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-- OriginalOwner_ [tinyurl.com] writes:

from the spending-a-huge-amount-of-money-for-zero-benefit dept.

In the coming days, you will be seeing headlines like "Munich Drops Linux for Windows 10". Those are premature.

The city fathers' decision, over a decade ago, to switch to Linux (actually, a customized distro called LiMux) was made by a city government whose plurality was of the Social Democratic Party (SPD) with support from the Green Party and was based on independence, moving from a foreign corporation's operating system to an Open Source ecosystem with local support.

Munich's decision convinced MSFT to move their German office to Munich. Despite that, use of M$ Windoze in low in the city. (In the run-up to the April 2014 XP EoL, Munich's city fathers made Ubuntu DVDs available gratis to the citizens so that folks wouldn't have to buy new hardware.)

In a prior story, we noted that by 2013 the Munich city government's IT was 94 percent FOSS; they had saved over €10M; and the politicians considered the transition a success. That same story noted that a new bunch of politicians (oddly enough, SPD folks) wanted to do a study on what software would serve the city best . Do note that this is despite the previous regime's declaration of success with a mostly-FOSS ecosystem.

It appears to me that the politicians had an answer in mind and wanted to work backwards to get that. They hired MSFT "partner" Accenture to do a study. That report recently came back. What is says is--surprisingly--that all software should work with ANY operating system. They recommended web-based solutions.

This is where it gets weird.

In its statement, The Document Foundation says [documentfoundation.org][1]

In spite of the suggestions, on Wednesday, February 15, Munich City Council will discuss a proposal--filed by a minority of city councillors--to install Windows 10 and MS Office 2016 on all workstations by 2020. This would cost taxpayers close to 90 million euro over the next six years, with a 35% aggravation over the 66 million euro figure suggested by Accenture.

In addition, according to estimates provided by Green Party councillors, another 15 million euros should be spent to replace or upgrade PCs which are perfect for a small-footprint operating system such as Linux, but cannot support even a Windows 10 basic configuration.

Last, but not least, most expenditures related to the purchase of Microsoft licenses will contribute to the GDP of Ireland (where all Microsoft products sold in Europe are sourced from) rather than to local enterprises who support the open source solutions deployed today. This is a rather striking difference in the allocation of taxpayers money, which should be carefully considered.

[1] Don't you just hate shitheads who specify a page width in their HTML--then do that IN PIXELS? Yeah, I know: Use Style; No Style clears that away.

Blogger and FOSS advocate Robert Pogson adds [mrpogson.com]

In the details from [The Document Foundation], we find Munich's fearless leaders have offered voluminous evidence which doesn't support their conclusion. They've offered a recipe to spend a huge amount of money for zero benefit.

Beware politicians promising solutions to nonexistent problems. Read TDF's post. Read the report from Accenture, M$'s "partner". Even Accenture doesn't believe the politicians' solution.

In the comments there, the wise oiaohm also notes

MS Office 2013 removed a stack of old document import filters. Governments have to access documents back to 60 to 70 years old at times. So they will need to open documents at times from MS Works and other stupidity. So MS Office with Libreoffice would have been some form of sanity.

Via TechRepublic, Nick Heath adds [techrepublic.com]

Past estimates have put the price of Munich returning to Windows at more than €17M.

This 2014 figure, produced by mayor of Munich Dieter Reiter, estimated it would cost €3.15M to buy new PC hardware needed to run Windows and that €14M of work to support LiMux and open-source software would have to be written off. These costs were for a return to Windows 7, and are likely to have increased further due to more work having taken place to support LiMux.

The figure also did not include software licensing and new infrastructure costs associated with Windows.

[...]The Document Foundation, the organization that manages LibreOffice, said moving to Windows 10 and MS Office 2016 could cost the city close to €90M over the next six years, [also stressing] that money would no longer be spent in the local economy.

It described a move away from open-source software as "a significant step backwards for the City of Munich, with a substantial increase in expenditure, an unknown amount of hidden cost related to interoperability, and a questionable usage of taxpayers money".

The consultants' report said the move to roll out Windows would be part of a larger €18.9M "architecture and client" project.

This very much reminds me of how, in order to bring the females into estrus to propagate his own genes [quora.com], the new leader of a pride of lions will kill all the still-nursing cubs [youtube.com] of the old king he defeated.

Previous: No, Munich Isn't About To Ditch Free Software and Move Back to Windows [soylentnews.org]

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