Re: [Hampshire] Munich Council was: (no subject)
I have slept on it and have concluded that there is no doubt that Munich will return to Windows just as fast as possible. The reasoning behind it is that Microsoft are moving their HQ to Munich. In Germany local authorities get a slice of the turnover of companies that they host and the benefits of having MS headquartered there will probably outweigh the cost and inconvenience of returning to Windows. The politicians are doing their bit by pushing the (rather feeble) MS arguments, i.e. compatibility, quality. We will now never know whether the project is a success. Any doubt of the outcome should be dispelled by the smarmy MS spokesman. MS has always been a good loser and accepted that Munich of all places has its own operating system. However we are always open for discussions. This is ruining my holiday. Roger On 19/08/14 18:20, Tim B wrote: I'm not convinced that there is much in this. I wouldn't treat it as fact until Munich council release a statement saying that they are returning to Windows. Tim B. Sent from Samsung Mobile -- Please post to: Hampshire@mailman.lug.org.uk Web Interface: https://mailman.lug.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/hampshire LUG URL: http://www.hantslug.org.uk --
Re: [Hampshire] Munich Council was: (no subject)
Look on the bright side. This always looked to me like FUD, and if Microsoft have to move their European Headquarters to Munich to get them out of using a Linux IT infrastructure, that sounds to me like Linux in Munich was causing MS some real heartache. I suspect MS are paying a lot of money for this move. Try to enjoy your holiday. Gordon. -- This message was written elegantly and lucidly, by my own fair hand using a quill pen on hand laid parchment. It was then scanned, OCRed, spiel-chequed, then cat und pastied into this email. If it's now just gibberish, it's the software's fault. -- Please post to: Hampshire@mailman.lug.org.uk Web Interface: https://mailman.lug.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/hampshire LUG URL: http://www.hantslug.org.uk --
Re: [Hampshire] Munich Council was: (no subject)
On 20 August 2014 10:35, Gordon Scott gor...@gscott.co.uk wrote: Look on the bright side. This always looked to me like FUD, and if Microsoft have to move their European Headquarters to Munich to get them out of using a Linux IT infrastructure, that sounds to me like Linux in Munich was causing MS some real heartache. I suspect MS are paying a lot of money for this move. Undoubtedly, it smacks of very strong medicine for what must be a huge thorn in their side - the great marketing machine has yet again clunked into action to spread FUD. Oh, and if there have been user complaints about the Linux desktop, just wait until they get Windows 8! We recently had a migration to this in the office by our desktop support department - and a significant number of people had to be *forced* to accept the so called 'upgrade' and it generally caused chaos and confusion, not to mention loss of productivity. Fortunately I work for a team/department which is immune to such games, we can use whatever we deem fit for purpose as long as we self support. /jfk -- Please post to: Hampshire@mailman.lug.org.uk Web Interface: https://mailman.lug.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/hampshire LUG URL: http://www.hantslug.org.uk --
Re: [Hampshire] Munich Council was: (no subject)
On 20 Aug 2014, at 10:46, Jack Knight j...@pobox.com wrote: On 20 August 2014 10:35, Gordon Scott gor...@gscott.co.uk wrote: Look on the bright side. This always looked to me like FUD, and if Microsoft have to move their European Headquarters to Munich to get them out of using a Linux IT infrastructure, that sounds to me like Linux in Munich was causing MS some real heartache. I suspect MS are paying a lot of money for this move. Undoubtedly, it smacks of very strong medicine for what must be a huge thorn in their side - the great marketing machine has yet again clunked into action to spread FUD. Oh, and if there have been user complaints about the Linux desktop, just wait until they get Windows 8! We recently had a migration to this in the office by our desktop support department - and a significant number of people had to be *forced* to accept the so called 'upgrade' and it generally caused chaos and confusion, not to mention loss of productivity. Fortunately I work for a team/department which is immune to such games, we can use whatever we deem fit for purpose as long as we self support. Its interesting that most people are not citing complaints about linux. The actual complaints are about applications and specifically office productivity and collaboration. document exchange with companies. synchronised mobile email synchronised calendar Now I know i’m going to start a war, but its also my opinion that the open source developers looking after these apps a failing to develop well integrated apps and app services, and are still chewing away at uninteresting features such as mail merges etc. /jfk -- Please post to: Hampshire@mailman.lug.org.uk Web Interface: https://mailman.lug.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/hampshire LUG URL: http://www.hantslug.org.uk -- -- Please post to: Hampshire@mailman.lug.org.uk Web Interface: https://mailman.lug.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/hampshire LUG URL: http://www.hantslug.org.uk --
Re: [Hampshire] Munich Council was: (no subject)
On 20 August 2014 16:16, Joseph Bennie j...@lincore.com wrote: Its interesting that most people are not citing complaints about linux. The actual complaints are about applications and specifically office productivity and collaboration. document exchange with companies. Basically it boils down to exchanging MS Office documents with other groups in government which haven't shifted yet. The sad thing here is the attitude of Libre Office developers in not writing or pushing OOXML compatablity in Libre office. Their main priority is ODF and for me and all our LUG members we are happy with that stand . Kingsoft office apparently is a chinese software team which had written an office program which offers perfect compatiblity with the newly published OOXML standards. Libre Office has some serious lessons to learn if it really wants people to migrate. 1. Fix the OOXML compatablity issue. 2. Improve the UI to atleast look cool / modern 1 has its own reasons but 2 Libreoffice in 2004 and 2014 almost look the same while MS office has changed , though I wasn't suggesting that there be huge UI / workflow changes it should be comparable enough to MS office. Why bother about MS office - I dont give a darn about it but people in govt offices work on them all their life and they care. The other issues are all with Exchange being advertised as superior product which is just bollocks they could get a decent mail/communication platform with GNU/Linux Regards, Pavithran -- Please post to: Hampshire@mailman.lug.org.uk Web Interface: https://mailman.lug.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/hampshire LUG URL: http://www.hantslug.org.uk --
Re: [Hampshire] Munich Council was: (no subject)
On 20 Aug 2014, at 18:29, pavithran pavithra...@gmail.com wrote: On 20 August 2014 16:16, Joseph Bennie j...@lincore.com wrote: Its interesting that most people are not citing complaints about linux. The actual complaints are about applications and specifically office productivity and collaboration. document exchange with companies. Basically it boils down to exchanging MS Office documents with other groups in government which haven't shifted yet. The sad thing here is the attitude of Libre Office developers in not writing or pushing OOXML compatablity in Libre office. Their main priority is ODF and for me and all our LUG members we are happy with that stand . Kingsoft office apparently is a chinese software team which had written an office program which offers perfect compatiblity with the newly published OOXML standards. Libre Office has some serious lessons to learn if it really wants people to migrate. yep 1. Fix the OOXML compatablity issue. Agreed - just because you support a good thing, is no reason to be ignorant of other good things… ( being ignorant also belittles your own position! ) 2. Improve the UI to atleast look cool / modern I actually think its a good thing to keep an interface consistent. ( some of the recent changes in office/windows smack of people changing stuff for the sake of it, not because it makes it better… how often do you hear phases such as “small iterative improvements are better” ) 1 has its own reasons but 2 Libreoffice in 2004 and 2014 almost look the same while MS office has changed , though I wasn't suggesting that there be huge UI / workflow changes it should be comparable enough to MS office. chasing Ms office isn’t the right mentality … the team need to chase user needs, the team that do this best will win the user over. (Rule 1) Why bother about MS office - I dont give a darn about it. and this is exactly why it fails. you and me both are technical .. we know how to solve our own problems, but unfortunately the vast majority of people as lazy and expect things to just integrate. and when they don’t they whine like little piggies! unfortunately some of those little piggies are influential, and the minor inconvenience of having to use two steps vs one step is a big deal when they are dealing with higher order issues such as which topping for their cafe latte, while arranging after work drinks! so if you want to win … you have to care. (Rule 2) but people in govt offices work on them all their life and they care. the first point is more important then the second. when people learn something it makes them very productive, they care when someone is making them less productive …. the funny thing is the office 365 is so different they really will cry, I bet they will have real tears! Rule 3 : don’t move the cheese The other issues are all with Exchange being advertised as superior product which is just bollocks they could get a decent mail/communication platform with GNU/Linux They might get a superior product on any platform, but last I checked Outlook with an Exchange backend was vey usable and with lync and Active directory integration its nearly omnipresent! For the record, I dislike outlook a lot and prefer the simpler world of mail on my mac and ical with gmail as my server side. On linux I’m undecided … I usually resort to sylpheed on windows and linux but here’s the difference. I and maybe you think clean elegant mail client, we are also a small, possibly, single entity that needs to be agile with our choice of app and can use gmail in the background. …. Outlook, Lync and Exchange is a communication juggernaught! and the people who use it expect it to hold 10+ years of email securely and reliably for 200+ people and it be accessible everywhere! … that takes a lot of energy and a lot of trust! so when you look at the need that exchange+outlook solves I really don’t see a clear open source alternative, that is less work, more reliable and costs less to implement. and that is the real problem! when you need big reliable systems onsite … you need to trust it - and it needs to work perfectly. … but if exchange is that important … it could be implemented in insolation, and use the gnome/Evolution client as a substitute for Outlook … so either someone internally is being a zealot or someone forgot to point out it's ok to mix and match! hell they could even put it on Azure in a few mouse clicks! and a few more to enable IMAP4 with TLS! Rule 4: not all problems are solved with the same solution. Identify which problem you want to solve and built/use the right tool of the job. Regards, Pavithran -- Please post to: Hampshire@mailman.lug.org.uk Web Interface: https://mailman.lug.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/hampshire LUG URL: http://www.hantslug.org.uk -- -- Please post to:
Re: [Hampshire] Munich Council was: (no subject)
On 20 August 2014 23:51, Joseph Bennie j...@lincore.com wrote: …. Outlook, Lync and Exchange is a communication juggernaught! and the people who use it expect it to hold 10+ years of email securely and reliably for 200+ people and it be accessible everywhere! … that takes a lot of energy and a lot of trust! so when you look at the need that exchange+outlook solves I really don’t see a clear open source alternative, that is less work, more reliable and costs less to implement. I was going through some FSFE german mailing lists to find out more and guess what Kolab actually won a contract for adding groupware solutions for Munich. http://www.pro-linux.de/news/1/20814/kolab-gewinnt-auschreibung-fuer-groupware-in-muenchen.html That should solve most of the issues, its to be implemented this year. Regards, Pavithran -- Please post to: Hampshire@mailman.lug.org.uk Web Interface: https://mailman.lug.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/hampshire LUG URL: http://www.hantslug.org.uk --
Re: [Hampshire] Munich Council was: (no subject)
** Joseph Bennie j...@lincore.com [2014-08-20 19:22]: On 20 Aug 2014, at 18:29, pavithran pavithra...@gmail.com wrote: On 20 August 2014 16:16, Joseph Bennie j...@lincore.com wrote: snip The other issues are all with Exchange being advertised as superior product which is just bollocks they could get a decent mail/communication platform with GNU/Linux They might get a superior product on any platform, but last I checked Outlook with an Exchange backend was vey usable and with lync and Active directory integration its nearly omnipresent! For the record, I dislike outlook a lot and prefer the simpler world of mail on my mac and ical with gmail as my server side. On linux I’m undecided … I usually resort to sylpheed on windows and linux but here’s the difference. I and maybe you think clean elegant mail client, we are also a small, possibly, single entity that needs to be agile with our choice of app and can use gmail in the background. …. Outlook, Lync and Exchange is a communication juggernaught! and the people who use it expect it to hold 10+ years of email securely and reliably for 200+ people and it be accessible everywhere! … that takes a lot of energy and a lot of trust! so when you look at the need that exchange+outlook solves I really don’t see a clear open source alternative, that is less work, more reliable and costs less to implement. and that is the real problem! when you need big reliable systems onsite … you need to trust it - and it needs to work perfectly. … but if exchange is that important … it could be implemented in insolation, and use the gnome/Evolution client as a substitute for Outlook … so either someone internally is being a zealot or someone forgot to point out it's ok to mix and match! hell they could even put it on Azure in a few mouse clicks! and a few more to enable IMAP4 with TLS! Rule 4: not all problems are solved with the same solution. Identify which problem you want to solve and built/use the right tool of the job. ** end quote [Joseph Bennie] When it comes to the fact that Exchange is an integrated suite with a single client app I sort of understand peoples liking for it. When I have had to work with it, either the couple of times I've worked on the server or when I've used a client I really don't get it big time. I've not worked with it since Exchange 2003 thankfully, but then, even on a relatively small site, it ran into capacity issues with the mail store and when it runs out of space you are completely stuffed - I've heard it has improved since, and for anyone administering it I really hope it has, but how it became so popular up until then is a mystery. Client wise, apart from the fact that Outlook integrates with a calendar feature, Outlook is the worst piece of mail software I've ever had the misfortune to work with; it is forever running out of space for mail and you end up archiving stuff, messing around with mail stores, etc.. The whole concept, on both server and client side, of putting everything into a monumental single file creating a single point of failure seems to be a disaster waiting to happen - on a regular basis. The other issue currently annoying me may be a policy decision on the part of the administrator. I have a mail account that is run on an Exchange server, but to access it I can't use my standard mail client, it has to use native Exchange protocols. This is fine for my desktop as I just use the webmail interface, which seems to be just as nasty and awkward as most webmail apps, but no worse; I still have to remember to check it separately though, which I often forget to do and miss emails. On my phone, however, things get worse as I need a native app; this wouldn't be so bad except for the fact that in order to install a native Exchange email client I have to give the server adminstrator full authority to completely wipe my phone - not a hope. If they supply me a dedicate phone fair enough, but not my own phone - actually they have supplied me a tablet to use, but because I have to check mail on a separate device, once again it gets left; having it on the devices you always use tends to make it easier and more likely to be checked. The other reason I have the tablet is to read documentation related to this on, but don't get me started on the joys running a full Windows 7 desktop over RDP on a 7 tablet where you have to use the touch screen as a touchpad to actually move the mouse around and click on things - I keep forgetting the incantation for right clicking, and tapping often moves the mouse in the process given the resolution of the desktop vs screen/touchpad! Touch screens create more problems than they solve. -- Paul Tansom | Aptanet Ltd. | http://www.aptanet.com/ | 023 9238 0001 = Registered in England | Company No: 4905028 | Registered Office: Ralls House, Parklands
Re: [Hampshire] Munich Council was: (no subject)
On 20 Aug 2014, at 23:48, Paul Tansom p...@aptanet.com wrote: ** Joseph Bennie j...@lincore.com [2014-08-20 19:22]: On 20 Aug 2014, at 18:29, pavithran pavithra...@gmail.com wrote: On 20 August 2014 16:16, Joseph Bennie j...@lincore.com wrote: snip The other issues are all with Exchange being advertised as superior product which is just bollocks they could get a decent mail/communication platform with GNU/Linux They might get a superior product on any platform, but last I checked Outlook with an Exchange backend was vey usable and with lync and Active directory integration its nearly omnipresent! For the record, I dislike outlook a lot and prefer the simpler world of mail on my mac and ical with gmail as my server side. On linux I’m undecided … I usually resort to sylpheed on windows and linux but here’s the difference. I and maybe you think clean elegant mail client, we are also a small, possibly, single entity that needs to be agile with our choice of app and can use gmail in the background. …. Outlook, Lync and Exchange is a communication juggernaught! and the people who use it expect it to hold 10+ years of email securely and reliably for 200+ people and it be accessible everywhere! … that takes a lot of energy and a lot of trust! so when you look at the need that exchange+outlook solves I really don’t see a clear open source alternative, that is less work, more reliable and costs less to implement. and that is the real problem! when you need big reliable systems onsite … you need to trust it - and it needs to work perfectly. … but if exchange is that important … it could be implemented in insolation, and use the gnome/Evolution client as a substitute for Outlook … so either someone internally is being a zealot or someone forgot to point out it's ok to mix and match! hell they could even put it on Azure in a few mouse clicks! and a few more to enable IMAP4 with TLS! Rule 4: not all problems are solved with the same solution. Identify which problem you want to solve and built/use the right tool of the job. ** end quote [Joseph Bennie] When it comes to the fact that Exchange is an integrated suite with a single client app I sort of understand peoples liking for it. When I have had to work with it, either the couple of times I've worked on the server or when I've used a client I really don't get it big time. I've not worked with it since Exchange 2003 thankfully, but then, even on a relatively small site, it ran into capacity issues with the mail store and when it runs out of space you are completely stuffed - I've heard it has improved since, and for anyone administering it I really hope it has, but how it became so popular up until then is a mystery. Client wise, apart from the fact that Outlook integrates with a calendar feature, Outlook is the worst piece of mail software I've ever had the misfortune to work with; it is forever running out of space for mail and you end up archiving stuff, messing around with mail stores, etc.. The whole concept, on both server and client side, of putting everything into a monumental single file creating a single point of failure seems to be a disaster waiting to happen - on a regular basis. the 2012 version and its spawn were completely rewritten and now work as 4 separate parts with can be installed on multiple nodes to achieve a fully distributed service layer and data store…. and would you believe it support for standard transports, not just proprietary. and for the home admin, there is a one button install option, which works well. But the real trick is making sure you have the correct public dns entries for all the client zeroconfig stuff and an annual subscription to dyn.com mail relay. (or similar) The other issue currently annoying me may be a policy decision on the part of the administrator. I have a mail account that is run on an Exchange server, but to access it I can't use my standard mail client, it has to use native Exchange protocols. This is fine for my desktop as I just use the webmail interface, which seems to be just as nasty and awkward as most webmail apps, but no worse; I still have to remember to check it separately though, which I often forget to do and miss emails. On my phone, however, things get worse as I need a native app; this wouldn't be so bad except for the fact that in order to install a native Exchange email client I have to give the server adminstrator full authority to completely wipe my phone - not a hope. If they supply me a dedicate phone fair enough, but not my own phone - actually they have supplied me a tablet to use, but because I have to check mail on a separate device, once again it gets left; having it on the devices you always use tends to make it easier and more likely to be checked. activeSync works on the vast majority of devices, including android and legacy Nokia so it
