kowenicki said: There are other aspects to this too... getting the right support is an issue for an company. Microsoft certified engineers are all over the place... its just easier. It isnt the Swiss governments fault (or MS's really) that nobody else has the skill to develop, publish and maintain a system that simply blows MS out of the water is it? Why havent all companies moved to Apple (hell you can even bootcamp vista and it runs perfectly).... I'll tell you why... Apple are way too expensive. Are these red-hat idiots going to sue all the marketing and publishing companies that use Apple by default? (the VAST majority do).... of course they arent because MS is an easy target in the EU courts. It stinks.

Red Hat gives at least as good support as Microsoft. There are Red Hat certified engineers "all over the place".

Red Hat Linux DOES blow MS out of the water. It is demonstrably more secure, cheaper, faster and more usable than Windows. It's just Windows inertia in the system prevents organisations from seeing it. If you've never tried Linux, how can you judge whether it's better? The few outlets that have made the switch and taken it seriously report success.

The reason Red Hat don't sue those design companies is becasue corporations aren't required to have fair bidding processes. Governments are. You'll notice Red Hat has challenged the UK to open up its education IT bidding, and the UK education department produced a report with the conclusion that open source is a better option. But the bidding system did not change thanks to pressure from MS.

And I think most design companies use Windows now. But I have no statistics and neither do you.

Squilliam said: ... But you couldn't exactly call it a straight up waste of money because they would have to have some personal gain for them to go ahead and sue the government. Also if Linux doesn't support one of the programs they want to run or requires training costs which are greater than the cost of the Windows Licences then they would be better off with Microsoft. Its quite likely that the cost per machine is $25 per year or so, which is probably not even going to pay for even one hour of training in Linux.

Yeah, Red Hat are suing because they think it'll get them a support contract. But in reality I think the government doesn't need one.

I don't think Linux requires ANY retraining for the average user. Most corporate users require office and e-mail, and they behave and look the same as the Windows apps for them. For the network admins you obviously need to replace Windows-trained ones with Linux ones but that's one employee in a hundred, right?

For compatibility issues that can't be resolved, in most cases all you would have to do is keep a few Windows workstations with the necessary app. If your company is one of the few where every computer needs such an app, then Linux is indeed not for them. But that's a minority, and shouldn't apply to any government.

red hat and the 17 other companies , can all go to he11 for all i care. if u cant make a better product then shut the he11 up. i am sick and tired of companies suing m$, because their too damn lazy to make something better. its complete bs and just like in the states back several years ago when the states sued m$. its so sad that companies take the easy way out of making a better product and just sue another company ( m$ ). if they cant make something better , then they should leave the industry.

Wow all this fuss for £8 million a year ? People should chill a bit here. Switzerland is a completely decentralized country and each administration/state has it's own way of functionning. In my state for exemple from elementary to professional schools and University all are equipped by Machintosh and we pay a lot more than £9 million a year but we've never seen the Red-Hat Group complaining. It is said in the article those 8 millions are spent by the Swiss Federal Bureau for Building and Logistics which is a very small part of our Federal administration.

Soleron said: Squilliam said: ... But you couldn't exactly call it a straight up waste of money because they would have to have some personal gain for them to go ahead and sue the government. Also if Linux doesn't support one of the programs they want to run or requires training costs which are greater than the cost of the Windows Licences then they would be better off with Microsoft. Its quite likely that the cost per machine is $25 per year or so, which is probably not even going to pay for even one hour of training in Linux. Yeah, Red Hat are suing because they think it'll get them a support contract. But in reality I think the government doesn't need one. I don't think Linux requires ANY retraining for the average user. Most corporate users require office and e-mail, and they behave and look the same as the Windows apps for them. For the network admins you obviously need to replace Windows-trained ones with Linux ones but that's one employee in a hundred, right? For compatibility issues that can't be resolved, in most cases all you would have to do is keep a few Windows workstations with the necessary app. If your company is one of the few where every computer needs such an app, then Linux is indeed not for them. But that's a minority, and shouldn't apply to any government.

This isn't a corporate license. They have specialised software for the police, hospitals, schools etc and it all has to work perfectly. So to transition to Linux at the very least they would have to convert all the branches software to work on the system. Office applications really do just scratch the surface here for the different software which needs to be run. I have never heard of a government making such a switch without a concerted effort to do so.

 

Squilliam said: ... This isn't a corporate license. They have specialised software for the police, hospitals, schools etc and it all has to work perfectly. So to transition to Linux at the very least they would have to convert all the branches software to work on the system. Office applications really do just scratch the surface here for the different software which needs to be run. I have never heard of a government making such a switch without a concerted effort to do so.

...yes. They would probably have to put in a similar amount of effort from XP to Vista though. It's not perfect; but in the long run it would save millions.

Why would a government want to use something else? That'd be stupid.

Government computers need to "just work"... you aren't going to train government officals to use linux... and you aren't even going to be able to train them how to modify their files so they'll be readable elsewhere.

It only makes sense for governments to use windows.

Furthermore it'd be stupidly expensive to transition over all the stuff to Linux/Mac OS anwyay.

I would like to note that Linux IT Specialist cost almost twice as much Windows IT Specialist.

I'll leave this thread to others who know more than me. Im starting to make too many assumptions here.

Kasz216 said: Why would a government want to use something else? That'd be stupid. Government computers need to "just work"... you aren't going to train government officals to use linux... and you aren't even going to be able to train them how to modify their files so they'll be readable elsewhere. It only makes sense for governments to use windows. Furthermore it'd be stupidly expensive to transition over all the stuff to Linux/Mac OS anwyay.

Government computers dont just need to "just work." They need to be secure and efficient enough to handle whatever tasks are at hand from monitoring governmental activities to being able to handle video conferences with other national leaders. Also tell me where you understand the costs of transitioning between OS to OS because the move for any government or company who refused to move to Vista are going to have a hell of a time moving from XP to 7 since it cannot simply upgrade the OS like the installer for Vista does. Expenses for these upgrades will be way cheaper even during the initial transition as no one has to upgrade PC hardware as they might have to moving from one Microsoft OS to another. Linux does not take half the resources needed to run even XP.