[hiddenfeatures]

Wait... That's what I am paying my taxes for? That's where my money goes?

I am NOT against Linux being more widely used. And I like the idea that the city uses Linux to save money & more efficient.

But pushing citizens to use Linux is NOT government business

[keithpeter]

"But pushing citizens to use Linux is NOT government business"

Not sure where you are from, but in Europe/UK local governments do get involved in promoting what might be described as lifestyle choices. E.g. smoking cessation, getting more exercise, healthy eating, making recycled furniture available cheap to poor people by establishing and promoting 'social enterprises' as we call them in the uk.

I see the free CDs as that really, just saying 'there is an alternative to chucking your old PC away, just try this and see if it is enough for you'. Not so much pushing linux from any political/anti-microsoft position, just saying you don't have to spend (more) money.

[mathnode]

Yes. Less waste, and in theory users will be given more secure and up to date software experience, which should provide safety and confidence for online shopping, for more tasty taxable purchases.

+1 for environment +1 for Capitalism

EDIT: last +1 for education, and employment. No need to get a new fancy computer to do your homework or write a CV.

[keithpeter]

Not to mention reduction in costs for local and national government if people can fill in forms online as opposed to paper or going to an office...

[skaevola]

But that would require the local government to allow forms to be submitted online. Which mine hasn't :(

[keithpeter]

UK: big push to get 'open government' going and my local council has a big advertising campaign getting people to use their web pages. Not always online, some services mainly call centre based.

I imagine this will vary widely by country

[sageikosa]

The CDs may be free to the recipients, but they were not zero cost. The money to procure them came from somewhere.

[keithpeter]

Yes, of course. My local government spends quite a lot on marketing and publicising the social enterprises I mentioned in grandparent post.

A few thousand CDs won't cost that much. Canonical themselves supply Ubuntu CDs for £80 per 100. I'd imagine it gets a lot cheaper per 1000.

You can pay £900 to advertise a job in our local paper, and that is for a 10cm two column advert with two insertions. I had to pay £100 to move a piano not so long ago (specialist private mover).

[v0lta]

Of course not, but CDs are incredibly cheap if produced in great numbers. And as a German I can only agree with keithpeter. It's perfectly normal for local government to spend tax-money outside of "classic" duties to promote a public issue. Especially something with an environmental background.

Something else you should keep in mind is, that Munich is pushing towards electronic bureaucracy, which would require access to a PC by everyone.

[sageikosa]

Perfectly normal is an observation of frequency of occurrence, and one I won't dispute. "hiddenfeatures" was complaining that this was (to paraphrase with words from your observation) "perfectly normal", which he found odd in that his tax money was promoting this, when he didn't see this as a government function.

"keithpeter" referenced that in Europe/UK (and I will confirm that various jurisdictions in the US of A do so as well) local governments promote all sorts of pet social projects. At this point "keithpeter" referenced free CDs.

That's when I pointed out the CDs were not free to produce which was "hiddenfeatures" point about tax money going to promote a product.

Now, I'm not sure where "hiddenfeatures" is from, but I am from the US of A, and things like this do happen here as well, and some people don't like it for a variety of reasons. Constitutionalists, for instance can't find Linux promotion in any of the original Articles, nor in any Amendments.

For me anytime I see even small amounts of money spent I compare it to what I've been taxed for the year and calculate how much of my money went to support the program. If its less than I have been taxed, I can claim to have completely funded the program, if it's more, then I can calculate how many years I had to work to completely fund this a program. If it's far more than I can be taxed in a lifetime, I try to calculate how many people like me will have all of their lifetime tax money poured into said program.

[keithpeter]

> "For me anytime I see even small amounts of money spent I compare it to what I've been taxed for the year and calculate how much of my money went to support the program."

Does your analysis include any estimate of corresponding benefits, specifically reduction in costs down the line?

[sageikosa]

Yes, I calculate benefits when I spend my money. When the government spends my money I ask why, if its because the government will then spend less of my money on something else, I ask why is the government doing the other thing to begin with.

I'm pretty sure blood won't run in the streets and mass murderers won't roam with impunity if we don't install Linux on our old boxes.

I'm all for the government being limited to fewer things, so the political will has less to argue about, and we can all get back to talking about the weather and arguing about religion.

[muuh-gnu]

> But pushing citizens to use Linux is NOT government business

Why not? The goverment standardizes everything else, from screws to seat belts to yogurts, why not stop the crazy update-planned-obsolescence cycle pushed by commercial entities and agree on a "standard UI" for normal people?

The amount of unnecessary changes in UIs has become unbearably crazy. And since those changes are forced from all sides, there is no way to vote with your wallet.

Whoever wants to constantly relearn the same stuff over and over and over, and today relearn the Ribbon, tomorrow Metro, and so on, is free to do it. But normal, everyday folks should not have to deal with this shit. Computers are supposed to be boring, everyday tools to accomplish everyday tasks, not fashion statements.

If the commercial world is not willing or able to keep computers useful tools, the goverment has to step in and slow down the amount of changes and prevent the giant waste of tediously gathered know-how.

[skaevola]

Most standards are not set by the government, they're set by professional organizations. See ANSI:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_National_Standards_Ins...

Safety standards ARE often set by the government, but more general standards mostly are not.

By the way, the position you're arguing for is literally the opposite of innovation. Imagine if, after Apple unveiled the iPhone, the government had discouraged its adoption because it removed people's hard-won knowledge of using Motorola flip phones. I guess Motorola would have been happy!

[muuh-gnu]

> the position you're arguing for is literally the opposite of innovation.

So what? I dont see any innovation here. It is haute couture like change for changes sake masqueraded as innovation.

Computers have become too important tools to allow a few key players to enforce a crazy planned obsolescence cycle.

> Imagine if, after Apple unveiled the iPhone

I was not talking about toys.

[hiddenfeatures]

> Why not?

That is exactly the WRONG question. Government power & influence needs to be restricted to the bare minimum necessary - for the security(!) of its citizen.

We can all clearly see what extensive government power leads to. Just wait for the HN front page to be flooded again with reports about Snowden/PRISM.

There are certain tasks that should be put in the hands of the government (ensuring the rule of law, national defense, making sure free elections happen) and others that have a good ROI (education / healthcare). But beyond that, it is just more power to the wrong institution.

Going completely 1984 here: Today they distribute Linux, tomorrow they distribute Linux with a Rootkit pre-installed.

Regarding UI changes: Boy... I hate those. 20 years of Moore's law have left us with incredibly powerful computers and we manage to waste all that raw power, those billions of CPU cycles per second on fancy UI. You are completely right - from a technical, educated standpoint.

BUT, that's not how the human brain works. For your average consumer the rule of thumb is "if it looks fresh, it is fresh". Plain & simple. They don't "get" that NTFS now supports transactions and that atomicity in file operations is like the holy grail and just completely awesome - but "Oh boy! That start button with lights up when I move the mouse over it!!!!"

Tell you what: Microsoft has that shit figured out - at least with every other version ;-)

[cmsmith]

I'm not sure that we want to short-circuit competition in the industry with one of the highest rates of innovation over the past 20 years. If we had followed this strategy, we'd all still be using Windows 3.1.

[shadowfox]

> Whoever wants to constantly relearn the same stuff over and over and over, and today relearn the Ribbon, tomorrow Metro, and so on, is free to do it. But normal, everyday folks should not have to deal with this shit

I like and use Linux. But I wouldn't say that it is great at providing a stable user interface. Things keep changing in in as many arbitrary ways as it does with Windows, perhaps even more.

[jabiko]

The intention of the city is not to push its citizens to use Linux. They just want you to install Linux instead of disposing your old PC because it's not capable of running a newer version of Windows than XP.

Sources (German):

- Original motion: http://www.ris-muenchen.de/RII2/RII/DOK/ANTRAG/2927956.pdf

- News article: http://www.heise.de/open/meldung/Muenchen-will-Windows-Ausst...

[velodrome]

An indirect benefit is teaching the younger generation to be more proficient with linux.

Many of these old PCs can be used as hand-me-downs for young kids. Some of these kids will eventually work for the city and contribute to existing infrastructure. Also, let's not forget economies of scale (ie. labor, ecosystem, etc) to further reduce costs.

Makes sense to me. Think of this as dogfooding.

[keithpeter]

As I was reminded in another comment many Atom based 1Gb netbooks were sold with XP and a 160Gb hard drive. Such a machine can run ubuntustudio well, and allow a young person to do quite a lot with audio, images and some low-fi video.

[Spooky23]

Windows 8 is cratering new PC adoption -- many people, especially folks who are not technically adept, hate it.

So a German government decided to invest a small amount of money to help citizens utilize an alternative to insecure Windows XP.

[xradionut]

Plenty of folks who are technically adept, dislike it as well.

[venomsnake]

It is terrible. Yesterday I had to go long ways to help a friend install skype on w8. The thing pushed her towards the metro version and microsoft account.

So i had to find a direct link to desktop installer. Every non IT user I have seen hates 8. Most of the ITs too.