I can't believe that Microsoft is still charging for Windows licenses... convoluted licensing is in fact is one of the primary reasons that I've moved away from Microsoft products and services.
German city wants to ditch Microsoft for Linux
31–40 of 246 posts
Re: German city wants to ditch Microsoft for Linux
#32Does Desktop OS matter anymore? So much is running in "browsers" now, even the SpaceX astronaut controls were Electron. The cloud provider is where it's at. AWS, Azure, GCloud ... and nothing from Europe.
Yes, it does. I don't want to have city documents in some cloud.
"The Cloud" is just someone else's computer, or datacenter in this case. So if they would not be storing it in the cloud where would they store it? That would be either a datacenter from a big party that manages multiple municipalities as well as other government/for profit organisations IT. Most often this will be the lowest bidder for a public tender. I don't know if they would be any better or worse than the big cloud vendors. The only alternative is (shudder) a "datacenter" managed by the municipality itself. For big cities that might work. For smaller ones it's a recipe for disaster.
Re: German city wants to ditch Microsoft for Linux
#33Earlier quoted context omitted.
Is there really a need for them to create their own distributions?
No. And it's a shame everyone does.
I've been wondering about this. Competition breeds innovation and all that, but in the end, aren't we ending up with a whole lot of repeated effort for little benefit?
Re: German city wants to ditch Microsoft for Linux
#34Again? I love Germany, but I honestly can't tell whether this is an old news brought back to life, or whether it's a new story at a glance. Deja vu anyone?
Re: German city wants to ditch Microsoft for Linux
#35SkoleLinux needs an honourable mention. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skolelinux
> The Skolelinux project was started on July 2, 2001. Twenty-five computer programmers and translators agreed to improve the use of software in education. They disliked that the next generation of computer users were not able to have access to source code, arguing that children who are interested should be able to learn from expert programmers to create their own software.
> A total of 214 schools using Skolelinux are currently listed on the DebianEdu Wiki. This case study[1] of implementing Skolelinux at a school in Greece is typical of user experiences.
[1] https://schoolforge.net/education-case-study/skolelinux-thin...
Re: German city wants to ditch Microsoft for Linux
#36Again? I love Germany, but I honestly can't tell whether this is an old news brought back to life, or whether it's a new story at a glance. Deja vu anyone?
Re: German city wants to ditch Microsoft for Linux
#37Earlier quoted context omitted.
Many countries are currently ditching Windows in favor of home grown distros due to distrust of Microsoft. Notable examples: Currently transitioning: - Astra Linux (Russia) https://www.zdnet.com/article/russian-military-moves-closer-... - Kylin Linux? (China) https://www.techradar.com/news/china-to-ditch-all-windows-pc... - South Korea https://www.zdnet.com/article/south-koreas-government-explor... Already transition…
Is there really a need for them to create their own distributions?
I mean, it depends on what "their own distributions" entails. Adding customized branding or extra localizations or a different mix of preinstalled apps to a popular distro like Ubuntu/Debian or Fedora/CentOS or what have you seems perfectly reasonable.
Re: German city wants to ditch Microsoft for Linux
#38Earlier quoted context omitted.
Many countries are currently ditching Windows in favor of home grown distros due to distrust of Microsoft. Notable examples: Currently transitioning: - Astra Linux (Russia) https://www.zdnet.com/article/russian-military-moves-closer-... - Kylin Linux? (China) https://www.techradar.com/news/china-to-ditch-all-windows-pc... - South Korea https://www.zdnet.com/article/south-koreas-government-explor... Already transition…
Is there really a need for them to create their own distributions?
If you're an authoritarian government and want to compromise them to report on users, yes. Most more liberal countries could and should use standard distros.
Some listed countries are banned or blocked from major company services that might be default on a normal distro, such as Google or GitHub as well. So beyond just setting country-relevant defaults, using a standard distro may present problems for some countries.
Re: German city wants to ditch Microsoft for Linux
#39https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LiMux#Timeline has the timeline of back and forth between Microsoft and Linux
September 2016 - Microsoft moves its German headquarters to Munich[36]
February 2017 - Politicians discuss proposals to replace the Linux-based OS used across the council with a Windows 10-based client.[37]
October 2017 - Once seen as a stalwart supporter of open source, the city council last week said that running a Linux-based operating system on its PCs would not be cost efficient in the long run.[38]
November 2017 - The city council decided that LiMux will be replaced by a Windows-based infrastructure by the end of 2020. The costs for the migration are estimated to be around 90 million Euros.[39]
May 2020 - Newly elected politicians in Munich take a U-turn and implement a plan to go back to the original plan of migrating to LiMux.[40]
Re: German city wants to ditch Microsoft for Linux
#40Iirc, the initiative in Munich was very impressive, with public servants being taught how to file bug reports and whatnot. This is great news imo. Less spending on proprietary software, more accountability, possibly job openings for consultants. Good job Germany! I wish more countries would follow.
Sweet !
Not just jobs for consultants, this would be a shot in the arm for all opensource tech. Over time, we could have a greater adoption of open source databases, BI tools and whatnot. This could lead more support for open source, more monetisation opportunities.
IMO, this is a great start and if more public institutions were to follow in the same vein, would lead to a virtuous cycle.