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New Munich city government agrees to use open source software where possible

zdnet.com

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Re: New Munich city government agrees to use open source software where possible

#71

Post by xfiz »

tpush wrote: post #15
boomboomsubban wrote: post #12

I 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.

The FOSS movement in Germany always seemed to me a tiny bit more mainstream than the one in the US. Tech publications report more on Linux happenings (as opposed to the sometimes intense Apple focus of US tech publications). Linux also has more market share in Germany than any other western country, I think.

According to statcounter, Germany has the highest usage of Firefox and fourth highest usage of Linux (behind Ireland, Greece and Luxembourg) among European and North American countries. Additionally, you have the Chaos Computer Club, which is somewhat prominent and could influence the thinking about FOSS.

Re: New Munich city government agrees to use open source software where possible

#72

Post by em-bee »

skinkestek wrote: post #66
computerfriend wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It depends on the motives. E.g. they hire Palentir but don't want to have those bad associations, so NDA the Palentir contractors working on it.

I'm not working for Palantir, what we work on is linked to one of: - capacity planning for renewables (hydro power) - streamlining mass transit - large scale collection and recycling of bottles - search and rescue operations in the North Sea - education as for why the NDA, my best guess is because "they could". Someone should tell them they are losing out on some great publisity and goodwill.

is the code already public? or will it be published when it's done?

Re: New Munich city government agrees to use open source software where possible

#73

Post by ARandomerDude »

> wherever possible

This reminds me of a quote by the character Humphrey Appleby on "Yes, Minister" ("The Office"-like sitcom about government):

"Almost anything can be attacked as a loss of amenity. And almost anything can be defended as not a significant loss of amenity."

Re: New Munich city government agrees to use open source software where possible

#74

Post by bmn__ »

panpanna wrote: post #14

Just please don't create your own distro this time. I'm sure Canonical would happily hier some devs from Munich to make this look local.

Limux is not its own distro, just a Debian/Ubuntu with additional branding and a few pieces of bundled software in an apt repo.

Re: New Munich city government agrees to use open source software where possible

#75

Post by bmn__ »

ivanche wrote: post #63
user5994461 wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>>> 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 att…

IMO this is UX fail. If the question starts with "Do you...", only reasonable button choices should be "Yes" and "No", not "Save", "Quit" and "Cancel".

It's not reasonable. This goes against all major HIG. I encourage you to read them so that you come to an understanding why verbs must be used instead of yes/no.

Re: New Munich city government agrees to use open source software where possible

#76

Post by ivanche »

bmn__ wrote: post #75
ivanche wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

IMO this is UX fail. If the question starts with "Do you...", only reasonable button choices should be "Yes" and "No", not "Save", "Quit" and "Cancel".

It's not reasonable. This goes against all major HIG. I encourage you to read them so that you come to an understanding why verbs must be used instead of yes/no.

It would be more helpful if you included a link or two. I don't have time to read "all major HIG". It might not be reasonable from your POV, but from mine it is - if I ask you "Do you know Michael Jordan?" and you answer "Cancel" I would've thought you're nuts.

Re: New Munich city government agrees to use open source software where possible

#77

Post by cosmodisk »

NalNezumi wrote: post #41
acd wrote: post #22

Governments 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.

>Governments should develop and run opensource systems. I'm for this proposal too, but for different reason. opensource system can create much needed transparency in government project and organization effort. In my home country the unemployment agency spent atrocious amount of money to create an unusable job-posting app; something private companies do for fraction of the cost. More surprisingly, they doubled down on…

Same in my country.Simple MVC apps serving not so big customer base ends up costing tens of millions and don't work properly.

Re: New Munich city government agrees to use open source software where possible

#78

Post by anticensor »

ivanche wrote: post #76
bmn__ wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not reasonable. This goes against all major HIG. I encourage you to read them so that you come to an understanding why verbs must be used instead of yes/no.

It would be more helpful if you included a link or two. I don't have time to read "all major HIG". It might not be reasonable from your POV, but from mine it is - if I ask you "Do you know Michael Jordan?" and you answer "Cancel" I would've thought you're nuts.

I could similarly answer "Stop it!".

Re: New Munich city government agrees to use open source software where possible

#79

Post by nelaboras »

partiallypro wrote: post #70
acd wrote: post #22

Governments 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.

Is there evidence that governments are saving that much more with open source? You'd still have to pay developers...and some cities are going to freeload off others to avoid overhead costs.

It's a complex issue. There are some calculations and they can go both ways, depending in what and how you calculate. E.g. you could consider training costs - but training costs are one-off for a change, not eternal. Or you can consider coding costs, but they might vary massively from region to region and depending on how (in)competent the procurement goes and how the local market works. Estonia is a country that seems to have figures this out to an immense degree, creating most of the infrastructure themselves and then tendering small-scale procurements for small parts of the system and sometimes allow private competition - but always with government-set data standards and often more on interfaces etc.

To add one other angle: what is cheaper, paying 5 million to a company in Redmond yp provide licenses for opersting systems and officd software, or 10 million to a number of local companies to set up and adapt a slightly less refined open source tool for the local needs? In one scenario the money leaves the local economy, in other the city might spend more money but the money stays local and is used to buy houses or sandwiches, pay handymen or bus tickets or taxes. Where is the long term cost/benefit/ratio higher?

Re: New Munich city government agrees to use open source software where possible

#80

Post by nelaboras »

cpach wrote: post #49
xvilka wrote: post #27

After one lie they have zero trust. Most likely just trying to negotiate lower prices for Microsoft licenses.

I seem to recall hearing the City of Munich considering FOSS for the past 15-20 years or so :)

No, they were implementing it at scale for 10+ years. There was an issue with lots of incompatible legacy software so they were still using windows as well but >50% of desks were Linux only.

Then in a very short timespan (1) a new conservative city government came in, (2) Microsoft announced a big local office and (3) the new government killed the open source project without warning and anlunced they'd switch everything to windows 10.

This transition back to windows is now still ongoing and as contracts are signed will not really be feasible to stop. The now new-new Green+social democratic government makes noe a pledge to take open source seriously for all future needs (and I suppose switch back to a Linux asap).

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