Back then I read an article about how M$ is crippling the ability of other office packets to read their docx and xslx formats who are supposed to be open formats, but in reality are written in a way never to be fully integrated by competing products. More information about their pseudo open standard: https://fsfe.org/activities/msooxml/msooxml.en.html
Munich in the past have used Linux PCs for quite some time until eventually switching back to windows. Back then they were citing the same incompatibilities to open and read and display M$ office files correctly. So Microsoft is definitely abusing their position as a market leader and trying to cripple competition as much as they can.
So fine them and require all governemtn documents and legal documents of anybkind to be in a true open format. Its only a compatibility problem if people continue to use their format.
In the past, some people have expressed dissatisfaction when I’ve sent them files in .odt format. However, it’s the superior format in terms of support and functionality, so I always make them aware of that and of the fact that I will never use some shitty ms product…
That’s unlikely to happen in every country where they’re popular. Microsoft can just be like “oh you’re gonna fine us? We’ll pull out and you guys will be completely fucked. Have fun!”
They got into the enterprise sector so early that most offices wouldn’t function without Microsoft products/support.
They don’t need to fine them in every country. Just in Germany. If they pull our of Germany, they need to pull out of the EU. They are not doing that. They will make their document open, for real.
We’ll pull out and you guys will be completely fucked. Have fun!"
Don’t threaten me with a good time! /s :)
If they retreated from the German market out of spite I could see the government voiding their rights and patents. Can’t have rights to things you dont offer here. Then they’d end up with sanctioned piracy of their stuff. I dont think Microsoft would be that idiotic.
Iso allowing itself to be coopted into fast tracking standarizing ooxml in 2008 continues to be horrible. Ms can point and say: see ooxml is a true open format.
The problem isn’t even ooxml, it’s that MS themselves don’t always follow the standard
That too that there are 3 different .docx does nothing for standardization
Maybe it’s just me, but I don’t think documents require a lot of new features.
If they abuse their monopoly it sounds like the DMA should be applied.
There was criticism at the time, but the people who had to work with it every day. welcomed it after a very short time. The end of the Limux project happened all by itself, because Munich’s mayor is an MS fan boy and said so openly at the time. It was not because of technical problems or anything else. It was just a huge kindergarten child.
It didn’t end
They actually flip flop a lot.
2006: Migration to LiMux begins
2008: 1200 out of 14,000 have migrated to the LiMux environment
2013: Over 15,000 LiMux PC-workstations (of about 18,000 workstations)
2016: Microsoft moves german HQ to Münich
2017: Dumping Linux https://www.linuxinsider.com/story/munich-city-government-to-dump-linux-desktop-84307.html
2020: Going back to Linux https://www.zdnet.com/article/linux-not-windows-why-munich-is-shifting-back-from-microsoft-to-open-source-again/
2023: Microsoft opens new Experience Center in Münich https://www.munich-business.eu/meldungen/neues-microsoft-experience-center-emea.html
2023: Analysing what needs to be done to switch to Win10 before new vote https://www.tweaksforgeeks.com/ditching-linux-for-windows-after-wannacry-is-too-risky-for-munich-green-party-warns/
https://lemmy.world/comment/7251741Notice the “Microsft does X” bits and the reactions.
Totally not quid pro quo.
The software etc. continues to run. But as an official project of the state, Limux is dead and so are the subsidies etc. How far it will still be maintained is questionable. However, this does not mean that the topic of Linux and Open Source has become irrelevant. But even now, with the future plans, I strongly assume that something like this will happen again. But who cares… But it’s only the taxpayer who has to pay for it anyway…
Offices have way more power to convert the world to Linux than even gaming does.
And ofc, Microsoft is well aware and is not interested in letting that happen.
Correct. Bavaria once tried the same thing, but then MS went to the local politicians, sucked their dicks a bit and boom, back to MS products it is! Hopefully the north doesn’t fall for that kind of shit, and they likely won’t because Bavaria is a backwards piece of shit of a Bundesland while Schleswig Holstein is kinda cool.
Bavaria isn’t even Germany. I also hope, that our country isn’t falling for this MS bullshit.
Love your username and your comment 🥰
Hopefully this at least forces Microsoft to rethink riddling their bullshit with ads. I feel sorry for people who are still stuck with that trash for whatever reason.
I’m pretty sure the enterprise version of Windows does not and will never have ads. So not super relavent when talking about a transition to Linux in an office setting.
and never will
Dude have you been in a coma this past decade?
Windows 11 has ads NOW, in the enterprise install I’m provided at work.
we are now trying out recommendations to help you discover great apps from the Microsoft Store under Recommended on the Start menu. This will appear only for Windows Insiders in the Beta Channel in the U.S. and will not apply to commercial devices (devices managed by organizations). This can be turned off by going to Settings > Personalization > Start and turning off the toggle for “Show recommendations for tips, app promotions, and more”.
Edge “new tab” default is hellishly full of ads and “news”, the Taskbar has stock price information alongside weather and sports, and search in the start menu still shows internet searches. Even on enterprise.
You can remove the stock ticker even on home edition, on enterprise you can make it go away by default for new installs as well. And with enterprise, you can disable edge entirely and unlike home edition it won’t re-enable on upgrade.
None of these things should exist in the first place. Edge will stay disabled until Microsoft feels its been long enough since the last time they got slapped for it, then they’ll push it again.
And ofc, Microsoft is well aware and is not interested in letting that happen.
This is true, but there are only so many times that they can pull off what they did in Munich. If enough cities keep trying at this, there’s no way they’re going to be able to hold the floodgates back forever.
I’m usually a pessimist, but stories like this actually do get my hopes up
I mean… They are not short on cash either.
Then why are they enshittifying so hard?
Because they can. It costs a huge amount of money to move away from MS. And MS can just bribe politicians to make it even harder.
Make them spend that money at least.
So good to read this, the 2016 coup d’etat represented, among other things, a huge rollback of our infrastructure that was being passed on to open source systems for years, good to know that we are resuming the right path
Are there updates?
He posted this update a few months ago, it seems to be progressing well!
What I predict will happen is that Microsoft will offer them Windows for free or bribe the relevant decision makers with free Surface Pro laptops (for “evaluation”) or other Microsoft paraphernalia.
That’s not how they do it, of only because it would tank Windows PR image as “free stuff”.
What you do is arrange it with the government to alocate huge budget sums to purchasing Windows and other stuff from Microsoft at normal market value, then return half the money to the government officials under the desk in whatever form you care or can get away with, straight up bribes if you can swing it.
Microsoft gets to remain dominant, Windows appears to have been purchased at normal value and gets to keep its clout as fancy expensive stuff, and the decision makers get mad money out of it. Everybody wins.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_licensing_corruption_scandal
Or with creating Microsoft offices in their cities, like they did with Munich.
So this is what the companies do with their money…
They use it to expand their influence!
(always has been meme)
I have a text replacement ahb to 🌎👨🚀🔫👨🚀 for scenarios like this.
deleted by creator
I feel like free products just for decision makers sound like a straight bribe, and free Windows is still not even worth more then free and open source …
Or they will just sell office 365 and other SaaS
Maybe a not so subtle way of telling trump to stay out
I believe Lula and his government appreciates anything that reduces the influence of the US.
Incredibly based.
When I was at university (also in Brazil) all the computers from my institute used Mandriva.
Hurry up before the next right-wing government fires everyone involved and orders a total rollback.
Nothing like paying your consulting friends to move everything to Linux to then pay them again to move back to Windows later one. Just like someone is Germany did at some point. :)
The LiMux project in Germany had some shady stuff going on in the background. Microsoft almost certainly bribed the new conservative government to switch everything back to Microsoft. There was a great documentary about it from DW that interviewed some whistleblowers, but I can no longer find it. However, Quidsup on Youtube did a good video encapsulating the course of events.
EDIT: I was able to find the documentary by searching the old title in German, which brought up the original German version, and from there found the English translation!
Here is an alternative Piped link(s):
did a good video encapsulating the course of events
found the English translation!
Piped is a privacy-respecting open-source alternative frontend to YouTube.
I’m open-source; check me out at GitHub.
Great find, I was aware of that situation but it doesn’t mean what I said wasn’t also happening “in the background”. Everyone was profiting from consulting companies to Microsoft.
Thank you. DW is such an amazing resource. I really like their podcasts and videos.
Those documentaries are great findings (and really really interesting). I would highly suggest posting them to the channel (or I would be happy to if you don’t mind)
Please do! But what channel are you referring to?
Interesting (and poorly paraphrased) story about a successful Linux migration:
spoiler
Several years ago someone made a post or cross-posted on r/sysadmin where OP (lead sysadmin) was in meeting with management and they complained about windows and the licensing costs.
OP jokingly passed a comment about switching to Linux and management actually thought he was throwing out a real idea.
Upon explaining the much lower cost due to FOSS and maybe only requiring a small contract for consulting/support, management actually agreed to his idea.
He successfully transitioned the entire company to OpenSUSE which he determined was the best enterprise distro for desktop use.
The other important part was how he handled the transition. iirc he got it going by first offering it to tech savvy departments who were ecstatic to get new stuff, so he lined it up with a hardware upgrade.
Naturally the rest of the departments heard about it and also wanted the new stuff which locked them into using Linux.
There were several holdouts clinging to Windows, but with the majority showing success, management forced them to change as well.
For his use case, most of the employees were using web apps, so almost no additional desktop apps were required.
God I hope
Damn alot of good things happening for Linux adoption recently huh
nice
I actually want Microsoft to do better. Then can, they just ignore user feedback about user choice, design, what to work on etc. Good if they start to get some competition. I wonder what will happen when ARM gets common in a normal PC-build. Good opportunity to make some big changes.
