Nick Heath reports
[Munich's city] council is intending to conduct a study to see which operating systems and software packages--both proprietary and open source--best fit its needs. The audit would also take into account the work already carried out to move the council to free software.
Now, in a response to Munich's Green Party (PDF), Mayor Dieter Reiter has revealed the cost of returning to Windows.
Reiter said that moving to Windows 7 would require the council to replace all the PCs for its 14,000-plus staff, a move he said would cost €3.15 million. That figure did not include software licensing and infrastructure costs, which Reiter said could not be calculated without further planning. He said a move to Windows 8 would be far more costly.
Reiter said going back to Microsoft would mean writing off about €14M of work it had carried out to shift to Limux, OpenOffice, and other free software. Work on project implementation, support, training, modifying systems, licensing of Limux-specific software, on setting up Limux and migrating from Microsoft Office would have to be shelved, he said.
He also revealed that the move to Limux had saved the council about €11M in licensing and hardware costs, as the Ubuntu-based Limux operating system was less demanding than if it had upgraded to a newer version of Windows.
Related: No, Munich Isn't About To Ditch Free Software and Move Back to Windows
Related Stories
Recently, there has been a circle-jerk of clickbait, gleefully consumed and hyperlinked by the anti-FOSS crowd. The claim is that a certain (unspecified) number of city employees are whining that Linux isn't Windows and FOSS apps aren't good enough and that Munich city fathers have decided to go back to Windows. It's all wishful nonsense from Microsoft fans.
Nick Heath at TechRepublic spoke to city council spokesman Stefan Hauf.
He said the council's recently elected mayor Dieter Reiter has instead simply commissioned a report into the future IT system for the council.
"The new mayor has asked the administration to gather the facts so we can decide and make a proposal for the city council how to proceed in future," he said.
"Not only for LiMux but for all of IT. It's about the organisation, the costs, performance and the useability and satisfaction of the users." [...] "Nothing is decided because first we have to see the report and then we can decide," he said, adding the review has not been triggered by any dissatisfaction with LiMux but is rather part of a review of how to proceed now the LiMux migration project is complete.
In the Spring of 2013, Munich noted that over 94 percent of its computers were running Linux and that the city had already saved more than €10 million over what they would have paid for EULA-ware--even with the fire sale prices initially offered by Ballmer personally.
That anyone thinks the mayor would survive re-election after blowing tens of millions on MSFT licenses and tens of millions more for more-powerful hardware to run it defies all logic.
...and, as Nick notes there, it was never about money; the move to Linux was always about freedom.
Nick Heath reports via TechRepublic
Munich city council spent years migrating more than 15,000 staff to LiMux, a custom-version of Ubuntu and other open-source software--a move the city said had saved it more than €10M ($11M).
[...] After his election, the new mayor of Munich, Dieter Reiter, announced he would commission a report to evaluate how IT should be run at council in [the] future--including whether the authority should continue to run LiMux.
Now, an interim release of this report[PDF, Deutsch] by consultants Accenture has highlighted user dissatisfaction with outdated and unreliable software. However, when detailing the problems with desktop PCs, the draft report fails to specify whether it's Linux-based machines that are affected or the minority Windows PCs retained at Munich.
[...] Problems stem from the variety of PC clients being used, and the use of old operating systems, office software, browsers, and infrastructure, according to the report. The report cites evidence of these IT problems causing intermittent, rather than persistent problems for staff. When employees at Munich were surveyed last year, 85 percent said software problems interfered with their work at least once per month, with 55 percent blaming hardware problems. The council has previously stated the bulk of users had no issue with the move to LiMux, outside of a couple of councillors.
For my part, I wonder how objective the report will be. From Wikipedia:
Avanade Inc. was founded in 2000 as a joint venture between Accenture and
Microsoft
Additionally, Munich declared the conversion "complete" at 94 percent (though they have continued to inch forward away from non-open software). A major reason for starting the switch in the first place was because they had a mix of software that was unnecessarily difficult to manage.
Previous: Munich Reveals Preliminary Costs for a 'Return' to Windows
Munich is ditching Linux in favor of Windows 10, at a cost of €49.3 million:
The Linux love affair of the German City of Munich, which decided to favor Linux in 2003, is finally over. The city has officially cleared the plan to bring back Windows 10 on about 29,000 PCs.
In 2003, when the city decided to switch to a Linux-based desktop called LiMux and other open source software, it showed that free software could be used on a large scale. However, things didn't turn out the way they were planned.
Coming back to the recent development, the politicians who supported the switch said that Windows 10 will make it easier to source compatible application and drivers, according to TechRepublic.
[...] Linux enthusiasts should also note that the city's IT Chief has previously said that any concrete technical reason doesn't back the move; it's all politics.
Also at Engadget.
Previously: No, Munich Isn't About To Ditch Free Software and Move Back to Windows
Munich Reveals Preliminary Costs for a 'Return' to Windows
Linux Champion Munich Takes Decisive Step Towards Returning to Windows
(Score: 1) by deimios on Friday October 17 2014, @06:29AM
See header
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 17 2014, @07:14AM
The editor removed the mode#articles part from the link when he added the summary from that story to this page, so the hyperlink there works.
That part should have had a & ahead of it in my link.
I wanted a link such that Google et al would index that and get a page with lots of comments, but I borked the link.
-- gewg_
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 17 2014, @07:22AM
That should be &mode=threaded#articles.
Actually, I did get it right. [soylentnews.org]
It was the editor that borked it.
-- gewg_
(Score: 3, Insightful) by choose another one on Friday October 17 2014, @08:58AM
I can't see why Windows 8 should be more costly than 7 if buying new machines - operating system cost with a new machine is about the same, if anything buying "downgrades" to 7 (if available) is more expensive. Same will apply with bulk OS licensing from MS - in fact you would always licence latest OS but with downgrade rights, so no cost difference.
If buying second hand machines that may not run 8, then maybe there is an argument, but new hardware bought _now_ will run 8 and has drivers for it, and in fact may not run 7 (or may not be supported with 7). As time goes on, the Windows 7 option becomes more difficult restrictive (limited hardware) and hence more costly, surely ?
(Score: 3, Funny) by jbWolf on Friday October 17 2014, @10:39AM
Bigger buttons means a bigger monitor is needed. Duh! :P
www.jb-wolf.com [jb-wolf.com]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 17 2014, @12:31PM
You think they would buy their computers from the next consumer market? I'm not even sure those OEM licenses used on consumer PCs would cover the use of the software in the administration.
(Score: 2) by Nerdfest on Friday October 17 2014, @12:57PM
I would guess that it's because they do site/enterprise licensing rather than machine by machine, although I've seen places that actually end up paying for both.
(Score: 2) by choose another one on Friday October 17 2014, @01:07PM
As long as the OEM licence is Pro version (if you want to connect it to a domain) there is no problem, and for enterprise licencing, like I said, with MS you almost always have to licence the latest version with downgrade rights, in other words you have to licence 8+ anyway, but you will have the right to downgrade to 7.
(Score: 3, Funny) by Translation Error on Friday October 17 2014, @01:54PM
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 17 2014, @09:32AM
No disputing that it would cost a lot to switch back, but OpenOffice is available for Windows so they would still be able to use that and the cost of switching from MS Office (e.g. training) wouldn't be wasted.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 17 2014, @11:43AM
Part of the previous FUD/clickbait item that circulated (see Related Stories, above) was the claim that the city employees didn't like FOSS because it wasn't exactly like the ancient apps they were used to.[1]
Oddly enough, newer M$ software wouldn't have been identical either.
...and, as the UK gov't is demonstrating, once you get rid of proprietary protocols/formats and adopt open standards, the transition becomes much easier. [googleusercontent.com] (orig) [techrepublic.com]
[1] The reason it took Munich so damned long to convert was all the hand-holding the IT staff did with every single user.
They converted all their old macros and templates and made sure everything was hunky-dory before moving on to the next employee.
-- gewg_
(Score: 3, Interesting) by choose another one on Friday October 17 2014, @01:03PM
Interesting link: "the council is now conducting a study to see which operating systems and software packages - both proprietary and open source - best fit its needs"
The way that is written (my highlighting) implies that they did not do such an assessment before starting the FOSS / Linux migration, if so, no wonder it took them so long.
Er, what should they have done then (apart from maybe properly assess their needs before embarking on the project) ? Presumably if that step took a lot of time and effort, then there were a lot of genuine incompatibilities, so should the end users simply have been left with documents / templates / macros / whatever that did not open or work correctly ? Would that have improved the acceptance rate ?
PS: your "ancient apps" comment is interesting because we are now getting to the stage where Open/LibreOffice looks and behaves ancient, it is most like Office 2003 which is now over ten years old. Run Office 2003 these days and you may need to retrain younger new employees onto it, if they have used Office in school they will likely have used only 2007+. I get this with my kids, they'll happily find their way round current iOS, OS X, Windows, Android etc. but put them on an old XP / Office 2003 box and you get "what is this ancient ****" "how do you find anything in all these menus" and "how do I do X" - where X turns out to be an Office 2007+ feature that you've never used, but the kids expect it. These are kids who will be coming through into the workplace soon. In similar vein, it's getting to be impossible to stop them jabbing fingers into older non-touch laptop screens (to be fair, using a range of devices I suffer from that too sometimes) to the extent that I may actively avoid buying non-touch laptops in future, just for that reason (not because I find touch is better). Progress eh ?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 17 2014, @09:18PM
implies that they did not do such an assessment before starting
No, this nonsense is just politics:
A new deputy mayor is trying to make waves, hoping that one day he might become mayor.
You should find some video of a male lion killing the cubs sired by the previous dominant male after the old guy got defeated in a hostile takeover.
(With the females no longer nursing, that brings them back into estrus.)
Elsewhere in Germany, they have reverted back after a new political party gained control.
Money spent once then spent again.
It's just wasteful politicians engaging in dick measuring contents.
It appears that you don't know that Ballmer interrupted his skiing vacation to rush to Munich to try to avert the switch.
Even though M$'s initial fire-sale prices would have been lower, the city fathers told Sweaty to pound sand. [googleusercontent.com] (orig) [techrepublic.com]
(You'll notice that if you want good coverage of this topic, Nick Heath is the guy.)
The politicians and the IT folks had worked together--not specifically to lower the cost (not their main goal)--but to figured out a way to gain FREEDOM.
The goal was always to make sure they had the source code for everything they ran.
This contains one of my all-time favorite quotes from the (previous) mayor. It's at about the 45 percent mark.
"Freedom from you, Mr. Gates." [googleusercontent.com] (orig) [europa.eu]
At the time of the decision to switch, Munich was running TWENTY-ONE versions of Windoze.
They were also paying for licensing on numerous redundant apps.
Keeping track of licenses was a mess.
They consolidated most of that jumble with their own spin of Linux and ($0) FOSS apps.
As of May 2013, Munich was 94 percent FOSS and the (previous) mayor declared the conversion a success.
-- gewg_
(Score: 2) by choose another one on Saturday October 18 2014, @10:04PM
I am aware. Maybe you don't know that assessing the price is not the same as assessing which solution "-best fit its needs".
So, the goal explicitly wasn't to make sure the council had the software that "-best fit its needs". QED.
Personally, if I see a procurement with a single all-overriding requirement like that it's a massive red flag that it's being done wrong. Source code may be _a_ requirement, assessed scored and balanced against all the others, but it should not ever be the only one. Nor does it require FOSS, or exclude proprietary - I have worked with and purchased plenty of proprietary software that came with source.
Does not make sense either, or at least I don't see how it correlates with free software. Freedom from Gates has always been available, and has never required FOSS. Apple, for one, has always been there as an alternative supplier and in fact pre-dates MS. At a price, of course - but remember money was apparently not the issue for this project...
For 2003, I thought that was impossible, but I have looked it up and yes, provided they were still running Windows 2.x and had bought some Itaniums (so you can include XP 64bit), 21 would have been just possible, but very very stupid.
So, they were hopeless at IT management and didn't have a clue what they had let alone what they required. Not the first public sector (or corporate) IT department with that problem, and won't be the last. FOSS doesn't magically fix bad management though, and it doesn't get rid of the need to track licenses either, just changes what you need to track. FOSS doesn't magically exempt you from copyright (or patents), and many FOSS licences are incompatible with each other (and different GPL versions are even incompatible with themselves after RMS had a Vader moment). All that needs to be properly tracked especially if you are distributing or are building custom stuff (with the access to code to copy) to interface with FOSS or integrate bits together (which they are).
Wonder how much of the claimed savings are from consolidation then, and how much from FOSS ? Looking at a slightly smaller council example - £2M per year savings from desktop standardisation and consolidation: http://www.computerweekly.com/feature/Hampshire-Council-saves-2m-a-year-by-standardising-its-8000-desktops [computerweekly.com] - didn't take them 10rys either. So if Munich was that chaotic before, and larger, it should therefore have saved of the order of 2M per year from consolidation. So if they saved less than that per year from consolidation _and_ FOSS then maybe ($0) FOSS is a negative saving.
I really wanted Munich to be a success, it was announce not long after I was involved in a failed OpenOffice migration (much much smaller, failed on compatibility with existing documents), I really wanted it to be proven that it wouldn't really have been that much work for us to have fixed our issues... but as the years ticked past I have come to view it as another public sector big-IT screw up.
Taking ten year over a desktop refresh is crazy, what else have they missed in all that time? Apparently the mayor's lack of mobile access to his email was not anything to do with FOSS, but was down to infrastructure - "because all of this goes back to pre-mobile phone days". So WTF have Munich IT been doing for the last 10+ years to get so far behind that their infrastructure is "pre mobile" ? Well now we know: rewriting Word macros.
(Score: 1) by mathinker on Saturday October 18 2014, @06:07PM
Au contraire, my recollection is that at least 50% of the time it took was taken by re-assessment after re-assessment. I think the original assessment didn't take into consideration the fact that all of the MS Office macros would have to be converted "by-hand". But even after taking this into consideration, the conversion became worthwhile in the long term, because of exactly those issues discussed in this assessment.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 17 2014, @12:17PM
Sounds very cost effective.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 17 2014, @12:38PM
Well, if you take a closer look at the word "LiMuX" in the summary, you may notice that it has a different colour than the words around it, and in addition is underlined. That typically is a clear hint that it is a link. And given the fact that it is the word LiMuX that is linked, you already have s strong hint that the link might lead to a page containing information about LiMux.
Indeed, a closer examination shows that it is indeed a link, and that this link leads to the Wikipedia page with the title LiMuX, which is an even stronger hint that you'll find an answer to your question on that site.
I'll leave it as an exercise to the reader to check whether that really is the case.