Munich Linux Watch

Another One Bites the Dust

2010-09-18T10:22:00.000-05:00

Swiss canton of Soluturn abandons attempted Linux migration after nine years of failure.

Remember that Vienna, Austria also failed to migrate to Linux.

City of Munich Approves Extension of LiMux Project to 2013

2010-06-30T18:30:00.001-05:00

The Munich city council has approved the extension of the LiMux project, and associated funding, until 2013.

(Google translation):The IT project for LiMux is extended until 2013 and the project budget to the estimated additional expenditure of € 5.9 million increases. The extra work falls between 2012 and 2013 in and does not pose a burden on the city's budget

The press release also notes that 3,000 workstations have been converted from Windows to Linux operating system, and that another 2,000 are scheduled for conversion during 2010. In addition, the city acknowledges that they have increased their total count of workstations from 14,000 to 15,000. Later, I will update milestones page with this information.

What is not precisely clear in the google translation is whether the extension of the project through 2013 represents another delay or not. The last stated goal was to convert 80% of the city's workstations no later than mid-2012. The city is still using 80% as a goal, now targeting 12k out of 15k total workstations, rather than 11.2k out of 14k workstations. But just because they have approved funding for the project through 2013 may not necessarily mean they have changed their target date for 80% conversion. So for now, this will not be listed as another case of "moving the goal posts".

Hat tip: Floschi

Happy 7th Birthday, Limux!

2010-05-27T18:38:00.003-05:00

It's that time again! Light another candle on the penguin cake!

On May 28, 2003, the City of Munich voted to convert all of their computer workstations to Linux. Happy Birthday to the Limux project, and congratulations on accomplishing almost one-fifth of the task in only seven short years!

Mission Creep at Munich: Freeing 2.8% of the Slaves per Year

2010-03-19T10:07:00.000-05:00

Floschi has posted on his blog a lengthy explanation/excuse, titled "Quality over Time in Munich", which attempts to explain why it has been taking so long to convert their workstations from Windows to Linux. Be sure to read the whole thing, as it is difficult to excerpt and retain the meaning.

Mission Creep. One reason for the delay is that the original idea of converting all of their desktops and laptops to Linux has morphed over the last 7 years of this process into a complete reorganization of the IT departments at the City of Munich. Partly this was due to technical factors-- it's really hard to convert to Linux without changing EVERYTHING. And partly this was due to the fact that Munich's IT department was just unwieldy and decentralized to begin with:

Nowadays we’re doing much more than planned in 2003, to gain an efficient and sustainable IT structure, based on open standards and free software. That’s a long-term strategic objective, not just related to free software...
Munich’s IT as faced by LiMux in 2003 consisted of 21 independent IT units, every single one responsible for its IT operation. Different grown – and locally quite optimized – processes, tools and specific trained staff. 51 IT operating locations (small and big datacenters), about 1.000 IT staff for 33.000 employees...No common directory, no common user, system or hardware management. Different tools for software distribution and system management. More than 300 apps, many of them redundant, e.g. using Dreamweaver, Frontpage, Fusion etc. for HTML-editing. 21 different Windows clients, different patch levels, different security concepts. This was Munich’s IT situation when LiMux started.

This is all very interesting, but none of this should have been news to Munich. The city budgeted 35 million Euros for the project, and worked with big-name consultants, including IBM and Novell/Suse before and after the migration to Linux was approved. So to say, now, that the complexity of the migration environment was unexpected is disingenuous.

Moving the Goalposts. Here's a fun quote:

We successfully finished the pilot rollouts. In total 3,000 linux clients throughout the city; an enourmous number of linux clients. Remember, the goal was to establish pilot projects of 10% (1,500) of our desktops. We run 3,000, twice as much. First step done.

Hey, that sounds pretty good! Set a goal of 10% and reach 20%! Sweet! Unless your memory is longer than one year. Munich has declared the pilot phase successful a couple times before. First, they declared the pilot phase a success in 2004, then extended that "successful" pilot phase in 2005 and once again declared it succesful in 2006, and then started the pilot phase again in 2008, only to now again declare it a success in 2010. Also, the 3,000 pilot conversions number apparently includes every conversion since the beginning of the project back in 2003, so it's perhaps easy to reach a 10% goal when you start at 4.7%.

Happy Slaves. Apparently one major difficulty with the migration is that the users are happy with the system they are using now and don't see any reason to change:

You know Simon Phipps “the biggest enemy of freedom are happy slaves“? I remember this statement very often when thinking about the past...We never ever will be happy slaves again. You, too?

So if Windows isn't broken, then why fix it? The users like Windows, apparently, and have been resistant to the change. Munich could have saved money by staying with Windows, as well. So the whole failed project seems to be done out of spite and hatred for Microsoft.

The First Domino Stands. If your mission really is freedom, then allowing mission creep to completely sidetrack your project for years at a time is really doing a disservice to those happy slaves you wish to emancipate. The Munich Migration project was imagined by some (including Steve Ballmer), to be the first domino which could start a chain reaction across the globe. Remember that in the time after Munich approved the migration, that other cities and governments were closely watching the Munich migration. Vienna began an major migration which flamed out, and other cities made minor moves, but later gave up.

Munich could have been the first domino, but after almost seven years of diddling around now instead stands as a beacon, warning anyone who would attempt the folly of a major desktop Linux migration in a complex production environment.

Munich Linux Year-In-Review: 1100 New Conversions in 2009

2009-12-30T17:26:00.002-06:00

Florian Schiessl, one of the LiMux Linux project managers, and primary spokesperson for the LiMux project, has posted a year-in-review on his blog.

A couple of points stand out:

First, Munich has finally installed OpenOffice.org on every machine and is using ODF as default file format:

Well, every workplace is migrated to OpenOffice.org, but it was an almighty effort to be able to do this switch, to get rid of many vendor lock-ins created in the past.

So it took about five and a half years to migrate just the office software. At the time that Munich decided to go Microsoft-free, they said they would be switching to OpenOffice.org in just a few months. It was not supposed to take an almighty effort to accomplish.

Second, since August, Munich has only managed to convert another 300 machines to the LiMux Linux distro:

Another achievement in 2009 was the establishment of linux client pilot areas inside every of our 12 departments. This was, beside the OpenOffice.org migration, the fundamental step to increase the drive for our client migration in general during the upcoming years. Yes, these are only small areas (together with our completely migrated departmetns round about 2,500 clients).

So, assuming Munich still runs the same number of workstations they did six years ago, they have now converted 17.8% of their workstations (2,500 machines out of 14,000 total) to Linux.

Munich reported 1400 completed conversions as of November 2008, so that means the total for the year 2009 (actually 13 months, if you include December of 2008) is about 1100 new conversions to Linux. That's a rate of about 85 per month for the year 2009.

The rate for the last part of the year was fairly consistent with the annual rate. Munich converted 300 machines during the last four months of the year, a rate of 75 per month during September-December.

For the entire project, which is now ending it's 79th month, the rate is of conversion has been 31 per month, or about one per day since May 28, 2003.

Assuming they can continue to convert 85 machines per month, the project will be completed in another 11.2 years, in the year 2020.

USA Today Misses the Point

2009-10-21T08:34:00.004-05:00

Byron Acohido, at USA Today online's "Technology Live" blog, has posted a story about IBM's marketing efforts to convince businesses to switch to Linux instead of upgrading to Windows 7. IBM was involved in 2003 in convincing the City of Munich that it was somehow a Good Idea to switch from Windows to Linux, and Mr. Acohido says this:

In the spring of 2003, Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer cut short a skiing trip to race to Germany to try prevent the city of Munich from excising Windows and Office from 14,000 desktop PCs. Ballmer failed. IBM and German Linux distributor SuSE worked furiously behind the scenes to persuade Munich to make the switch to a Linux system.

Since then, Linux has steadily gained market share on desktops and servers throughout Europe and Asia, and on the servers powering many data centers of North American companies. Amazon's retail operations, for instance, use Linux servers. But most U.S. companies have stayed loyal to Windows and Office as the operating system and productivity suite of choice for desktops and laptops used by employees.

Notice anything?

I notice that there is no mention that over 6.5 years later, Munich has only managed to convert 15.7% of their desktops to LiMux Linux.

I also notice that there are no data or sources to back up the claim that "Linux has steadily gained market share on desktops and servers throughout Europe and Asia".

And finally, I notice that servers and desktops are conveniently lumped together, even though legacy servers mostly ran Unix, and are only operated by experts, so converting to Linux on a server is usually much easier than converting a desktop from Window to Linux.

Servers and desktops are apples and oranges, so the entire quoted section above is very misleading, to say the least.

Given that after 6.5 years of expensive and intensive effort, under a mandate from the city council, and under the spotlight of global news coverage, the Linux desktop share within the city of Munich offices is only 15%, then it is likely that the share "throughout Europe and Asia" is infinitesimally small.

200 More!

2009-10-04T18:46:00.001-05:00

My goodness, we are getting updates from Munich fast and furious now. The newest is here (.pdf).

On slide 4 of the presentation, it states that as of August, 2,200 out of 14,000 (15.7%) Munich city workstations are using the LiMux Linux software. That is an increase of 200 since the previous update a month earlier.

That's pretty impressive for Munich. They have struggled to convert 800 per year for the last several years, so 200 in one month is a new milestone.

If Munich can continue to convert 200 each month, they will reach their lowered target of 80% conversion to Linux in about 3.75 more years. That would be approximately May of 2012, on track with their most recently stated goal.

Can they keep up this pace? Or was the month of July just a fluke? Keep us posted, Munich!

Another Munich Linux Update

2009-07-30T22:36:00.002-05:00

LiMux project manager and spokesperson, Florian Schiessl, presented at the Debian developer conference "DebConf 2009", and gave an update on the status of the project. He has posted presentation slides here.

Slide 7 informs us that, as of July, out of the 14,000 workstations in the city departments, "2,000 workplaces are using the Debian GNU/Linux based client".

That is an increase of 200 since May, when they had converted 1,800.

Also, from the same slide, it appears that Munich has finally completed installation of OpenOffice.org on all 14,000 desktops. The slides do not state whether any of those desktops still have Microsoft Office or other similar products installed.

Munich Conversion Rate Remains the Same

2009-07-22T11:55:00.006-05:00

The Munich LiMux Linux conversion team has updated their English language page to show that as of May 2009, they had migrated a total of 1800 computers to LiMux Linux:

Status quo of the LiMux project Mai 2009:

* 100% work stations using Firefox and Thunderbird
* 12.000 work stations using OpenOffice.org
* 1.800 work stations migrated to LiMux
* all other units of the City Council start the migration to Linux in 2009

Six months prior, in November '08, the count was 1,400 completed LiMux conversions, meaning they migrated 400 machines in about six months for an annualized rate of 800/year. That rate is very similar to their pace during the previous year--from November '07 to November '08, Munich converted 740 machines.

Munich's most recently published goal is to achieve 80% conversion by the end of 2012. That means about 9,400 machines to convert in 3.5 years. That cannot not happen unless Munich can quickly accelerate from 800 per year to almost 2,700 per year for the rest of the project

Throw Your Users Into the Pool!

2009-07-14T09:39:00.003-05:00

Some Linux advocates have started to notice that the Munich LiMux Linux migration has not been successful. One somewhat disturbing example appears in a recent Linuxinsider.com article called, "How to Advocate for Linux Without Coming Across as a Lunatic":

'Throw People Into the Pool'

"Carla Schroder is right on as usual," blogger Robert Pogson told LinuxInsider. "I have introduced thousands to GNU/Linux, and turning them loose on it works very well. Young people are much more accepting of change if they can see the benefits in person."

People "who do the long song and dance to migrate people as Munich did are wasting a lot of time and energy," Pogson added. "It is much more efficient to give a short introduction and to throw people into the pool -- they will be highly motivated to learn to swim." [emphasis added]

So Mr. Pogson blames the Munich failure on the IT department in Munich. He thinks Munich has been giving their users too much training. Munich should just turn on the machines and let the users figure out the rest for themselves! The users will love you for it.

Maybe Mr. Pogson thinks the users (at least the ones who don't drown in the pool) will also write their own software to replace critical applications which are not Linux compatible.

Google Chrome OS and the Lesson of Munich

2009-07-09T00:27:00.001-05:00

Today Google finally announced that they are, in fact, working on a long-rumoured operating system, called Chrome OS. Chrome OS is still a year away from being released, but that did not dampen enthusiasm among the anti-Microsoft zealots.

But Jack Schofield at the Guardian cautions against irrational exuberance by noting the lessons of Munich:

"...the idea that businesses are soon going to replace Windows with Chrome OS is beyond fanciful. ...They're not going to rewrite 10-15 years worth of [legacy] programs to run them via Chrome OS any time soon. Even if they want to, and can afford the attempt, it's going to take a decade...
But look at Munich as being more typical of the enterprise problem. It started to convert from Windows to Linux in 2003 (after a two-year study) and reckons it will have 80% of its desktops running LiMux by 2012. ("The remaining computers are currently running Windows NT 4 or Windows 2000," according to a case study.) So the whole project is taking more than a decade, it's costing more than staying with Microsoft (if you include the cost of training), and Munich will end up with significantly worse software (ie OpenOffice) than if it had stuck with Microsoft."

Put that in your pipe and smoke it.

Dang. Missed the Party.

2009-06-29T04:01:00.000-05:00

Wow. Was out of range on holiday and missed the excitement here this weekend. First, somebody linked to LiMux Watch from the comments of this post at Linux Hater's Blog, which brought over some new visitors. Then the next day, the Linux Hater himself posted about this site, which brought in a lot of new visitors, and then Slashdot posted a Munich project update, causing commenters there to link here, bringing in yet another flood of new visitors.

Welcome all, haters and zealots alike.

When time allows, I'll respond to some of the points made here and elsewhere, but will be disconnected a lot this week, so be patient.

English Translation of Heise.de Article

2009-06-26T11:28:00.001-05:00

Linux.com has a nice English translation of the article referenced in this post from Wednesday. Here are a couple excerpts:

By mid-2012, at the latest, 80 percent of the 14,000 computers in the city administration will be moved to be Linux. Even much earlier, by the end of this year, all City Hall employees will be leaving Microsoft Word, Excel and Microsoft Internet Explorer and moving to free software, such as OpenOffice and the open-source Firefox Web browser.

In the short-term, no money was saved with the change-over. To the contrary, the city had to absorb one-time upfront costs of 13 million Euros for the Linux Munich "LiMux" project...According to vice director Schießl, an upgrade of the then-existing Windows NT4 operating system to Windows XP would have been as much as two million euros cheaper. The change-over will make financial sense only after several years, by avoiding the payment of on-going licensing fees.

Munich Moves the Goalpost Again

2009-06-24T09:49:00.002-05:00

Over the years, as they have continued to not actually migrate from from Windows to "LiMux" Linux, the city of Munich has moved the goalposts several times:

In 2004, they said they would convert 100% of their workstations by 2008
In 2006, the city admitted it would never be able to convert 100% of their machines, so changed the goal to 80% conversion by 2008.
By 2008, with less than 10% of their machines migrated, the city promised to convert"a large part" of their machines by 2009.
At the end of 2008, they promised "most of our workspaces by 2011"

(The sources of all these quotes can be found here.)

Today there is an article at Heise.de in which Munich project leader Florian Schiessl now pushes the date back to mid-2012:

Bis spätestens Mitte 2012 sollen 80 Prozent der 14.000 Computer in der Stadtverwaltung auf Linux umgestellt sein.

Google translation: "No later than mid-2012 to 80 percent of the 14,000 computers in the city administration to be Linux."

2012 is the new 2011.

Waaaah! Asus Slapped Linux in THE FACE! Sob!

2009-05-28T12:24:00.000-05:00

Somebody call the Waahmbulance! Holden Page is very upset because Asus has totally betrayed the heroic Linux community by advertising that the EEPC is "better with Microsoft Windows".

Linux just got a major slap in the face today from Asus. One of the highlights of Linux going mainstream was the wildly popular Asus Eee PC preinstalled with a customized Linux distro geared towards web applications. ...but it looks like the cause for celebration won't be lasting much longer....Asus and Microsoft have teamed up and have made a site called It's Better With Windows...The page touts how easy it is to get up and ready with Windows on an Asus Eee PC, while slyly stating that you won't have to deal with an "unfamiliar environment" and "major compatibility issues."

How DARE Asus advertise software which will increase their profits! Doesn't Asus know that Micro$oft is evil? And profits, too?

Happy 6th Birthday, LiMux!

2009-05-27T17:00:00.002-05:00

It's midnight in Munich, Germany, so let's celebrate the 6th anniversary of the Munich migration!

Six years ago today, on May 28, 2003, the City of Munich decided to convert all 14,000 city desktops and laptops in the city administration to "LiMux" Linux.

Congratulations on your 10% success!

(Sorry about the 90% vaporware.)

Other events of 2003: Loss of the space shuttle Columbia, the beginning of the Iraq War, the SARS pandemic, and SCO sued IBM for patent infringement.

Switzerland Acknowledges That There is No Alternative to Microsoft. Red Hat Sues.

2009-05-22T15:14:00.000-05:00

The government of Switzerland has acknowledged that Microsoft Windows is currently the only viable solution for their desktops. The government has signed a contract with Microsoft without going through their normal bid process, because there is "no sufficient alternative" available.

But even though it is clearly not possible for Switzerland to switch to anything else, Red Hat and other vendors have sued for a do-over . They want to force the Swiss government to bid out contracts even though there is no possibility that any other vendor than Microsoft can provide the solution. Thus, every contract would have to go through the time and expense of bidding, and still every contract would be awarded to Microsoft, because it is not possible to convert to anything else at this time, and even if it was possible to convert to Linux, it would cost more than Microsoft products.

One might expect that Munich would be the first to warn Switzerland how very difficult and expensive it is to migrate to Linux, but that isn't the case. Florian Schiessl, project manager of the LiMux Linux migration for the City of Munich, where they have been diddling around for almost six years now, has posted this on his blog

I’m curious if the court follows the (Swiss) governments argumentation, that there is no sufficient alternative available for servers and clients. I think there are many examples showing the contrary. (emphasis added)

I wish Mr. Shiessl would state those contrary examples, since Munich itself is the best confirming example.

One thing for sure, the Munich Linux follies will be exhibit A for the Swiss government's attorneys in the Red Hat lawsuit.

Are There Too Many Desktop Linuxes? Not If Someone Will Provide Free Marketing!

2009-04-29T11:05:00.000-05:00

Just a few months ago there was an outcry when Microsoft announced that there would be (gasp) six different tiers of Window 7. (Never mind that there are hundreds of Linux distros.)

But now, over at computerworld.com, "Cyber Cynic" Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols commits the sin of admitting that maybe, just maybe, there could perhaps be too many desktop Linux distributions out there.

There are many reasons why Linux is still trying to become the king of the desktop mountain. But, the more I think about it, the more I believe that one of the major ones is that there are too many choices.
Nothing can be done about that. There's no practical way to reduce the number of Linux distributions, not would I destroy them if I had a magic wand and with a wave I could eliminate dozens of them.

So there are too many Linuxes out there, and there is no possible way to reduce the number of distros. So there is apparently no point in continuing the article, unless the author has some great idea to solve this intractable problem....

Eureka! Read on for the great idea:

I also think there's still a realistic chance for one of the other desktop Linuxes to make a grab for serious desktop market share. What the company or community needs to do is to align itself with a major hardware vendor and get that OEM to not just sell desktop Linux, but to give it the kind of advertising and support that needed for any product to get the attention of customers.

Aha! All that Linux needs is for an OEM to spend lots of money to market and promote software that will not gain them any profit! In fact, the OEM can reduce their profit by not selling Windows and Office upgrades, and they can increase their costs by heavily advertising software that anyone can download for free! There is no way this plan could go wrong!

Someone better get Michael Dell on the phone right now and explain the sublime beauty of this plan; I'm sure he'll jump right on the opportunity.

Open Source Secrets in Vienna

2009-04-21T07:53:00.010-05:00

Sometime after Munich announced they would be converting all of their 14,000 city administration computers to a customized linux distribution called "LiMux Linux", the city of Vienna announced a voluntary conversion program, which would allow the city departments to choose whether they wanted to have Microsoft Windows, or another customized Linux distribution called "Wienux Linux". Voluntary conversion has not been successful in Vienna.

A controversy is now brewing in Vienna now over an open source study called "STOSS2". STOSS 1 was the study which justified the attempted conversion to Linux, but the findings of STOSS2 are being kept secret. Comically, the secrecy is being justified on the grounds that the findings "can't be allowed to fall into the hands of the competition". The competition being unnamed software companies, according to ORF broadcasting in Vienna.

Since the study is kept secret, the only responsible thing to do is to make wild speculations about what this means. My guess? Vienna needs to keep STOSS2 secret so they can play the Linux card when negotiating with Microsoft, even though they are never really going to convert to Linux.

Of course, no one still believes that Vienna could migrate to Linux, even if they tried. Just ask Munich.

Here's another wild speculation: Maybe they are keeping STOSS2 secret because they do not want to hurt Munich's feelings! If the STOSS2 report is honest, it must conclude that the failure in Munich proves that it is not currently feasible to convert to Linux. That would be very embarassing for the city of Munich to be stabbed in the back by Vienna like that, so maybe that's why Vienna will not release the results of STOSS2.

The best thing would be for the city of Vienna to release STOSS2 so this unsubstantiated speculation can end. The citizens of Vienna paid for the report, so they should naturally be entitled to read it.

New Video About the Munich Linux Migration

2009-04-11T09:37:00.001-05:00

Floria Schiessl, project leader of the Munich LiMux Linux migration, gave a presentation in English at the Open Expo:

Not much new here, but does re-confirm a few datapoints.

More later.

Only 48 Years To Go!

2009-04-07T12:40:00.001-05:00

Since the Munich Linux migration was announced at the end of May, 2003 there were 1,400 conversions completed by November, 2008. That is, 1,400 conversions over a time period of approximately five years and five months, or about 1,975 days.

That means the conversion rate so far has been less than one per day since inception of the project--about 0.71 Linux desktop conversions per day, in fact.

Projecting that rate into the future, the project will take about 54 yeas. That means we can look forward to completion 14,000 migrations by the city of Munich in the year 2057.

Of course, that assumes that they maintain the pace of .709 conversions per day. That is not likely, though, because the Munich conversion project leader has stated that they are focusing on other things during 2009 and will then try to install LiMux Linux more during 2010.

Vienna "Soft Migration" Failed Softly

2009-03-31T12:47:00.001-05:00

Munich is not the only city which has failed to migrate to Linux. Several cities made announcements that they would switch, but never actually did it. One such city was Vienna, Austria. Their plan was a "soft migration" in which a department could receive a discount on their IT budget if they switched to Linux on a voluntary basis.

As usual, it was decided that none of the off-the-shelf Linux distros was adequate, so the city rolled it's own custom Linux distro, called Wienux (Vienna is spelled "Wien" in German).

The only department that made the switch was the kindergartens at the schools. About 720 machines were converted to Linux for a while, but when the teachers realized that they couldn't run important educational software on Linux, they switched back to Windows.

So out of a universe of 16,000 computers at the city of Vienna, they managed to briefly migrate about 4.5% to Wienux Linux before admitting their mistake and giving up.

Vienna has demonstrated that a soft migration will not work, and Munich has demonstrated that a mandatory migration will not wor

Put On Your Thinking Caps!

2009-03-10T22:58:00.007-05:00

Here's another dreamer, dreamin' the dream. But he needs your help! Jack Wallen wants you to think real hard and then put your fingers on the keys:

The average user likes eye candy. And if the average user can be wooed by Microsoft Vista, imagine how Compiz (or Elive Compize) would affect that same user.

A 3D desktop? Wow!
...I’ve grown rather tired of hearing those self-same pundits who haven’t touched a modern Linux desktop since, what, GNOME 1.x, say that Linux isn’t ready for the mainstream. Linux is ready for the main stream and the main stream is ready for Linux - it’s only a matter of getting the two of them together in the right way.

Now, how do we do it? I’m sure everyone here has a suggestion or two. So put fingers to keys and help the Linux community to figure out how to get the Linux desktop in front of the end users. [emphasis added]

You see, now that Linux can run a cool 3D desktop theme, there is no possible explanation for the lack of traction that Linux is getting on the desktop against the evil empire of Micro$oft.

The fact that the most prominent and expensive desktop Linux migration in the world has only managed to convert 10% of their users to Linux desktop in almost six years of spending is irrelevant! Linux is ready for the desktop; it just is. After all, it can run a cool 3D desktop eye candy theme, so it must be ready for the mainstream!

But Jack wants ideas. Maybe he should talk to Professor Linux about his excellent idea of getting Bill Gates to fund Linux install-fests.

Suspicious Minds

2009-02-24T14:43:00.000-06:00

Alex Singleton at the telegraph.co.uk squinted suspiciously and then posted "Labour disingenuously adopts Tory position on open source software", in which he states:

...the Government, orchestrated by Tom Watson MP, is planning to slip out an announcement that it will to stop discriminating against open source software in its procurement in an apparent attempt to look hip...Gordon Brown has always been keen to be close to open source's ultimate enemy, Microsoft founder Bill Gates: Mr Brown was responsible for Mr Gates receiving a knighthood and has co-authored a newspaper article with the software entrepreneur...I'm told the Government has no plans to stop its negotiations with Microsoft though OGC Buying Solutions, the public sector procurement agency, to keep licensing new version of Microsoft products...In other words, I think we can safely deduce that the Government's announcement is about out taking away a Tory argument and is unlikely to result in any actual change in Whitehall... [emphasis added]

Mr. Singleton totally blew the lid off the evil conspiracy to slip out a policy that favors open source, but does not immediately ban the UK government from ever using Microsoft products or writing articles with Bill Gates!

But then the evil Tom Watson his very self, snuck into Mr. Singleton's blog and left the following sinister comment:

The Government has had a policy on Open Source since 2004, Alex.

I've answered a parliamentary question on Open Source today - I'm assuming that is what you mean by "slip out".

I've also asked for the policy to be put on the Cabinet Office website. To help your readers make up their own minds, the policy can be found here: bit.ly/whD6D

Those meddling MP's and their dastardly web links to policies!

Welcome!

2009-02-16T15:44:00.003-06:00

This blog has been noticed. Florian Schiessl also sent me an email, asking who I am. The real answer is extremely boring, so make up your own conspiracy. It's gotta be more interesting than the truth!

Busy today, so that's all for now.