Comment by MaupitiBlue
6 years ago
“failure to provide adequate resources”
So you’re confirming Microsoft’s point that Linux on the desktop provides no cost advantage? Combine that with OpenOffice’s Word 6 level UI, and it’s understandable why they went back.
He’s confirming using free software is not free. People trained to use Microsoft’s ribbon can’t use OpenOffice, just like many people trained to use older Office versions can’t use the ribbon.
I’m always surprised by the need for training to click on the “bold” or “save” button. Yet Facebook has 2.41 billion monthly users. One cause would be that people are afraid of the career implication of clicking « save » on a document that shouldn’t be saved (the « mismanagement trauma » is how I would call that).
I know Atlassian changed it colors[1] for “cringy blue” because it made people less afraid of clicking than “serious blue”. But generally the same persons who succeed to become fashionistas on Instagram and plug it with their Google Analytics somehow and make hundreds with it, are sometimes the same who would need a training to use the Microsoft ribbon, come Monday morning.
[1] Heavy use of B400 for flat elements like the bar, to sashimi salmon for lozenges: https://atlassian.design/server/foundations/colors/
That's not what they say though. We'd need to know 2 things:
- what was the difference between LiMux and the Microsoft direction
- how much more would be needed to fix LiMux problems
> - what was the difference between LiMux and the Microsoft direction
Unfortunately I left Limux years before that shit happened so I cannot answer that question directly - I'll try with general politics instead. It was a political decision IMO - politicians were fed up with Limux shortcomings (which was caused mainly by their inability to provide users with decent hardware), that got combined with the decision of MS to move its Europe headquarters and thus a lot of prestige and tax money to Munich. Basically a "quid pro quo" deal, the politicians knew what was expected (getting rid of the flagship Linux government project) for this. Old government head and Limux fan Christian Ude went out to retirement, his successor Reiter... well, my opinion about that dude is beyond what is acceptable under HN guidelines. I'm happy he's at least done what he could against our local neo-nazis, but everything else... thanks but no thanks.
> - how much more would be needed to fix LiMux problems
A shitload of money. Limux was 15k desktops (for ~30k employees) IIRC, which means replacing all of them at ~1k € (new PC, monitor, mouse and keyboard - believe me, everything needed upgrades) or 15 million € alone for the hardware, plus upgrading alll the government building networks (probably 500 buildings, of which alone 300 are schools) and uplinks which will rack into three-digit million sums... and for staff, instead of the ~8 people working on Limux proper maybe 30-50 developers alone, which means another 1.5M a year at least in staffing costs.
So now they spend that anyway, to be able to run MS kit, plus sending that much again to Microsoft.
Clearly not an economic argument. Politically, there is always lots more money available for a big change than to make the current system work.
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