to deal with which is why a lot of companies held off on IE 7. But NONE of that matters. You must support the terrible mess that is IE. There really isn't a choice for most web developers. Heck I wish that we could all just stick with W3C code but that isn't an option in this world.
Firefox's market share is around 30% in Europe. But here is the key question. What market share does windows have? How many Firefox users also have IE so they can use it when they have no other choice?
I love Firefox. It is a better browser than IE. It is easier to code for than IE.
BUT the sad truth is that just doesn't matter.

Re:

[guruevi]

I do it. All my websites, even commercial ones are W3C HTML Strict or XHTML Strict. It works well in Safari and Firefox. If somebody really complains that there is a huge problem with IE to the point of unusability, then I let them know the alternatives out there and if really necessary, I might even show a message whenever they come to my website that their browser might not work well and they'll need to download Firefox. And you don't even need Admin rights in Windows, Linux or Mac to install and use Fire

Re:

[LWATCDR]

Why different philosophy than the way I work.
I even try and stay a way from flash because my first rule is.
People shouldn't have to download or install anything to view my website.
Heck I avoid Flash for that reason except for where it is the best or only solution.
Unless your customer base is extremely computer literate or you have more traffic and business than you need I can not see the logic of throwing away users. I always suggest people download Firefox but I make sure IE works as well as Opera, Firefo

Re:

[dave87656]

You don't get it.

Actually, it appears you don't get it. You can write an standards based web app and it will run on IE5+ as well as Firefox 2+ (maybe even 1+).

Writing an application specificially for IE just means you don't know what you're doing.

Re:

[ChrisCampbell47]

mweather, I hope you'll see this when you come back to see the replies to your post. Please click on the link in my sig below and consider taking it seriously. When you make that mistake, it causes the smart folks in your audience to ignore your point and move on. Assuming you were typing for a reason (for people to read it), and you especially want your smartest readers to stay with you when reading, you have to learn the proper usage. My one-man effort to change the world ... Thanks.

Re:

[KillerLoop]

You really think that the designation of "smart folk" is a correct one for people who ignore posts based on it's/its mistakes?

Otherwise good luck with your effort to change the world... indeed a change seems to be needed and I have the growing suspicion that it might be connected with grammar.

Re:

[Knuckles]

IE has a market share of over 50%

I'm not so sure about that in Europe. From what I see in Austria and Germany (from personal acquaintances and the general office workers I get to see on the job), the majority of people who browse a lot use Firefox.

Re:

[LWATCDR]

You need to look at your sample.
Are you looking at the average work pc or people's home pc?
Or PC's at a University.
Then how many of them Don't have IE? If they have Windows they have IE.
Yes Firefox is free but rolling it out to hundreds of PCs in a company isn't. Then you have the problem of legacy systems. Do you already have a browser based system that requires IE? If so are you going to make people go back and forth?
I do think IE is under 50% in Germany but in the EU I am pretty sure it is still well ove

Re:

[Knuckles]

You need to look at your sample.

You don't say. Just as you.

Are you looking at the average work pc or people's home pc?

Both work (a lot, many users) and home. Though I agree that they are not "average".

If they have Windows they have IE.

Of course, but so what when people don't use it.

Yes Firefox is free but rolling it out to hundreds of PCs in a company isn't. Then you have the problem of legacy systems.

15,000 user global company (HQ in US), top employer. We are in the middle of fixing all standard incompatibilities in the intranet and evaluate FF3, Opera, and IE7 as the company's standard browser. Note that even in the unlikely event that IE7 is chosen, the intranet will be compliant and people are free to use an alternative (which most will, sin

Re:

[LWATCDR]

Well I must complement your company for making the effort to break the browser lock in that so many companies have gotten themselves into.
I hope they long ago banned VB for the same reason.

Your are correct on the Internet it is dumb to toss away Firefox users. I had that same argument in my company when Firefox was just at 5% of the market.
On Intranets it is often acceptable to require IE. I do think it is short sighted but I can understand why it has happened. It would never be acceptable to require Firef

Re:

[Knuckles]

Well, the move comes late and it's a lot of work. I hope everyone will remember the costly error of coding to IE bugs. VB is more entrenched, though ...

We run IE6 with patches as they come, and it's utterly ridiculous what's going on. People get themselves infected with trojans all the fucking time. I suspect myspace as an important vector of some kind, and recently we had lots of infections coming from a malicious ad at merriam-webster.

Re:

[Knuckles]

People get themselves infected with trojans all the fucking time.

Those who run IE, that is -- because they don't want to install an alternative browser on the work PC. I asked some of them whether they'd consider to try FF and see if it helps, and they usually replied, "oh, I use it at home, but I thought at the company I'd better stick to the default".

Re:

[dave87656]

Yes Firefox is free but rolling it out to hundreds of PCs in a company isn't.

Click to install. Other than the time it takes to install it (3 minutes or so), where's the cost?

Re:

[fwarren]

IE has a market share of over 50%.

Yes, and IE 8, aside from Active X will be more like Firefox 1-2-3 and Opera than IE 5-6-7. It will be a whole new game.

Re:

[NekSnappa]

Tell me about it. I ran across these schmucks http://lapsteelguitar.com/ [lapsteelguitar.com] last night.

And using the user agent switcher for Firefox on my Mac didn't work either.

It's too bad to, as once you get there it's a fairly good site.

Re:

[berzerke]

Public Storage for one. My wife was happily using Firefox until she rented some storage for her brother. Now Firefox is "broken" in her mind because Public Storage can't use simple javascript. They use some IE only version in their online payment system.

Compatability?

[AvitarX]

So much for the web based application cross platform utopia.

These vendors really should target Mozilla, and distribute a client (branded Firefox install) for those fearful of the open source.

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Re:

[0100010001010011]

Especially for â8M. They spent â8M because of ONE application that only worked in IE for Kindergarteners? If I was that company I would have said, sure "We can make it work for linux, it'll only cost â4M, look at that savings".

If I was that government I would have paid some High School students to write a website for a passing grade in one of their classes.

Re:

[Xiaran]

Not only that but the app makers are making it work in FF in 2009? It sounds silly. By the time the migration to Vista is complete the application in question will run under Linux just fine. From the summary(I didnt read the art) the Vienna dudes soultion sounds insane.

Re:

[jimicus]

Especially for â8M. They spent â8M because of ONE application that only worked in IE for Kindergarteners? If I was that company I would have said, sure "We can make it work for linux, it'll only cost â4M, look at that savings".

If I was that government I would have paid some High School students to write a website for a passing grade in one of their classes.

I strongly doubt that is the real reason.

This is a kindergarten-level language application - it's hardly "the entire science syllabus for 18 year olds taking their final school exams complete with diagrams, animations and interactive help".

They're prepared to pay â8 million to migrate to Vista, and I strongly doubt it would have cost anything like that to rewrite the web application even if it was pure ActiveX. Either the management didn't think to contact the developers and say "Would âseveral

Re:

[Sique]

The Euro as a currency has existed much longer. It was called Ecu before (pronounced french, because there once was a french currency called Ecu, but in fact the abbreviation of European Currency Unit). The name Euro was coined in the Contract of Maastricht 1992.

It's just since 1999 that it was allowed to publish the balance sheet in Euro.

Re:Compatability?

[Brian Gordon]

How exactly does it cost more than ten thousand dollars per computer to switch back to Windows?

Re:

[pcgabe]

If narcissism=mass, the skulls of those who point out puns would crush in on themselves in a giant black hole of stupity

I wonder if "stupity" is some sort of ironic pun, in which case, I hesitate to point it out.

Why not switch test software?

[FictionPimp]

Seems to me it would be easier and cheaper to find test software that did not require IE.

OR even better, they could write some and help other schools going open source.

Re:

[cp.tar]

If the way things work in Croatia is any clue, money has Changed Hands in order for things to resolve this way.

Re:Why not switch test software?

[mrbluze]

If the way things work in Croatia is any clue, money has Changed Hands in order for things to resolve this way.

Corruption is common, but IMHO incompetence is far more prevalent.

Re:Why not switch test software?

[jimicus]

If the way things work in Croatia is any clue, money has Changed Hands in order for things to resolve this way.

Corruption is common, but IMHO incompetence is far more prevalent.

Agreed.

My guess is that the schools looked at the applications they needed, found one that didn't work as intended and didn't think to contact the manufacturer to say "Before we drop 8 million euros on Windows, can you speed up engineering your product to run in Linux for, say, 1 million euros?"

Re:

[Sique]

A as in Austria (Vienna is the capital of Austria after all, and it's now 90 years ago that Croatia is no part of Austria anymore)?

Re:

[bsDaemon]

yes, about EURO 8million worth...

Re:

[AvitarX]

Seriously,

I bet they could do it for half the price of the migration (5 million USD). Schools are one place you would think there is no disadvantage to making software open source too. It's not like they need a competitive advantage for the public schools.

Re:Why not switch test software?

[arivanov]

Really?

The questions are usually copyrighted so you need someone to write a new set of questions, get them certified by the education department, get the app written, the app certified by the education department and so on. All this is subject to junkets, sometimes money changing hands, lobbying and so on.

Educational and testing software is an area which is nearly impossible for a newcomer to break in. Competition is virtually inexistent, quality is crap and there is bugger all that can be done about it.

Re:Why not switch test software?

[mhall119]

he questions are usually copyrighted so you need someone to write a new set of questions, get them certified by the education department, get the app written, the app certified by the education department and so on.

Yes, if only the school system had a mass of people qualified to write educational questions, willing to work long hours for bad pay while dealing with children all day long. If only.

Re:

[Anonymuous Coward]

I bet they could do it for half the price of the migration (5 million USD)

It's 8 million EURO, that's ~12 million USD, not 5.

And if you give me just 1 million, not 5 or 12, I'll wrap you about any windows application to work on linux, in half the time they need to migrate their whole shit to vista. Money-back guarantee.

IE is a component of Windows

[tepples]

And if you give me just 1 million, not 5 or 12, I'll wrap you about any windows application to work on linux

Internet Explorer is not an application for Windows. It is a component of Windows and therefore subject to the same licensing structure as the rest of Windows. Sure, Austria could use Wine to run a pirated copy of IE on computers throughout the country, but such a taking [wikipedia.org] of Microsoft's copyright would invite an international incident.

Re:

[value_added]

Seems to me it would be easier and cheaper to find test software that did not require IE.

My guess is that, while an obvious choice, runs into hurdles that arise within the context of school administration (i.e., all software requires committee approval, public meetings, budget approval, etc.).

If there's an upside to this sad state of affairs, it's that we have a new Slashdot meme:

Vista -- please won't someone think of the kids?

Re:

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

good opportunity

[sustik]

RTFA, they are also willing to pay 8M euros to someone writing the language test application instead.
Seems like a good price...

Sorry, reading the onion too much...

More â8M to make a trivial web app compatible

[Rakshasa Taisab]

I suggest hiring 1000 monkeys for a year, bananas should cost less than $8000 a year.

Re:More â8M to make a trivial web app compati

[ckaminski]

Well, after the blight wipes out all banana crops, bananas might be the most expensive food on earth!

The wonderful world of "educational" software

[arivanov]

The wonderful world of educational software. It is usually written by the most clueless and incompetent lowlife out there. It runs only on Windows, only on a specific version and is mandated and approved by the relevant government as mandatory.

It is the _REAL_ reason on why Microsoft is so prevalent.

Wow

[kellyb9]

Can't IE6 run on Wine?

Re:

[palfrey]

Yes, but legally speaking you need a Windows license before you can download/use IE...

Re:

[Sique]

You could even buy OEM licenses, because the First Sale Doctrin applies also on computer programs in Europe.

Translation of linked article

[schnipschnap]

K, I did it for speed, not for quality.

The city of Vienna is going to migrate its open-source poster child installation to Windows Vista in 2008. In total, Vienna will pay about 8,000,000 Euros for this migration. The final choice is to be made on Wednesday in the district council.

"That's a major setback to the conversion to linux of the city.", Marie Ringler, a member of the district council and representative of the Vienna Green party, said to ORF.at. On Wednesday the Vienna district council will decide that the most important linux installation (720 computers) of the city council be migrated to Windows Vista. The corresponding proposal was made available to ORF.net

-----8,000,000 Euros for Microsoft-----
The MA 14, the body that is responsible for the city's IT-systems, has thus made available a budget of 8,000,000 Euros for the purchase of software licenses. These costs will be reimbursed to the MA 14 by MA 10 (kindergartens) and MA 56 (school administration).

The migration of the public authorities' computers from Windows 2000 and Office 2000 to Vista and Office 2007 will cost 7,600,000 Euros, and the purchase of 2,600 licenses for Windows, Office, and Server-software in Vienna's [Bildungsnetz] education network will cost 324,000 Euros. The changeover of the 720 kindergarten computers from the city-branded linux distribution "Wienux"* to Vista will cost around 105,000 Euros.

-----Language skill tests for children-----
The migration of the kindergarten computers is because of a piece of software that tests kindergarten children's language abilities is only available on the Internet Explorer platform. The makers will have a Firefox version of their product only by 2009, according to Ringler.

"The city could have gotten the company to get their version that runs on Firefox out the door faster with only a fraction of the money that the changeover to Windows will cost, Ringler said, who also accuses the city of not following the Open Source concept and not producing any incentive to migrate from Windows to Wienux. The city also missed the opportunity to subsidize the 1,000 companies that make open source software in the Vienna region.

In Fall 2008, the STOSS2 studies, which was initiated by Vienna and is concerned with the analysis of costs and benefits of using open source software in the city council, will be published.

-----The MA 14 continues to polish Wienux-----
Klaus Rohr, spokesman of the MA 14, confirmed the roll-back on Tuesday afternoon, which is to be completed in 2008. The most important reason for the migration from Linux to Windows is the availability of the aforementioned software only for Windows via Internet Explorer. But there have also been problems with hardware detection in linux, according to him.

But the re-migration to Windows doesn't imply that Wienux will die. The distribution is to be continued to be developed and distributed, according to Rohr.

-----SPÖ: "Wienux is not dead"-----
SPÖ-district councilor Siegfried Lindenmayr doesn't view Wienux as dead either. "Wienux isn't dead. The city of Vienna has used open source software since 20 years and will also continue to do so," he said to ORF.at. "The use of software isn't a question of ideology to us, however. The best educational software runs on Windows, and therefore we will use Windows in our kindergartens."

The city's general open source strategy hasn't changed. The MA 14 will continue to offer linux and install it wherever departments want it.

* Wien is the German word for Vienna

English Story

[struppi]

Yahoo has an English story about the Switch to Vista in Vienna: http://messages.finance.yahoo.com/Stocks_(A_to_Z)/Stocks_M/threadview?m=tm&bn=12004&tid=1393970&mid=1393970&tof=3&frt=2 [yahoo.com]

The only solution

[youthoftoday]

The only way to solve this kind of problem is to make the decision makers accountable to the people who employ them (the public). If this made headline news (and possibly some rent-a-celebrities got onboard) this kind of thing wouldn't happen.

Little Bug in the Teaser

[messju]

To be fair: The migration of 720 computers used in kindergartens will cost the city about 105,000 euros not 8M.

First I thought this may have been a bug in TFTtranslation but It's even correct in TFTofTFA.
Just not in the teaser.

The COMPLETE migration will cost about 8M euros.

[bkingaut]

The migration of the 720 computers will only cost 105,000 euros. Sorry about that. Couldn't edit it anymore

Re:The COMPLETE migration will cost about 8M euros

[gnasher719]

The migration of the 720 computers will only cost 105,000 euros. Sorry about that. Couldn't edit it anymore

Someone seems to be getting their sums wrong here. At only about 140 euros per computer, this is most likely the cost for Vista licenses. It doesn't count time for installation, training, downtime, and all the other mess that comes with changing from a stable operating system to a new, unproven platform. But apparently these costs can only be counted when switching away from Windows, not when switching to Windows.

Hardly a complete success

[kmarshallbanana]

A few choice quotes from the article:

[In 2003] The local government in Munich, Germany, [voted] to move 14,000 computers from Microsoft's Windows to the rival Linux operating system

[In 2008]Status quo of the LiMux project:
1000 work stations migrated to LiMux
6000 work stations using OpenOffice.org
90% work stations using Firefox and Thunderbird

That means that during the five odd years that have elapsed since the decision was taken a grand 7% of the computers have been switched over to linux. And this on what the article states is the budget for the transition was 30 million euros.

Re:

[westlake]

1000 workstations migrated tp LiMux
6000 work stations using OpenOffice.org
90% work stations using Firefox and Thunderbird

It doesn't strike me as a ringing endorsement of OpenOffice.org when migration to other marquee open source projects like Firefox has been so successful.

Euro 105K not 8M to migrate kindergarten PCs

[HTD]

the budget for migrating all vienna offices to vista is 8million, the 740 kindergarten machines "just" cost 105k. I am not saying that this is a good thing, since the software that is the reason for the switch is unnecessary no matter on which OS it runs... But still the numbers are wrong.

I can't believe that this made headlines - just do the math 8M divided by 740 - that's 10810 Euro per machine, you could buy server grade hardware with 32 cores and 64gb ram (running linux of course) for every kindergart

Re:

[gbjbaanb]

yeah, but they want MS Office 2007 to go with that. 10k wouldn't be enough for Enterprise edition :)

Re:

[level_headed_midwest]

105000 divided by 740 is 141.89. 141.89 Euros is probably the cost of the Windows license.

Developers! Developers! Developers!

[JoeCommodore]

MS knows what sells windows - IE only Kindergarten Language applications and the like.

While GNU Linux is making great progress to get better software on their systems many people need specific software such as that language program.

On the other hand a LOT of these applications were written years ago (sometimes more then a decade) and if they were to be updated they would probably have to be re-written as the original developers have since moved on to other things. Which means XP is kept alive, and develope

User Agent Switcher

[highvelocitypenguin]

User-Agent-Switcher [mozilla.org] anyone? Just a thought.

Re:

[daemonburrito]

I'm guessing that the requirement is actually activex.

Munich

[dvice_null]

On the Munich site they are going to move 14000 computers from Windows to Linux and they currently have:
1000 work stations migrated to LiMux
6000 work stations using OpenOffice.org
90% work stations using Firefox and Thunderbird

And in addition of using open source software, they have also written some (OOo plugin) of their own and released it as open source.

Re:

[westlake]

The project had more or less failed, but the sponsors cannot afford to admit it politically
everyone...who asks gets an exception so they can run windows or macs or anything they need to actually get their work done.
All-in-all not a pretty picture.

But not an unfamiliar one.

The geek is enamored with the top-down, ideologically driven, politically correct, solution.

"Resistance is futile."

OLPC predicts millions of sales and when they fail to materialize and Win XP and MS Office become an option he feels

I don't know about school IT in Vienna...

[jimicus]

But I do know about it in the UK.

Generally, educational software falls into one of two categories:

1. Written by IT professionals. The user interface is consistent with everything else on the platform, there's a nice easy way to roll it out to everything, it doesn't stamp crap all over the system, it doesn't do something silly like want admin rights to run.

It's the IT admins dream, with only one minor disadvantage: It tends to be very bad at actually getting information across.

2. Written by teachers and

Microsoft develops software for Austrian kindergar

[miawuascht]

There is a story on the WKO (The Austrian Federal Economic Chamber) http://portal.wko.at/wk/format_detail.wk?AngID=1&StID=366673&DstID=0 [portal.wko.at] , which is closely tied to MS, about the context where this software is used. The initiative which uses this software is sponsored by the WKO with MS as a partner. I suspect that the big advantage the Microsoft technology stack has, compared to other inferior offerings, is the reason that the product is working only with IE and not with any other browser

Too freaking stupid....

[r_jensen11]

So Wien is changing their computers all over to Windows... again. How long is this expected to take? And when in 2009 (presuming that for once some sort of software will be completed & delivered on-time) is their program supposed to be compatible with the Gecko engine? I'd be surprised if the reverting to Windows part would be completed more than a couple months before the program is compatible.

Vienna = codename for new Windows Vista

[Locutus]

Think about it, all that money just for licensing and they are going to Vista? And it is because 7,000 computers need to run one Windows app for a kindergarten language class? I'm sure that has got to be one highly sophisticated application and one so important that hundreds of thousands of other computers will have to run Windows also just because of its sophistication. WTF?

My guess is that Balmer or Gates recently visited Vienna and talked them into making sure they were ready for the next great OS from M

Munich Yae, Vienna Nay

[Sloppy]

C'mon, if you have the choice between a Bock and a Vienna Lager or Oktoberfest, what are you going to drink? Vienna is semi-obsolete anyway; even with those lighter styles, I bet you can get a tastier beer by blending pilsner and Munich malt anyway, than using Vienna.

Re:In my experience

[Jellybob]

Well, you've cetainly reaffirmed my faith in developers of educational software there.

As an experienced developer of browser-based educational software and a cyber-security consultant, I can tell you that IE is much easier to develop for than Firefox.

How can you possibly say IE is easier to develop for then Firefox?

Either way it's HTML and CSS, it's just that one of them has a renderer that actually works, and the other is broken in a multitude of ways.

And that's not even getting started on things like Firebug, which makes it far easier to develop on Firefox then with IE's "something broke, I'm not going to tell you where" model of error reporting for Javascript.

Not only that, but what if they need browser support? Who are they going to go with Firefox? Nobody, because there is nobody.

What? When was the last time you heard of Microsoft providing support for IE?

Lets take the classic example of transparent PNGs, which took years to get fixed. And that's something that thousands of developers have been screaming for - I dread to think what would result if you called up Microsoft and said "I have a really specific problem, can you fix it?"

If you want support for Firefox there are forums, IRC channels, and a publicly viewable bug tracker. I'd imagine that if you waved enough money at them the Mozilla Foundation would be quite happy to get a problem you have fixed pretty damn quick as well.

Re:In my experience

[francium de neobie]

Actually transparent PNGs aren't really properly fixed in IE7 - try applying an Alpha filter to a transparent PNG and suddenly the transparency does not work anymore.

This is the nature of Microsoft's software and APIs - if you use it in uncommon ways, it breaks. I can give you such examples all day - JavaScript memory leaks in IE6 and IE7? How window.openPopup() requires weird hacks to work with domain relaxation? Flickering images at page load in IE6? The first BR tag in a block tag does not appear when the block tag has a background image? document.selection returns gives you a selection object from a different document object than the one you specified?

Add these to the fact that IE does not have free developer tools like Firebug, Safari Inspector and Drosera, and Opera Dragonfly available (notice how every significant competitor to IE has one)... I'd take the opinion of anyone who says "IE is easy to develop for" with huge pinch of salt. And please... trying to bully people with "I'm an experienced developer" in the technology world isn't a very smart thing to do.

Re:

[_Sprocket_]

And please... trying to bully people with "I'm an experienced developer" in the technology world isn't a very smart thing to do.

Off-topic... but it reminds me of my helldesk days. The calls I dreaded the most started with "I'm a MCSE..." I always wondered if they were throwing alphabet tittles out to beat me in to submission early or whether they really WERE a MCSE and didn't realize how embarrassing it is to call up for instructions on how to dial in to an ISP.

Re:

[windex82]

I use both firebug and IE development toolbar. I'm not sure which came first but one has clearly ripped the other off. ;)

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?familyid=e59c3964-672d-4511-bb3e-2d5e1db91038&displaylang=en [microsoft.com]

Re:

[Jellybob]

Firebug came first - I remember when the IE development toolbar was released, I took a brief look, and went back to using tools that work.

The only time I start IE is when I'm testing a site works in it, and even that has dropped off since I started working for a company that requires (your choice of) working web browser to access web applications.

Re:

[francium de neobie]

And there's the Microsoft Script Editor for script debugging as well, but...

1. IE development toolbar does not update the DOM tree display automatically if you have modified its structure in JavaScript, you need to close and open the toolbar to view the updated tree - that's just fucking convenient for debugging AJAX apps is it?
2. The Script Editor loses the stack trace if you've looked at enough steps - that's just fucking great isn't it?

Re:

[LWATCDR]

Yes Firefox is easier to develop for than IE but.
With IE market share you MUST develop for IE.
For any website I feel that IE and Firefox are mandatory. Safari is getting to be mandatory but thankful it is well behaved from what I have seen.

When developing for browser apps that run on an Intranet Firefox is less important. You will not loose many sales saying it only works on IE. You will loose a lot more more if you say it doesn't work on IE.

So in that case getting your application to work on Firefox is ext

Re:

[Jellybob]

The thing that I've found in the past is that it's far easier to develop for Firefox first, and then make the changes required for Internet Explorer.

Going that way, it takes about a day to get things working right in IE once things are working. Going the other way you could easily drop a week, bouncing back and forth between the two browsers.

Re:

[FictionPimp]

As a professional software developer and college system administrator, I disagree.

Re:

[poetmatt]

Not quite, the money's already been paid in its own form recently for this marketshare (aka bribes:

It's Microsoft's "OnMyWay [microsoft.com]". Groklaw has coverage. [groklaw.net] So yeah, the bribes are pretty much out in the open on this. It's just a continuation of the OOXML bribes fiasco for marketshare.