Guys, this is so pathetic. Twenty-three years after Munich and there are still comments waiting for the year of the Linux desktop. From a deployment about big enough for a small university. Stop! You’re embarrassing yourselves!
Switzerland's Federal Government Is Replacing Microsoft on 3k Computers
141–150 of 306 posts
Re: Switzerland's Federal Government Is Replacing Microsoft on 3k Computers
#142Earlier quoted context omitted.
Switzerland was “neutral” not neutral. The Swiss certainly crossed into the complicit side quite often, profiting from the Nazi regime, laundering their looted gold and closing their borders to fleeing Jews.
> closing their borders to fleeing Jews. This is such a landmine topic, because most countries did this, including the UK and the US; see e.g. the MS St. Louis. This is why there are several "heroes of the resistance" that in modern parlance are "people smugglers", forging credentials and visas in order to help people escape. Today you see exactly the same hostile attitudes to non-white refugees of basically every wa…
It's also why Germany did the death camps. Originally their plan was just to force them to leave but most countries were not allowing them to do so.
Re: Switzerland's Federal Government Is Replacing Microsoft on 3k Computers
#143Why don't they replace Windows with Linux Mint? That would be much more groundbreaking than simply replacing online Office and Outlook. If you use Linux Mint you can replace Office with LibreOffice (offline) and Outlook with one of the many email clients available for Linux.
There are at least a couple or three things around that...
- One, that probably, for most of the users, what's is locking them to Windows is a bunch of Microsoft applications. Once you've moved out of those apps, you're free to move them to any other OS.
- Two, on government computers there are usually a bunch of things that might be a bit custom and not readily available in other OSes. Smart card readers for weird standards, custom software for security or administration processes, uncommon peripherals...
- Three, there are departments that are going to be tied to Windows for a long time, due to very specific software, for example CAD or things like that
So I'd say Office is a big and easier win that could allow later allow to move a lot of workstations to Linux. Then, you can focus on the other less common uses of Windows and see how feasible is migrating them. But starting directly moving to Linux would mean starting directly with edge cases and problems.
Re: Switzerland's Federal Government Is Replacing Microsoft on 3k Computers
#144Earlier quoted context omitted.
Switzerland was “neutral” not neutral. The Swiss certainly crossed into the complicit side quite often, profiting from the Nazi regime, laundering their looted gold and closing their borders to fleeing Jews.
> closing their borders to fleeing Jews. This is such a landmine topic, because most countries did this, including the UK and the US; see e.g. the MS St. Louis. This is why there are several "heroes of the resistance" that in modern parlance are "people smugglers", forging credentials and visas in order to help people escape. Today you see exactly the same hostile attitudes to non-white refugees of basically every wa…
>Today you see exactly the same hostile attitudes to non-white refugees of basically every war except Ukraine.
Perhaps that's because most of those refugees could more easily shelter in neighboring countries that they are more culturally similar to... if shelter was actually the primary thing that they were seeking.
Re: Switzerland's Federal Government Is Replacing Microsoft on 3k Computers
#145Earlier quoted context omitted.
The thing is, if you don't help us in Eastern Europe, you don't just lose hegemonial status there. You lose all of Europe and with that the very foundation of your power. It's not Anti-Americanism, but if you want to go out with the belle of the ball, you actually have to try. You don't get to date her by default, and she is getting increasingly tired of your entitled attitude. Ukraine already is our problem, the vas…
>The thing is, if you don't help us in Eastern Europe, you don't just lose hegemonial status there. You lose all of Europe and with that the very foundation of your power. If that means you're going to stop blaming us for everything, it sounds fantastic. BTW if you think Europe is "the very foundation" of American power you're delusional. >You don't get us by default, and we are getting increasingly tired of your ent…
> BTW if you think Europe is "the very foundation" of American power you're delusional.
You do know American power projection is mostly based on bases on European soil? That your economy is greatly benefiting from integration with ours? You think America can be significant on a world stage where Europe turns away? You think you could stomach losing access to the world's largest market of wealthy consumers? You think your sanctions would be effective if we didn't go along?
Every single power mechanism available to the US is dependent on our cooperation.
> Now you're speaking as though your dependency on us was some kind of favor you were doing for us
Of course it's a favour to you. We supported your nonsense in exchange for you dealing with the military grunt work. Out of touch is only the one that tries to kill the golden goose because it sometimes needs feeding.
Re: Switzerland's Federal Government Is Replacing Microsoft on 3k Computers
#146As a Swiss, I'm happy they finally try it. It's only around 5% of all government machines, but at least it's a start and I wish them all the best! We have to get independent asap from the US, they never were our (or any other countries) "friends" and most likely never will be. OSS ftw!
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Re: Switzerland's Federal Government Is Replacing Microsoft on 3k Computers
#147As a Swiss, I'm happy they finally try it. It's only around 5% of all government machines, but at least it's a start and I wish them all the best! We have to get independent asap from the US, they never were our (or any other countries) "friends" and most likely never will be. OSS ftw!
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Switzerland and Europe in general didn’t start a trade war against their long term ally. The USA did.
It makes sense to decouple yourself from a country that decided to vote in an unhinged con artist as their president that is actively hostile towards you.
Re: Switzerland's Federal Government Is Replacing Microsoft on 3k Computers
#148Re: Switzerland's Federal Government Is Replacing Microsoft on 3k Computers
#149The long tail of ms Excel does not get replaced easily. For 90% of customers and 90% of workflows you see either no use of a program, or use cases that can be replaced with anything. But eventually you'll find the power users who do business critical stuff in excel sheets that you notice can't be done in any other way, and if you stop doing it then people aren't paid in time or whatever. This doesn't mean it's a good…
>But eventually you'll find the power users who do business critical stuff in excel sheets that you notice can't be done in any other way
What can't be done in any other way?
Re: Switzerland's Federal Government Is Replacing Microsoft on 3k Computers
#150The long tail of ms Excel does not get replaced easily. For 90% of customers and 90% of workflows you see either no use of a program, or use cases that can be replaced with anything. But eventually you'll find the power users who do business critical stuff in excel sheets that you notice can't be done in any other way, and if you stop doing it then people aren't paid in time or whatever. This doesn't mean it's a good…
But the general usage of Excel is so negligible in terms of using its actual features that it can be easily replaced. In my experience, non-basic formulas are beyond 99% of people and they use it simply for adding stuff up in a grid. This is why Google Sheets is used in many places as a replacement (even if it balloons RAM usage when presented with a large sheet of data), simply because all of the wonderful features…
Even casual users utilise more than 10% of the features.
The problem is that they all utilise a different 10%.