City of Barcelona moving away from proprietary software • Hacker News Board

Re: City of Barcelona moving away from proprietary software

#11

Post by dogma1138 » Mon, Jan 15, 2018, 1:04 PM UTC

EspadaV9 wrote: post #6

dogma1138 wrote: post #2

Hopefully it would work out better than in Munich.

Munich was pretty good. It's been deployed for 4+ years and won't be replaced until the end of 2020 (assuming everything goes to plan) so that will be at least 7 years of use. It seems that the reasons to move back to Windows weren't completely technical either.

Munich effectively had a parallel program for anyone that had to work with any external entities, and many used it also internally.

Munich never switched off Windows and MSFT Office at best it just abstracted or added additional layers of complexity.

The moment you need to digitally sign some stupid PDF with some “proprietary” signature scheme or open some excel spread sheet it’s pretty much back to Windows.

Re: City of Barcelona moving away from proprietary software

#12

Post by cies » Mon, Jan 15, 2018, 1:09 PM UTC

dogma1138 wrote: post #2

Hopefully it would work out better than in Munich.

Came here to say this. It is hard to fight the lobby power of big corps.

Though Spain has the case of Extremadura. I could not find a better article, I remember reading some that outlined then massive success that was achieved in Extremadura (one of the poorer regions of Spain).

https://www.theinquirer.net/inquirer/news/2265108/spains-ext...

Re: City of Barcelona moving away from proprietary software

#13

Post by cies » Mon, Jan 15, 2018, 1:14 PM UTC

dogma1138 wrote: post #11

EspadaV9 wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Munich was pretty good. It's been deployed for 4+ years and won't be replaced until the end of 2020 (assuming everything goes to plan) so that will be at least 7 years of use. It seems that the reasons to move back to Windows weren't completely technical either.

Munich effectively had a parallel program for anyone that had to work with any external entities, and many used it also internally. Munich never switched off Windows and MSFT Office at best it just abstracted or added additional layers of complexity. The moment you need to digitally sign some stupid PDF with some “proprietary” signature scheme or open some excel spread sheet it’s pretty much back to Windows.

So much for a sovereign govt. I'd say that a gov't should be able to dictate what format is used, especially when replacing a patent-encumbered private format with an open one.

But heay, who still believes that gov'ts are on top of corps is living a fantasy I guess.

Re: City of Barcelona moving away from proprietary software

#14

Post by cies » Mon, Jan 15, 2018, 1:17 PM UTC

kartan wrote: post #9

lunchladydoris wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Context [0], for anyone interested. [0]: https://www.techrepublic.com/article/end-of-an-open-source-e...

Thanks for the link. "Those supporting the move to Microsoft Office say staff using LibreOffice find it difficult to swap documents with external organizations, due to incompatibilities with Microsoft Office" This happens all around the industry. Once you are locked in there is no easy way to change. This renders the capitalist concept of competition obsolete. Everything becomes a monopoly. Intel, Nvidia, Facebook, M…

I thought Munnich's decision was also in part because MSFT would consider Munnich as a location for an office based on their decision on using their product to do their work.

The old "we have to serve the corps (and their owners) or they leave" argument.

Re: City of Barcelona moving away from proprietary software

#15

Post by Rjevski » Mon, Jan 15, 2018, 1:23 PM UTC

This is gonna end in a disaster. Linux usability is bad to begin with, managing Linux desktops at scale is even worse and interoperability is meh.

Re: City of Barcelona moving away from proprietary software

#16

Post by yorwba » Mon, Jan 15, 2018, 1:26 PM UTC

lunchladydoris wrote: post #5

dogma1138 wrote: post #2

Hopefully it would work out better than in Munich.

Context [0], for anyone interested. [0]: https://www.techrepublic.com/article/end-of-an-open-source-e...

HN discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13625508

mschuster91's first-hand experience: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13627452

Also, I read the underlying consultancy report, which did not appear to support the specific approach that was chosen: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13643182

Re: City of Barcelona moving away from proprietary software

#17

Post by dogma1138 » Mon, Jan 15, 2018, 1:30 PM UTC

cies wrote: post #13

dogma1138 wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Munich effectively had a parallel program for anyone that had to work with any external entities, and many used it also internally. Munich never switched off Windows and MSFT Office at best it just abstracted or added additional layers of complexity. The moment you need to digitally sign some stupid PDF with some “proprietary” signature scheme or open some excel spread sheet it’s pretty much back to Windows.

So much for a sovereign govt. I'd say that a gov't should be able to dictate what format is used, especially when replacing a patent-encumbered private format with an open one. But heay, who still believes that gov'ts are on top of corps is living a fantasy I guess.

Ironically many of the tools that the German government and public sector created didn’t work.

So when you have some docusign like scheme that doesn’t run on Linux or on non Adobe PDF clients well....

Re: City of Barcelona moving away from proprietary software

#18

Post by Blaiz0r » Mon, Jan 15, 2018, 1:32 PM UTC

Rjevski wrote: post #15

This is gonna end in a disaster. Linux usability is bad to begin with, managing Linux desktops at scale is even worse and interoperability is meh.

FUD

Re: City of Barcelona moving away from proprietary software

#19

Post by adwhit » Mon, Jan 15, 2018, 1:35 PM UTC

I kind of amazed that Microsoft are still successfully charging SO MUCH for their absolutely run-of-the-mill OS and Office products.

Office, in particular, brings in something like $25bn/year revenue with presumably very healthy margins. For a product that has hardly changed in 20 years. It's a good product, sure. But a clean-room reimplementation of the bits that people actually care about surely couldn't cost more than $1bn.

The power of monopoly capitalism.

Re: City of Barcelona moving away from proprietary software

#20

Post by wastedhours » Mon, Jan 15, 2018, 1:44 PM UTC

criddell wrote: post #8

EspadaV9 wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Munich was pretty good. It's been deployed for 4+ years and won't be replaced until the end of 2020 (assuming everything goes to plan) so that will be at least 7 years of use. It seems that the reasons to move back to Windows weren't completely technical either.

It's hard to come up with technical reasons for picking one OS over another for general business use. All of the operating systems are good enough. They have been for a long time. What drives OS choice is (and always has been) application support and cost. Despite Linux being free, it can be expensive to support or even an impossible choice if you need, for example, Microsoft Office or Final Cut. More often than not,…

You need to start in education - MS has had that locked down for decades. It'll be really interesting to see whether ChromeOS will have any impact in the future when an entire generation has been using it daily for schoolwork.