Munich Chooses Debian as its Distro
April 16, 2005 1 Comment
Looks like Munich has selected a Distro for its Linux migration. While it was Suse, along with IBM, that did the original year-long pilot, the city choose to go with Debian for the final rollout. One has to wonder if Suse would have been selected if it was still an independent Germany company, and not a division of US based Novell. The Debian distro will be customized for this job and they hope to begin the migration by the end of the year. This is one of the largest government Linux migrations ever and its outcome could have a huge impact on future uptake of Linux in government, so this is definitely something to keep a close eye on. It's so important in fact that it was reported that when the original decision was made, MSFT CEO Steve Ballmer cut short a ski vacation in Switzerland to travel to Munich to speak with the mayor. Clearly, whatever he said wasn't able to sway the decision.
–jeremy
Jeremy's Blog 
Well, that kind of sucks for Suse, but it could be a win for all software developers. This might be the type of leverage that is needed to ensure that restrictive and unnecessary patent laws do not take hold in Europe. One can hope. Sometimes I feel like I am letting my European neighbors down when I sit here in North America while the are out in the streets demonstrating (there's no way I could afford to travel there for the protests)