← Back to context

Comment by mike_hearn

6 days ago

They give up and switch to Windows (again).

The highest profile was in Munich where they did migrate >10,000 desktops to Linux and OpenOffice, but eventually they migrated back to Windows and Office:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LiMux

Lower Saxony:

https://www.zdnet.com/article/windows-scores-a-win-over-linu...

Vienna:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wienux

Note that even when these projects succeed, the software users are running is invariably just Firefox, and often users have both a Windows and Linux PC side by side. There are no actual Linux apps being developed or maintained, in the sense of apps that use Linux APIs.

4 comments

mike_hearn

Reply
dkga  6 days ago

Speaking completely off the cuff here, but I suspect that as government applications move to be web-based, perhaps there could be another wave of Linux adoption since all it would take essentially is a functioning browser.

  • mike_hearn  5 days ago

    Windows just isn't that expensive. If you're paying MS for Office 365 anyway then there's no real point in replacing the set of drivers used by the browser.

  • muth02446  5 days ago

    I am puzzled that they not already have moved to the web. Also speaking off the cuff: what are the main reasons for using word documents in government? If it is mostly communication with other parts of the government or the public, shouldn't this be email which requires very little functionality compared to word.

    I can see niche cases, like laws where you want change tracking or very long reports but that does not seem to apply to most government employees. Somehow I feel I missing something big, maybe there is a lot of automation built around word documents?