Munich Open Source Plows Ahead (Wired) [LWN.net]

Wired takes a look at the difficulties encountered by the Munich administration as it switches over to free software. "Reports in Computerwoche also stated that local vendors who currently code applications for the city were experiencing problems in developing applications for the open-source operating system, since they are more familiar with Windows than Linux. Munich may opt to install an emulation program on city workers' computers that will allow Windows applications to run on Linux."

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Munich Open Source Plows Ahead (Wired)

Posted Feb 11, 2004 16:15 UTC (Wed) by error27 (subscriber, #8346) [Link]

When the story came out initially people said all the systems would have vmware. Apparently it comes by default with some versions of Suse. Almost all the computers were already running a version of windows so they could use the existing windows license.

Not sure if that was just rumours. Looks like they might be true either way now. :P

help

Posted Feb 12, 2004 7:56 UTC (Thu) by aleXXX (subscriber, #2742) [Link]

Well, IMHO the Big Green is capable enough :-)

Alex

Local vendors

Posted Feb 11, 2004 17:16 UTC (Wed) by ncm (subscriber, #165) [Link]

It sounds to me like they need to get better, or at least different, local vendors. Alternatively, their local vendors need to replace their slower employees with people better at development on Linux. (Probably some of both.)

That's probably not as easily done as in the US, though. The real expense may be finding sinecures for everyone who is newly (or newly discovered to be) useless, and keeping them the hell out of the way.

Local vendors

Posted Feb 12, 2004 5:42 UTC (Thu) by jtc (guest, #6246) [Link]

Finding competent Linux developers should not be difficult in this current "hirer's IT market."

Local vendors

Posted Feb 13, 2004 15:49 UTC (Fri) by Duncan (guest, #6647) [Link]

> [T]hey need to get better[/]different local vendors
> [or] need to replace [some] employees with people
> better at [] Linux. (Probably some of both.)

> That's probably not as easily done as in the US, though.

On the contrary, I'd guess availability at least would be better than in the US,
given that the US seems to be "pulling the frog's tail" on general Linux
acceptance and uptake. Further, Germany, according to market survey
research as covered in LWN last year, is one of the least Linux resistent
nations in Europe.

OTOH, I understand the unions are stronger in Europe and laying off some
employees to hire others may be more difficult than here in the US. Europe
seems more into keeping the employees you have and retraining them than
the US, with its "disposable employee" concept -- "just discard them when you
are thru with them and buy new ones". <shrug>

In any case, this would have been one of the aspects of the changeover that
would have been studied, with the culture and availability of local talent
taken into account (or at least it should have been and the company, now
doing a similar study for Paris, again according to LWN, is claiming the
benefit of its studies as well rounded and neutral, so..).

As the company now handling the switch says, these types of developments
and temporary hiccups aren't unexpected, and they are still on track. It's just
a matter of the daily navigation, and there's no hint yet that Munich intends
to reverse itself, just that they are concerned, as they SHOULD be, that
things are going AS they should be.

Duncan

Local vendors

Posted Feb 19, 2004 16:28 UTC (Thu) by alext (guest, #7589) [Link]

In Europe it's generally considered a matter of more social conscience, the responsibility owed by the employer to the individual employees, rather than a pure commercial decision to ditch out of date equipment and get new gear. That's as I understand it anyway.