I think the “Public money => public code” is a stronger (and arguably more interesting) piece of content in the article.
New Munich city government agrees to use open source software where possible
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Re: New Munich city government agrees to use open source software where possible
#22Governments should develop and run opensource systems. That way different governments can collaborate to build better systems through open innovation. Not wasting tax payers money on closed source.
I bet tax and pension systems have the same basic requirements cross countries with some local specifics.
Re: New Munich city government agrees to use open source software where possible
#23Earlier quoted context omitted.
Pessimistically, I agree with you. But that lends the question; what does it take to end the Microsoft monopoly on our governments? It can’t just be open document standards. I think it goes further than that; into our schools maybe. I don’t have answers, but it’s a serious question I have.
Easy, just create a software ecosystem that is superior to or at least on-par with the commercial offerings (being open source is not by itself valuable for the users), then grow a generation of non-technical users into that ecosystem
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Re: New Munich city government agrees to use open source software where possible
#24Governments should develop and run opensource systems. That way different governments can collaborate to build better systems through open innovation. Not wasting tax payers money on closed source. I bet tax and pension systems have the same basic requirements cross countries with some local specifics.
While I completely agree with you, there is a compelling argument for governments spending tax payer money on goods from local companies rather than competing with them. Of course, I don't think I would class MS as a "local company" for Munich ;-). I'm just saying that there are lots of reasonable points of view on this topic.
Re: New Munich city government agrees to use open source software where possible
#25I can't imagine any US party echoing the FSF's statement, even if just in a statement of political intent. It's impressive that the movement has enough public interest to make platitudes worthwhile in Germany.
Why would the US government try to avoid Microsoft? It's a well-known local company. And the government can get a good chunk of the license costs back throughout company and employment taxes.
Re: New Munich city government agrees to use open source software where possible
#26Governments should develop and run opensource systems. That way different governments can collaborate to build better systems through open innovation. Not wasting tax payers money on closed source. I bet tax and pension systems have the same basic requirements cross countries with some local specifics.
While I completely agree with you, there is a compelling argument for governments spending tax payer money on goods from local companies rather than competing with them. Of course, I don't think I would class MS as a "local company" for Munich ;-). I'm just saying that there are lots of reasonable points of view on this topic.
In the UK we outsource to the cheapest provider. More bang for the buck but it doesn't seem very holistic and appears to encourage corruption.
Re: New Munich city government agrees to use open source software where possible
#27After one lie they have zero trust. Most likely just trying to negotiate lower prices for Microsoft licenses.
Re: New Munich city government agrees to use open source software where possible
#28After one lie they have zero trust. Most likely just trying to negotiate lower prices for Microsoft licenses.
Yep, the same story every year, and always for the same result.
Re: New Munich city government agrees to use open source software where possible
#29This is a bluff that almost every government and municipality with huge contracts with MS does whenever they come up for renewal as part of their negotiations, nobody in MS is impressed. In other news: 2020 is not the year of the linux desktop.
Pessimistically, I agree with you. But that lends the question; what does it take to end the Microsoft monopoly on our governments? It can’t just be open document standards. I think it goes further than that; into our schools maybe. I don’t have answers, but it’s a serious question I have.
Open document standards are a great place to start. Any standard format needs to have multiple possible vendors. And I agree it goes further than just document formats. This goes for all important formats, including how software interacts with the operating system.
There needs to be other vendors who can supply document editing software that is 100% compatible with MS Office. But more than this, there needs to be other vendors who can supply operating systems that are capable of running Windows software.
As long as a single company has the leverage that Microsoft has over the enterprise ecosystem we won't have a free market. Governments can start by mandating that new software deployments have several possible vendors, including at the operating system level.
Re: New Munich city government agrees to use open source software where possible
#30Earlier quoted context omitted.
They're already on Linux currently. A government change and Microsoft Germany moving their HQ to Munich made them reconsider. Now the government changed again. The actual migration to Linux went mostly fine and was largely a success as far as government software programs go, FWIW.
From my personal experience most times the hardest part is to convince the users. You can throw a lot of resources at the migration, money, good technical experts, and get it done right. But making the regular users happy? That's a whole different subject. Truth is most users still run Windows at home and are familiar with it. Getting used to something else will meet some resistance. Then you have the minor compatibi…
>>> Getting used to something else will meet some resistance.
It's too gentle to say that users are struggling or resisting.
The fact on the ground is that a significant part of users are simply incapable of learning new computer software, they can't even use effectively the software they've been working on for years. This is glaring in a giant government organization with tens of thousands of employees. Thus any attempt to move OS is doomed to fail.
Classic example is the popup when closing a word document. "Do you want to save the document before exiting? Save/Quit/Cancel". The typical user clicks the little red cross in the top right corner of the dialog.