Munich, realizes that deploying Linux was a disaster, going back to Windows

[javajolt]

Back in 2004, Munich, Germany decided that they were going to switch to Linux (specifically, LiMux) as their primary operating system and drop Microsoft's Windows operating system. At the time, the decision was said to be cheaper, more reliable and politically correct for the city and this would be the on the same scale as the Berlin Wall falling for politics but for IT.

But ten years later, and we must say that running for ten years is quite the achievement, the city is realizing that the move has not materialized in the way that they had envisioned a decade ago. A city official said that no matter what organization he talked to within the city, they all explained that their productivity was suffering because of the Linux system that they were using.

By 2011, Germany was supposedly running LiMux on more than 9000 machines.

Issues arose when the Linux OS users tried to work with those outside the city and they were unable to share files easily with those on other applications. More so, the idea is generally that Linux setups are cheaper than a Microsoft solution as you do not have to pay licensing fees but what Munich experienced is that Linux was much more expensive. Why is it more expensive? That's because the city had to hire programmers to build out functionality that they needed and then had to pay the staff to maintain the software.

The city is now in the process of jumping back to a Microsoft solution and is now converting those 9000+ machines back to Windows.

source: neowin│via:Sueddeutsche.de | German flag via Shutterstock

[javajolt]

It Seems Munich Is Not Giving Up On Linux, After All

False alarm, people. It appears that the city of Munich, the pioneer of the transition from Windows to open source, is not actually giving up on Linux. At least not yet.

News that came out earlier this week suggested otherwise.

Instead, after 10 years of using the open source operating system, the city council is only conducting a review of how the adoption of Linux has fared this past decade. And although a return to Windows is not ruled out, the same goes for moving the remaining departments to Linux.

Stefan Hauf, a council spokesperson explains that the newly elected mayor, Dieter Reiter, asked for a review in order to make the final decision on whether to move the other departments to the open source platform.

The transition to Linux has gone well up until now, but they have to figure out whether to maintain the same direction going forward, or go back to Windows:

“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. Not only for Limux but for all of IT. It’s about the organization, the costs, performance and the usability and satisfaction of the users.”

Fair enough, fair enough.

Limux is, of course, the distribution of Linux that they are using. Or LiMux, rather, as it is called. He does leave some room for interpretation, saying that nothing is decided yet.

Everything depends on the report, then.