Swiss boot out Linux in favour of Windows 7
U-turn in the Alps
By John E Dunn | Techworld | Published: 13:49, 20 September 2010
The government in the Swiss region of Solothurn has reportedly confirmed that it will turn to Windows 7 after hitting problems in a long-running desktop Linux migration project.
According to third-party Internet sources, the plan, whose origins go back as far as 2001, had been for the canton to have deployed Debian GNU/Linux distribution for desktop users, backed up by OpenOffice, the Scalix email system, Firefox and a number of KDE desktop applications.
This headline part of this has now been abandoned, says a German language site, and Windows 7 will become the standard desktop operating system for the canton’s government users, backed by Outlook for email.
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A small but significant defeat for Linux or an example of poor management that can hit any IT project?
The reported evidence points firmly to the latter, not least because an unspecified number of the open source and free software applications will still be retained.
Microsoft's involvement in the change of heart is unknown.
The site reporting the news refers to resistance from a small percentage of the canton’s employees to the move and a campaign in the local Swiss press mocking the migration’s alleged failings, complete with untranslatable jokes about penguins.
There were also problems replacing some established applications with open source equivalents, unfortunate delays in timelines, culminating last summer with the resignation of IT chief and project manager, Kurt Bader.
Switzerland’s public sector is otherwise considered as a heartland of Linux use. Perhaps that is what will hurt the free and open source community the most in the latest news.
Comments
Jorgio said: This is a naive approach trying to replace all applications A much better approach is to start small and replace applications where it actually makes sense Linux amp Windows can work nicely together using Citrix and similar solutions So you can still use your Windows specific apps in Linux
scorp123 said: Im all pro-Linux but what Solothurn did and is still doing is a total mess People without any clues about IT make silly and naive IT-related decisions they use their own users as guinea pigs A migration done right definitely looks different You should have brains and skills if you do something like that and the decision makers here and their staff have neither It would be best if they migrated back to paper and pencil and stopped wasting tax money for their idiotic IT adventures
scorp123 said: Solothurns problems would have been simple to avoid if only they had been less stubborn about certain incomprehensible choices they have made eg why in the world Debian stable with its utterly outdated packages Why Scalix at a time when it was nowhere near being ready Why not take one step at a time eg migrate to OpenOffice first and to Linux later The decision makers just proved again and again that they are utterly clueless and very naive about IT The result is thus no surprise