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Now, an interim release of this report[PDF, Deutsch] by consultants Accenture has highlighted user dissatisfaction with outdated and unreliable software.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
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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
(Score: 0, Troll) by Bot on Tuesday May 10 2016, @11:36AM
Is limux running over systemd? else it's a windows problem.
It is not censorship, it is avoiding details that can be easily inferred.
Account abandoned.
(Score: 5, Informative) by bitstream on Tuesday May 10 2016, @11:36AM
Accenture is a split from Arthur Andersen in 1989. The same firm that is deeply involved in the 2001 scandal with Enron. When one adds Avanade to the mix. It's doesn't take much to see what kind of culture there is and what expressions it may take. They can't be trusted. Simply as that.
(Score: 5, Interesting) by Thexalon on Tuesday May 10 2016, @02:56PM
I'll put it this way: When I was younger and desperately needed money, I talked to them as a prospective employer. In that interview, I decided I'd rather I go hungry.
Among other things, they actually tell me in the interview that all the technical staff are essentially second-class citizens (with a noticeably lower pay grade than everybody who starts on the sales/consulting side), and must be promoted at least every other year or they will be fired. So they've now set up an environment where you have to compete formally with your coworkers, and if you fail to suck up sufficiently you are out of work. After you've managed to do that 3 times (and I think you have 5 years to do that), then you have the option of continuing for another few years into management, or staying as a technical lead at the same pay grade for the rest of your career. That's a recipe for a bitter, angry, technical staff that is doing everything they can to backstab their coworkers.
Also, they were going to hire me to do was *something* for the US Dept of Defense, but were unwilling to give me any indication of what kind of project it was, so I wasn't willing to do it (also, they were going to be needing security clearance, something I could very well fail to pass, not because of any crimes I committed but because of ties to people the FBI and Un-American Activities Committee went after).
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 2) by bitstream on Tuesday May 10 2016, @04:05PM
Seem like a company to not touch with a stick. I think Andersen Consulting is in the same genre from what I remember.
(Score: 2) by arslan on Wednesday May 11 2016, @02:39AM
Well that is actually no bad in that they tell you up front. Imagine if they didnt. You'd be surprise how many companies are like that, especially ones where IT is a cost centre - and they aren't even gonna tell you about it.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 11 2016, @08:32AM
I've handed my notice in after only 6-8 weeks of getting a job because of things that I only discovered after joining. Fuck it - life's too short.
(Score: 2) by maxwell demon on Tuesday May 10 2016, @02:54PM
Given that they didn't renew any Windows stuff, but got new Linux stuff, the very fact that people complain about outdated software points at that software likely being Windows software.
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
(Score: 2) by choose another one on Tuesday May 10 2016, @03:23PM
Yes, except it says the complaints are about hardware issues also, and we know htat they are having problems with outdated LiMux being unable to support new hardware - http://www.techrepublic.com/article/heres-the-one-major-problem-facing-munich-after-switching-from-windows-to-linux/ [techrepublic.com]
Also, the old windows apps and OSes are apparently mostly(all?) virtualised according to the report, so why would they be having hardware issues?
(Score: 2) by fritsd on Tuesday May 10 2016, @09:40PM
Oh that's hilarious; I got a pop-up advertisement to "12 tips to get more out of Windows 10" :-)
(Score: 4, Informative) by choose another one on Tuesday May 10 2016, @03:19PM
OK, so it's in German, but automated translate gets the gist of it.
TL;DR: IT in the council is a badly managed mess, users/stakeholders feel IT doesn't work for them, IT is upset that users/stakeholders don't want what IT tells them to want. Everyone has requirements but believes they are the responsibility of someone else's budget. Ancient stuff is kept running because no one takes responsibility for replacing it, meanwhile architects don't (due to lack of time/ budget?) consider re-using existing assets enough so that budgets are spent on wholesale ripping and replacing where it doesn't need to be. Accenture could have copied and pasted large parts of the analysis from any similar public sector report, with a search and replace of council name. In fact they probably did (*cough* been there done that...).
Longer:
There is very little in there about actual software issues - LiMux is only mentioned twice in the whole document (Windows 27 times...) - it is largely waffle about the management issues. There is much more technical detail in the linked article from TFA - http://www.techrepublic.com/article/heres-the-one-major-problem-facing-munich-after-switching-from-windows-to-linux/ [techrepublic.com] - which is more interesting. It sounds like they cannot get new platform releases done fast enough to support new hardware because they have major problems with buggy upstream provider, now of course they have the freedom ("freedom from you Mr Gates") and the source to fix bugs themselves, so why are they having to wait 2.5yrs for someone else to do it? I suspect it is because exercising that freedom is too damned hard/expensive - they talk about the problems of testing on wide range of hardware/configurations, well, that's what OS vendors do for you (and even with the resources the size of MS they'll still f*** it up for some configurations some of the time).
Crazy-old unsupported versions of windows _are_ mentioned, and security issues with them, but also mentioned is some sort of usability problem with security risk assessment/recording software which had something to do with CALC - not clear what, or why a spreadsheet should be hard for an IT pro to use, maybe translation issue. Again, it sounds like the biggest problem with security is not really in the software but in the management. I can imagine that these are maybe apps that cannot be upgraded or replaced to run on a supported/securable platform because it would conflict with a FOSS-only IT strategy - but the report doesn't seem to say that.
The saddest bit though, assuming you are FOSS-supporter, is this:
Interviewees stressed in particular the LiMux team to constantly changing contact toward what is an indication of a high turnover in this team . Assessment: The retention of Munich works in the field of IT employees well . The turnover rate for outgoing from the city administration employees located in the city-wide comparison is very low . Questions throw evidence on high internal exchange between the individual units of the IT and within the municipal administration
So, poor retention on the LiMux team, but folks aren't leaving the council, despite it's bad IT management, just the project. Bad sign. Really bad sign, IMHO.
In the end, my guess is that Munich's IT problems have _always_ been down to poor IT management, with possible under-resourcing, and not choice of OS or FOSS vs proprietary. The main lesson to learn from it may well be that FOSS is not a magic bullet, it just gives you a different set of problems, and it will not fix your IT management.
(Score: 2, Informative) by Bot on Tuesday May 10 2016, @03:30PM
The LiMux team is in charge of converting windows users to linux. How long do you expect them to last before they start entertaining thoughts of beheading their users?
All their day is listening to stuff like: "I used to double click here, and now I have to single click there! this sucks! can't I have windows back? What do you mean I could not keep it online? my daughter has an xp box online and it works perfectly! in fact it powers up by itself in the middle of the night and does some work! Morons!"
Account abandoned.
(Score: 2) by choose another one on Tuesday May 10 2016, @08:01PM
Yeah, but there would be the attraction of doing something ideologically sound, and surely it would be better than spending all day listening to "what is this ribbon thing, where have my menus gone, my desktop has disappeared and I don't know how to close this "photos" thing and my boss is coming" and so on from Office / Win8 users ???
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 10 2016, @09:44PM
We discussed this topic previously.
Only Able to Use Windows? You're Fired [soylentnews.org]
-- OriginalOwner_ [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 10 2016, @04:52PM
"The main lesson to learn from it may well be that FOSS is not a magic bullet, it just gives you a different set of problems, and it will not fix your IT management."
Kind of like saying buying a new car is not a magic bullet to fixing your house. How in the hell has IT management anything to do with the concept of FOSS? No software will fix you IT management, wether it's FOSS or not.
(Score: 2) by purple_cobra on Tuesday May 10 2016, @05:53PM
NB: I am an employee of the British public sector
If the German public sector is anything like as useless as the British public sector, the managers are either a) continually promoted/shuffled around after they've made a complete bollocks of something or b) have a relative working there who has wangled them a job where they can pretend they know what they're talking about and have a tiny amount of power but no real responsibility. There's also the concept of not having to know $SUBJECT to manage $SUBJECT; you can just pick that up on the job while you're ordering people around who do know what they're doing. God forbid you should just pick up being a manager on the job; from what I've seen at our place it seems to involve walking around (in pairs, much like bollocks) clutching a laptop or being "in meetings".
So yes, the IT manager will know bugger all about networks/computers/anything related, but will likely meet one or both of the criteria listed above.
(Score: 3, Informative) by Nuke on Tuesday May 10 2016, @06:22PM
Sounds like the private sector too.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 10 2016, @08:41PM
..clutching a laptop or being "in meetings".
Meeting(day1): To have a catch-up and plan out work schedules for rest of week (Duration: 3hrs)
Meeting(day2): catch-up (2hrs)
Meeting(day3): catch-up (2hrs)
Meeting(day4): catch-up, where managers complain that we're falling behind schedule (No shit, Sherlock...I wonder why..3hrs)
rinse, lather, repeat(sic, as it's 'manglement' we're talking about)
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 10 2016, @09:31PM
Back around the turn of the decade, several places made half-hearted efforts to move to FOSS. [googleusercontent.com] (orig) Page 8 of PDF [icfoss.in]
N.B. That's Birmingham, UK; Solothurn Canton, Switzerland is more like a state, county, or prefecture than a city.
Looking back, it appears those were just ploys to get a better price from Redmond. [google.com]
-- OriginalOwner_ [soylentnews.org]