Despite a public outcry the move to return to M$’s office suite continues in Freiburg. The city has decided on its own and is ignoring the city council’s interest in the matter, citing only a secret report about interoperability and cost. Tellingly, while no money was available to migrate to OpenOffice.org there is money to migrate back to M$’s office suite… I think it’s time for citizens to vote in other parties who are solidly in favour of lower costs in IT.
“The report has not been shared with the members of the city council. Requests by the press and by the Free Software Foundation Europe to publish the report were denied by the city.”
see Advocacy groups decry Freiburg's stealth return to proprietary office | Joinup.
17450
12754
206
3
2
23895 
11851 
11703 
4625 
4259 
1641 
198 
14 
2 
0 
0 
0 
They are going to buy Libreoffice from Novell!
http://www.novell.com/products/libreoffice/
The f**k is it stealth. Someone mentioned it even on your blog, a long time ago. And Freiburg made it public a long time ago, too.
A good decision.
Thorsten Rahn wrote, “stealth”, sceptically.
The stealth is in the backroom dealing that pushes the revision. The last word of the council was go forth and FLOSS. Where is this coming from? The IT department running the government? Why is there money in the budget for the revision without it being voted by council? That is not open government. It is closed/stealthy government. You can bet taxpayers’ money is being wasted in the process and they are not being told what is going on. Just ask their representatives. This could be one of the issued in the next election and the wind could shift again. Such an organization should not be planning IT election to election.
“LibreOffice is the successor to OpenOffice.org Novell Edition.
Novell fully supports the creation of The Document Foundation and is one of the leading contributors to this open source project. We also provide world-class support to customers needing powerful office productivity solutions.”
I think that’s old news but it’s worth repeating because it’s good news. It’s a black mark against IBM that they support openoffice.org. Perhaps it’s no matter. LibreOffice appears to have gone critical and is self-sustaining.
For someone that claims to be all about freedom you certainly enjoy telling others what software they can and can’t use.
Let’s just ignore the irony that Open Office uses the same license as Android.
Ivan wrote of “the irony that Open Office uses the same license as Android”.
That was SUN’s choice just as it is Google’s. They were both wrong in my opinion. Fortunately, LibreOffice has straightened that out. Android may eventually be forked or Google could see the light that software needs to open to be free. Google is being open with Android/Linux but their ecosystem may breed all kinds of problems by distribution of binary-only stuff. That’s not cool/wise/good.
These stealth returns don’t help FOSS. If the issues are real. There should be no problem publishing the report in the open. This way it can have a true Peer review.
Information technology is a science. People are treat it like voodoo magic.
Ivan
–Let’s just ignore the irony that Open Office uses the same license as Android.–
Under SUN and Oracle rule no it did not it was GPL or custom deal with them..
Most developers are going MPL/GPL that is Libreoffice. IBM leads have been very annoyed since they wanted to keep on making a closed source product based off the OpenOffice base.
Android is the license it is because that is what hardware makers at the time wanted. Most of them are softening up these days.
More reasons to walk away from M$ scam software.
http://news.slashdot.org/story/12/09/18/2245227/ms-office-2013-pushing-home-users-toward-subscriptions
Five business users cost $12.50/month at three years, your NET comes out to be $2250!!
http://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2012/09/microsoft-pushes-software-subscriptions-on-home-users-whether-they-like-it-or-not/
M$ is scamming the home users with $99/year, forever, when the better product costs $0.00 year after year.
Yeah, dougman. How about you walk away from selling your “customers” anti-malware and anti-virus software? That’s a real scam. But then you are a scam artist.
Most developers are going MPL/GPL that is Libreoffice.
Are you sure about that, Pete? The 451 group published this graph last year taken from Black Duck Software license data which projects gpl usage at just under 50% at this point in time.
Currently Black Duck Software lists the gpl family at 44%. That clearly indicates gpl usage is dropping faster than the 451 Group suggested.
You may want to revisit your position.
Oh, you’ll have to forgive Black Duck’s mangled table on gpl adoption rates, it’s FOSS, what can you do?
No surprise there. The GPL is a complicated mess and doesn’t enable true freedom. Everyone should avoid it like the plague.
@ Thorsten Rahn
Please tell me something am I understanding you correctly that anti malware and anti virus software is a scam ?
Please tell me something am I understanding you correctly that anti malware and anti virus software is a scam ?
Don’t tell me that you did believe otherwise? I’m not saying that anti-malware and anti-virus software don’t recognize what they already know (and many times even that does not work sufficiently), but I’m rather saying that you, in fact, do not heighten security by installing said software. You merely believe that you do. Sure, it gives you this warm and fuzzy feeling when you’ve checked your computer and the anti-whatever software reports dutifully to you that it’s found nothing. But that doesn’t mean that your computer is “secure”.
@ Thorsten Rahn
I do not believe otherwise as there are other means of maintaining security.
It is just that if you take your statement to its logical conclusion, then AVG, Avast, Sophos, Microsoft et al are all scam artists.?
Thorsten Rahn wrote, of anti-malware software, “you, in fact, do not heighten security by installing said software.”
Since the default OS over much of the world falls down at the smell of malware security is heightened by using anti-malware software. Without it security is nothing at all. M$ does a bit but only hits the high-volume stuff.
I agree putting a layer of paint on the barn just slows down rot and that it still rots but at least you get to use the barn a few years longer. Same for that other OS. OTOH, I have often installed GNU/Linux with no anti-malware software and had no problems, even in the hands of irresponsible youths.
Malware alone is sufficient reason to switch to GNU/Linux, something I have promoted for several years. Malware costs so much time, money and trouble even without infecting PCs that it’s just not worthwhile using that other OS.
“Malware alone is sufficient reason to switch to GNU/Linux”
Until it gains traction, and becomes a viable and profitable target.
And with a userbase convinced of “inherently secure”, it’ll get steamrollered.
Ted wrote, of GNU/Linux chances of adoption, “Until it gains traction, and becomes a viable and profitable target.
And with a userbase convinced of “inherently secure”, it’ll get steamrollered.”
In spite of Ted’s belief, the world is adopting GNU/Linux by the millions as it has traction, is viable and lots of people are making money from it as have I.
@Ted This Idea that there are no Linux viruses because Windows dominates the market and is a big target whereas nobody is bothered about producing them for little old Linux is just wrong. There are crackers all over the world who do what they do for the kudos and nothing else. If someone produced a Linux virus that cut its way through Linux computers as if they were running Windows they would be famous and I am sure that a lot of people have tried very hard to do so. Windows machines have always been vulnerable because “It isn’t built for security.” There are no problems with Linux because it was built with security in mind.
Satipera and at times they are successful Kernel.org an linux.com breaches. That was a worm virus that went computer to computer by ssh connects.
Yes the idea that there are no Linux viruses are false.
That most Linux viruses die out in 12 months is true. Mostly because people update and the weakness the virus used disappears.