“The German government has signed a deal with IBM and Linux company SuSE that makes it easier for government offices to use the open-source operating system, a move that addresses concerns about relying too heavily on Microsoft products.” Read the report at News.com.
Linux Contract Treads on Microsoft Turf
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Eugenia Loli
Ex-programmer, ex-editor in chief at OSNews.com, now a visual artist/filmmaker.
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Good! Preloads make a big difference. Break Microsoft’s hegemony on preloads and everybody will benefit.
One thing to note is that Germans must serve in the military or other public service — it’s mandatory. So there’s the possibility of being able to influence German youth if the right branches of government go for this. Just a thought.
first peru and now germany are realising that variety, and more importantly open standards, are the best way in which public money can be spent.
microsoft seems to think this is a personal insult, they dont seem to realise that this isnt about reducing windows’ market share. it is about increasing security, reducing costs and allowing better public access by removing proprietary and closed communications formats…
Alhtough i don’t like linux, i think it’s a very good news. It’s time to move to open standards, so everyone can communicate not only m$ slaves. And it’s much cheaper that way. I hope my government will make the same decision soon…
I have been in Rajlovac (north of Sarajevo) in the army and that was under the NATO flag, with french and german soldiers. I have been in contact with several german soldiers, and they were all using Windows 2000 at that time, while we were using Windows 98 mostly and my own computer was running Red Hat Linux at that time (I run OpenBSD and RH Linux now).
Never saw a SuSE running anywhere there :p
The main problem in the army was the personnel. Most bureau dudes are old soldiers, too old to play on the field and they work in desks. Their computer level is very low and I had to spend a lot of time helping people use Word or prepare presentations.
In the transmissions field and “chiffre” field where I worked, it sucked. Very few people really respect rules of security and hardware/software used (I cannot tell about it, sorry) sucks deeply and was moving away from TEMPEST compliant hardware when I left the army at that time. It’s not just a money problem, but mostly a knowledge and skill problem. And a big one.
“Ne désespérez pas des imbéciles. Avec un peu d’entraînement, on pourra en faire des militaires”
“microsoft seems to think this is a personal insult, they dont seem to realise that this isnt about reducing windows’ market share. it is about increasing security, reducing costs and allowing better public access by removing proprietary and closed communications formats…”
I’m sure there was another thing that played a big role in this decision. And that is that the German government would rather keep their money in Germany by supporting a German software vendor.
And what do you say about poorer coutries? Russia, China, India, South Africa, etc ..? The microsoft tax is too heavy, and the only reason people in these countries can use Windows is because, they can pirate it. I cannot see how Ugandan schools can pay for all copies of windows they will need.
I was thinking the other day about how MSes greed made them blow it.
Just like Apple in the 80’s if MS had played nice Linux never would have happened.
Apple in the 80’s refused to reduce the price of macs, had they keep their prices tha same as the pc
Apple would have dominated.
MS makes all of its money off of Office, all MS had to do was opensource IE, and release the source to NT under some kind of license where we all get the source code but only MS can produce installable copies that only cost about 25$.
Think of how good NT would be now if it was being hacked on like Linux and BSD,yet under some central control.
NT would be ported to everything.
The whole trial would have never happened and MS would not be hated.
They would still be filthy rich from selling Office.
I’m sure there was another thing that played a big role in this decision. And that is that the German government would rather keep their money in Germany by supporting a German software vendor.
yeah, there is that little extra incentive
Think of how good NT would be now if it was being hacked on like Linux and BSD,yet under some central control.
whoah… just remember that if Linus doesnt scale to a couple of million lines of code then bill certainly cant scale to ~25 million lines!
besides, if MS had open-sourced IE then the trial would probably still have happened. whats worse: giving away a browser to undercut the opposition or giving away the entire source code? at least netscape has some niche markets on unixen to keep it alive…
Maybe, but I was thinking more along the lines of “if MS had played nice” they would not have all of these problems.
Giving IE away as OSS would not undercut any of the competition because netscape could have seen and made use of IE code. After 2 years every browser would be some combination of Mozilla/IE code.
No one could dominate the web if both IE and Mozilla were OSS and free for all to extend and use.
I guess I am just not cutthroat enough to run a business. I would like to see cooperation rather than everybody re-inventing the wheel with competiton.
computers themselves are more expensive than the OS software to run them, but i do agree with the philosophy of using less expensive OS software.
if it will allow the students to get some training to improve their lives and their country, power to them….
[i]first peru and now germany are realising that variety, and more importantly open standards, are the best way in which public money can be spent.[i]
Taiwan also.
http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=02/06/04/0259234&mode=thread&tid…
Momentum is building…
This relates very narrowly so some Server stuff, nada preloded-tinggy whatsoever… I am German and monitor the discussion surrounding this closely.
I don’t follow you, Anonymous. Say again?
Also, after I posted I began to wonder. It has been quite a while since I saw the (then West) German military people who I knew. Does Germany still require military (or other) service? I think so, but would like to hear from an authoritative source.
Most computers in Africa are donated, not purchased!
Paying for OS is ridiculous if you cannot afford the M$ tax.