A tale of two Linux migration reviews
31 December 2009 by hectorcuevas
Update: Citing new social media guidelines from his employer, Florian Schießl announced on June 18, 2010 the deletion of his personal/unofficial Limux blog. The official Limux site (German-only) is www.muenchen.de/limux. Florian’s new personal, Limux-free blog is www.schiefl.de/blog. Since this has killed the current links in this page, I will either provide an archive of sorts or (preferably) direct you to the corresponding page in Limux Watch.
I love how even the header is incomplete (shown as is on the official LiMux site)
LiMux Watch has an interesting review of Munich’s ongoing transition to Linux in 2009. The one that was approved in 2003, actually started on 2006 and, from the looks of it, will end in 2020.
More interesting is how former LiMux project manager and now PR representative of Munich IT, Florian Schiessl, still doesn’t get it: the project hasn’t delivered and it would be nice to know why. So far he acknowledged in his blog people ask that a lot, then forgot totally about it, all in the same day. Vendor lock-in doesn’t count because everyone knew that and it should have been (was it?) accounted for in the initial project proposal. Also because that when it comes to Free Software, “vendor lock-in” sometimes really means “We don’t have the functionality your proprietary software already has.”
While this is Florian’s personal view (not Munich’s), I find worrisome his joyous emphasis on the selection of Linux and free software as a political decision. He describes it at some length, and it gave me the chills: if Florian is right, then Munich’s migration to Linux is a pet project of a 2003 City Council who said they wanted one thing (openness) but chose another (Linux and OpenOffice) because their ideology told them it was the right choice.
Reading Florian’s 2009 review, the use of Firefox, Thunderbird and OpenOffice as standard in Munich comes out as the biggest achievement of the year and of the project so far. This might be good news for Free Software and even for the city of Munich, but it doesn’t mean anything for Linux: all three are available for Windows. And from what we know, Munich still runs them *on* Windows.
Why so late, why so incomplete? It looks like a bunch of Free Software, server-side people (Linux) thought of the desktop as a brain-dead server, and of Word, Excel and PowerPoint as childish toys for brain-dead people. “Sure, why, Linux can power your desktop! It powers Google, doesn’t it?”
The problem with the desktop is that it’s personal. If the network is the computer, as Sun used to say, then the desktop is the human. And humans have a low tolerance for inconvenience, especially when the thing they had before worked.
Windows had a hard time becoming a server platform from its desktop origins, and the first milestone was having a credible server version -i.e. Windows NT. Some people still remember it fondly, and the only reason Munich even thought about switching was because NT had reached its end-of-life from Microsoft. Coming in the opposite direction, Linux insists on bringing the best the 70′s has to offer in server operating systems to the desktop, even doing the same thing Microsoft did to DOS to make it like the Mac: putting a nice GUI on top of it.
Adopting Linux for the desktop is like marrying a gold-digger in California: everything will be just fine as long as you remember you work for her now and her needs are yours.
But the point I want to press is this: are we asking the right things from our computing infrastructure? In Munich’s case, was it really impossible to have open file formats with Office? Was it really impossible to run Free Software on Windows? Did the City Council aim to improve the city’s computing infrastructure or just wanted to create a success story for Free Software?
My previous post was about my wishes for 2010. Now I want to add: I wish people don’t confuse information policy and procedures with choosing software applications and platforms.
Update: After a mere 6 months of announcing it, Florian Schiessl finally posted an excuse for the long delays in Munich’s Linux migration project (LimuxWatch analysis is here). While to the uninitiated it sounds good (after all, he does speak of updating Munich’s information policy and procedures), it’s too little, too late: you can’t wait after project failure to say it’s not a failure because you weren’t actually doing what you proposed to be done. Changing an ill-conceived project is one thing, rewriting history is another. 5 years from now, Floschi will tell us the project still hasn’t failed -they simply noticed there were lots of computer-illiterate citizens: One Laptop Per Münchner, anyone?
Related: Europe seems to have forgotten LiMux, too, or they wouldn’t be proposing this.
© 2009 Héctor Cuevas. All rights reserved.
A tale of two Linux migration reviews
31 December 2009 by hectorcuevas Leave a Comment
Update: Citing new social media guidelines from his employer, Florian Schießl announced on June 18, 2010 the deletion of his personal/unofficial Limux blog. The official Limux site (German-only) is www.muenchen.de/limux. Florian’s new personal, Limux-free blog is www.schiefl.de/blog. Since this has killed the current links in this page, I will either provide an archive of sorts or (preferably) direct you to the corresponding page in Limux Watch.
I love how even the header is incomplete (shown as is on the official LiMux site)
LiMux Watch has an interesting review of Munich’s ongoing transition to Linux in 2009. The one that was approved in 2003, actually started on 2006 and, from the looks of it, will end in 2020.
More interesting is how former LiMux project manager and now PR representative of Munich IT, Florian Schiessl, still doesn’t get it: the project hasn’t delivered and it would be nice to know why. So far he acknowledged in his blog people ask that a lot, then forgot totally about it, all in the same day. Vendor lock-in doesn’t count because everyone knew that and it should have been (was it?) accounted for in the initial project proposal. Also because that when it comes to Free Software, “vendor lock-in” sometimes really means “We don’t have the functionality your proprietary software already has.”
While this is Florian’s personal view (not Munich’s), I find worrisome his joyous emphasis on the selection of Linux and free software as a political decision. He describes it at some length, and it gave me the chills: if Florian is right, then Munich’s migration to Linux is a pet project of a 2003 City Council who said they wanted one thing (openness) but chose another (Linux and OpenOffice) because their ideology told them it was the right choice.
Reading Florian’s 2009 review, the use of Firefox, Thunderbird and OpenOffice as standard in Munich comes out as the biggest achievement of the year and of the project so far. This might be good news for Free Software and even for the city of Munich, but it doesn’t mean anything for Linux: all three are available for Windows. And from what we know, Munich still runs them *on* Windows.
Why so late, why so incomplete? It looks like a bunch of Free Software, server-side people (Linux) thought of the desktop as a brain-dead server, and of Word, Excel and PowerPoint as childish toys for brain-dead people. “Sure, why, Linux can power your desktop! It powers Google, doesn’t it?”
The problem with the desktop is that it’s personal. If the network is the computer, as Sun used to say, then the desktop is the human. And humans have a low tolerance for inconvenience, especially when the thing they had before worked.
Windows had a hard time becoming a server platform from its desktop origins, and the first milestone was having a credible server version -i.e. Windows NT. Some people still remember it fondly, and the only reason Munich even thought about switching was because NT had reached its end-of-life from Microsoft. Coming in the opposite direction, Linux insists on bringing the best the 70′s has to offer in server operating systems to the desktop, even doing the same thing Microsoft did to DOS to make it like the Mac: putting a nice GUI on top of it.
Adopting Linux for the desktop is like marrying a gold-digger in California: everything will be just fine as long as you remember you work for her now and her needs are yours.
But the point I want to press is this: are we asking the right things from our computing infrastructure? In Munich’s case, was it really impossible to have open file formats with Office? Was it really impossible to run Free Software on Windows? Did the City Council aim to improve the city’s computing infrastructure or just wanted to create a success story for Free Software?
My previous post was about my wishes for 2010. Now I want to add: I wish people don’t confuse information policy and procedures with choosing software applications and platforms.
Update: After a mere 6 months of announcing it, Florian Schiessl finally posted an excuse for the long delays in Munich’s Linux migration project (LimuxWatch analysis is here). While to the uninitiated it sounds good (after all, he does speak of updating Munich’s information policy and procedures), it’s too little, too late: you can’t wait after project failure to say it’s not a failure because you weren’t actually doing what you proposed to be done. Changing an ill-conceived project is one thing, rewriting history is another. 5 years from now, Floschi will tell us the project still hasn’t failed -they simply noticed there were lots of computer-illiterate citizens: One Laptop Per Münchner, anyone?
Related: Europe seems to have forgotten LiMux, too, or they wouldn’t be proposing this.
Filed under Commentary, Free and Open Source Software Tagged with LiMux, Linux, migration, Munich, Office, Windows