
Munich confirms switch to Windows 10 - Sytten
https://www.techrepublic.com/article/end-of-an-open-source-era-linux-pioneer-munich-confirms-switch-to-windows-10/
======
dizzystar
I'm all for FLOSS solutions and love Linux and many of the things that are
freely available to us. I wouldn't trade Linux for Windows for any sort of
development work.

However, I'll be the first to admit that MS Office simply blows Libre Office
out of the water. I'm very good with Excel and Calc, but I'm many times slower
with Calc. The hotkeys, variety of equations, and simple features simply
aren't available in Calc. I know that if I'm say 3x slower, the cost
associated with that across a year and across a team is going to outweigh the
MS subscription.

There is nothing wrong with ceding the crown to the better product.

~~~
rwmj
I've used MS Office, Libreoffice and Google Apps and find them all equally
appalling. Terrible, clumsy, complicated, inaccurate UI, unusable version
control, ugly output. (Compared to git + emacs +
TeX/docbook/perldoc/HTML/plain text).

~~~
Philipp__
Oh, I always come to HN and hold my breathe not to see comments like this...

Do you think that someone who has never touched computer except for Facebook,
MS Office and emailing should know Lisp and UNIX environment?

------
rob74
Just a small information that's missing from the discussion: I'm sure this
decision doesn't have anything to do with Microsoft (a major taxpayer) moving
its German offices from the suburbs (Unterschleißheim) to Munich proper in
2016 ([https://mspoweruser.com/microsoft-germany-moves-into-a-
new-h...](https://mspoweruser.com/microsoft-germany-moves-into-a-new-
headquarters/))...

~~~
frik
Munich should have switched to ChromeOS/ChromiumOS or Android or RedHat/CentOS
or Ubuntu on thin clients, as the software is anyway usually web based in the
cloud/intranet. But neither Google nor RedHat or Ubuntu are known to lobby.

@sz4kerto:

> ChromeOS proprietary

Why you pick this one of a list of many? ChromiumOS is open source, as is
Android, as is RedHat or Ubuntu. But Windows is proprietary.

> Google spends a lot on lobbying, by the way, afaik more than what Microsoft
> is spending.

Really? Source please. The question is how much do they all spend lobbying for
an OS? How much do they spend lobbying in Munich? (hint German HQ got
relocated to Munich) You read like a employee.

~~~
dEnigma
Why do you reply by editing your original comment, instead of using the
"reply"-function?

~~~
frik
Here is why - even if I risk more downvotes or getting flagged down:

If someone flags your comment on HN, you can only post about 4 comments per
day and news submit feature is "practically" disabled - HN displays a "slow
down, don't submit so fast" Error message which of course makes little sense.
Also your comments will start with a lower/negative value behind the scene,
you will find your posts on the bottom even if it says 1 votes, and other
comments with negative value may be above yours.

There is a lot of monitoring by companies contracted obviously by $$ going on,
to shape PR and public opinion. Be it employees, fanboys, or paid PR drones,
it doesn't matter, they are quite toxic to the community at large I would say.
I would wish more moderation in regard, and the removal of the downvote- and
flag-functionality for everyone (but moderators).

~~~
dEnigma
Okay, I understand. I agree that the Hacker News comment system isn't optimal.
Downvotes shouldn't hide a comment. Unpopular opinions shouldn't be
suppressed. I'm not sure how the flag-functionality works, but if it can hide
a comment without moderator input, then I'm all for replacing it with a
"report"-function. Too many times one sees throwaway accounts being used for
expressing possibly unpopular thoughts. I can only imagine how many comments
weren't written, because somebody was afraid of downvotes and losing the good
standing of his account. Personally I too have started writing a couple
comments and not posted them in the end, because I was afraid of downvotes and
the associated consequences. Having to think like that doesn't exactly help to
make HN a diverse and interesting place.

------
confounded
For those who want a longer read, the LWN article earlier this month was
fantastic

[https://lwn.net/Articles/737818/](https://lwn.net/Articles/737818/)

------
Sir_Cmpwn
Even the giants can die. And as they do, their willingness to help you export
your data from their proprietary formats and products will decrease at a rate
faster than the neccessity of doing so. Properitary software is a short
sighted choice, and probably one made by people with greased pockets.

It's difficult to get funding to work on open source software. Governments are
a natural source, but time and time again bribery fucks everything up.

~~~
beefhash
Would it be wrong to say that Microsoft is "too big to fail", similar to some
banks? I'd expect governments to actually try and save Microsoft precisely
because of this situation.

~~~
AnthonyMouse
> Would it be wrong to say that Microsoft is "too big to fail", similar to
> some banks? I'd expect governments to actually try and save Microsoft
> precisely because of this situation.

It doesn't really work like that. If Microsoft fails, it will be slow. You
don't go from 90% installed base to 0% installed base overnight. There is no
point at which they still have enough customers to be too big to fail but
don't have enough to continue operating.

But as businesses transition to something else, they have to pay the
transition cost. Which is a lot higher when changing market conditions force
you to transition unexpectedly than when you have the foresight to plan and
get ahead of the curve.

------
geff82
They switch back to Windows in a time of total vendor lock-in in the office
software space. In the time when they started their Linux project, one really
could switch from Office 2003 to Staroffice/Openoffice. But now, in the days
of cloud and absolute technical domination of Office 365, this is a bit sad to
see.

~~~
midnitewarrior
Office 365 is affordable, well-supported, easy to use, and updated frequently.
It does what businesses and governments want. Their formats are well-
supported. The software is also very stable and very mature. Other than
ideology, there are few reasons not to use Office 365.

~~~
adrianN
One reason not to use it is because it makes German government dependent on a
foreign company. Another reason not to use it is because it's a cloud product
and shouldn't be used to store private data about German citizens. Another
reason not to use it is because the FOSS alternatives are free.

~~~
godzillabrennus
There is still real cost to using FOSS software.

Training employees.

Maintaining the environment by addressing bugs.

Securing the environment.

Plus compatibility with proprietary formats isn’t 100%.

I’d still choose FOSS for many kinds of environments but it’s not free.

~~~
justinjlynn
All of those enumerated costs apply equally to proprietary software as well.

~~~
notatoad
they apply to proprietary software. they most certainly do not apply
_equally_. it's a lot easier (and therefore cheaper) to find staff to support
windows than it is to find staff to support linux.

~~~
justinjlynn
I would certainly be interested in some concrete numbers.

------
BrandoElFollito
Background : I am IT for 25 years, run Linux on all servers (pro and home),
develop open source.

I tried to use Linux desktop at least 5 times over the last years (again a few
days ago on the home shared laptop).

It is ok-ish when I use the browser and IDEs (vcs, pycharm) but anything else
is horrendous. I looked for an equivalent of ShareX, I felt like I was 25
again.

Linux desktop is on for the 86% if the train which only uses a browser
("Internet") but I doubt anything more specialized is reasonable. Not that
Linux desktop is bad (though it is not good either), it's because there are no
ports of that specialized software.

If someone is fully (apps, I mean) html5 then why not.

~~~
xyproto
Gaming is also covered, with 2500+ commercial games available on Steam only.

The KDE applications Kdevelop, Kdenlive and Krita has improved a lot the
latest 1-2 years, providing a pretty great IDE, video editing and also
painting application.

3D animation, modeling and texturing isn't too shabby either, with Maya,
Houdini, Blender and 3D-Coat.

For ShareX, there are many alternatives for grabbing screenshots. A direct
clone is ShareNix (video:
[http://www.hnng.moe/f/3CI](http://www.hnng.moe/f/3CI))

If ShareX is what's stopping you, I think that you're mainly stuck with a
Windows desktop habit.

~~~
mamon
Regarding gaming: it doesn't matter how many games are there, what matters is
WHICH GAMES.

Playing games is a social activity after all, especially for teenagers. If all
of your Windows-using friends are playing Assassin's Creed: Origins, and you
can't because there isn't a Linux version of it then those 2500+ games on
Steam do not really matter to you.

~~~
eitland
CS:GO is there and IMO it has often been more performant there than on Windows
:-)

While CS:GO might not be your thing it should be proof that the sitiation is
improving.

~~~
alkonaut
I’d consider a switch for gaming if Linux had more games than windows, and the
graphics drivers were more performant on Linux.

90% of the game library or 95% of game performance Will _not_ do it.

Until then, having a windows license even if only for gaming is a no brainer.

------
userbinator
I wonder about the telemetry... or have they decided that the available
methods of disabling it are sufficient? I remember hearing that a lot of
Germans were wary of Win10 specifically because of that.

~~~
ocdtrekkie
If you have Windows 10 Enterprise edition, all telemetry can be disabled. Most
people don't talk about that much because at $500 a seat... well, most people
don't buy Enterprise edition. (Of course, organizations of certain sizes,
government institutions, etc. may have better pricing options available to
them as well.)

Also, bear in mind, if you're an organization with a proper modern firewall
solution, you can detect and block unwanted network traffic at the edges of
your network as well.

~~~
lucb1e
> If you have Windows 10 Enterprise edition, all telemetry can be disabled.

I remember reading that this common belief is wrong, but unfortunately I don't
remember where/who claimed that. Did it recently change, perhaps?

~~~
userbinator
That might be this: [https://xato.net/windows-spying-and-a-twitter-
rant-19203babb...](https://xato.net/windows-spying-and-a-twitter-
rant-19203babb2e7)

It's so confusing to disable that a (admittedly self-proclaimed, but still)
"security expert" got it wrong several times, and even after that it still
continued sending data to Microsoft. It reminds me of the same scummy tricks
used by spyware/adware in the past e.g. "do not disable for the best user
experience", double-negative wording, etc.

I believe it's still (deliberately) really easy to pirate/crack Windows, so I
could get the Enterprise edition if I wanted --- but I wouldn't want it even
if it was legally free, just like all sorts of other malware and unwanted
software.

~~~
ocdtrekkie
No doubt that it's easy to mess up Group Policies. He's not wrong in that you
have to very clearly read each one's description because different policies
expect you to do different things sometimes to do the same things. That's
definitely not new to Windows 10, and arguably just bad design on Microsoft's
part; there appears to be no standardized design pattern to how GPOs should
function across the whole Windows team.

But it is still entirely possible to disable all telemetry with it.

~~~
m8urn
Even with Enterprise edition it is very difficult to disable all telemetry.
The lowest official setting for telemetry is "security" which still sends data
to Microsoft (see [https://docs.microsoft.com/en-
us/windows/configuration/confi...](https://docs.microsoft.com/en-
us/windows/configuration/configure-windows-telemetry-in-your-
organization?f=255&MSPPError=-2147217396)).

There are, however, a number of hacks that can trim that down even further.
But being hacks they aren't guaranteed to always work--things frequently
change.

Since writing the article mentioned a couple comments up I have tried
completely ripping out all telemetry components from the install CD, which
seems to be the most effective option. Tools such as Blackbird
([http://www.getblackbird.net/](http://www.getblackbird.net/)) also are quite
effective. Nonetheless, monitoring traffic still shows connections to
Microsoft-controlled servers. There are so many ways Microsoft (and therefore
possible governments) can gather--or at least infer--information about your
system.

To completely protect yourself would require manually monitoring, selecting,
and installing updates, manually updating certificate revocation lists,
constantly watching for new settings (including firewall and hosts entries)
that must be addressed, etc.

So no, it is not possible to completely disable all forms of Windows 10
telemetry without also committing to an unreasonable amount of work.

------
zvrba
Also: what is the Linux equivalent of Active Directory / Windows domain? How
do you centrally manage workstations? (push software updates, configure
firewall rules and other access policies, etc.)

~~~
lucb1e
> what is the Linux equivalent of Active Directory / Windows domain?

LDAP

> How do you centrally manage workstations?

SSH

This is how my school does it: there is a system user with an ssh key which
they use for pushing updates and such (e.g. recently fail2ban was installed on
all computers), and we can all log into any system using LDAP.

~~~
dogma1138
Active directory isn’t equivalent to a basic LDAP directory not even close.

To have similar functionality you need a commercial directory solution.

Same goes for remote management SSH is how you connect to machines remotely
not how you manage them.

Automation of Linux desktop again requires either a commercial product or a
huge development undertaking.

The problem with Linux on the desktop is that if you get out of the Microsoft
ecosystem you need products to centrally manage users, workstations,
configuration and patch management and all of these usually require you to go
for other enterprise solutions even if they are OpenSource in their core but
still commercial in practice.

------
webreac
Hello. I am a linux lover. I have choosen ubuntu gnome because IMHO, it is the
closer to desktop linux and I do not want to spend my life tuning my system.
Recently there was some automatic updates and now the chrome scrollbar jumps
crazy. I am pretty sure this will be fixed in a couple of days (weeks), but
all these little glitches are becoming tiring. Since release 16.04, I have
stopped advising people to migrate to linux. I see discutions about removing
the features that count for me (network transparency, remote display, GPL
license, ...). As a tax payer, I really want my administration to stop giving
money to compagnies that work against my freedom. I feel very sad about it but
Munich is probably reverting to Microsoft for sensible reasons and not for
politic.

~~~
bo1024
I feel that you are portraying Ubuntu as representing all of Linux, and maybe
it does to you, but this is far from the truth.

~~~
webreac
At work, I have just migrated to RHEL 7. With RHEL 7.3, there was a problem
with gedit (impossible to resize). This ought to be solved in 7.4. In 7.4 most
of the applications crash because GTK does not check correctly the values
returned by the RandR extension (which is broken in my version of exceed). The
current workarounds are either to use xming or deactivate extension RandR
(unrealistic in our case because many people use laptop). The package bash-
completion is installed by default. It causes so many issues that we decided
to mandate its removal in all installations.

------
sctb
Recent related articles:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15765990](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15765990)

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15780556](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15780556)

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15661372](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15661372)

------
mjw1007
Does anyone know if the amount they'll be paying in Microsoft licensing is (or
will be) public?

It would be interesting to see if they're getting an unusually good deal.
Though I suppose there might be ways to hide that if they wanted to.

------
ringe
Imagine if Munich had put the same amount into improving the upstream software
instead.

Politicians never fail to disappoint, feels like.

That said, I often can't replace Windows due to legacy applications.

Regarding MS Office, some people buy iPhone. These people also seem to need
their Microsoft Office.

~~~
jodrellblank
Microsoft Office apps are available for iPhone -
[https://itunes.apple.com/gb/developer/microsoft-
corporation/...](https://itunes.apple.com/gb/developer/microsoft-
corporation/id298856275)

