The city of Munich is replacing Windows with Linux on 14,000 desktop computers. For a secretary who has to do email and type simple documents, that will probably be fine.

Here’s my question. What about all the people who need to run software that doesn’t run on Linux? The article said Munich uses 175 custom Windows applications, all of which would need to be ported. And what about major commercial applications for which there’s no equivalent? I guarantee you that somewhere out of those 14,000 desktops there’s someone using Quark to publish an important report. Even if there were an equivalent for Linux, which there isn’t, it wouldn’t be the format that the printers are used to receiving. There are probably a lot of people with custom Access databases. How do they access their data?

I suspect what will really happen is that they’ll roll out Linux everywhere, and then every mid-level bureaucrat will realize they can’t do their job because some application they need just doesn’t run on Linux, and they’ll buy Windows XP at full retail price, burying the costs in expense reports or petty cash or somewhere else. And eventually Munich will buy so much Microsoft software at retail price, without the benefit of a negotiated discount, that Microsoft will make more money and Munich will start to realize that they’re paying twice for software: once for the politically correct shelfware ($2550 per desktop for Linux, so it sort of sounds unbelievable) and once for the software they need to get their jobs done.

Either that or they’ll simply be unable to do their jobs, and, like bureaucrats everywhere, they won’t tell anyone, while the municipality quietly falls apart.

New Stuff day!

Vault 1.1

SourceGear’s new source code control system, Vault, is now shipping version 1.1 — the first source control system with FogBUGZ integration built in. Marc LaFleur writes: “After a few minutes I was impressed, after a few days I am in love with it.”

CityDesk 2.0 (Beta 2.0.7)

CityDesk 2.0 got one step closer to shipping; today we released the fourth version of the beta. For this beta release we’ve been doing a lot of work around the quality of generated HTML; our WYSIWYG editor is now whitespace-preserving and generates valid xhtml.

We decided to release two new versions of CityDesk this year: one now, and one at the end of the year. The 2.0 release is intended to be a “polishing” of 1.0. Our goal was to make CityDesk a much more satisfying product for our current users, people who are happy with 1.0 but could be made even happier with some key enhancements. We’ve fixed literally hundreds of bugs and annoyances. You may not have noticed many of the bugs, most are quite rare, but we have a compulsive need to fix all the little tiny broken things before we create major new areas of functionality.

At the end of the year we will release 3.0 which will have some major architectural enhancements. It will still be the same great CityDesk you’ve come to know and love, but it will include major new features designed to satisfy a much wider range of projects.

But the Playstation is Not Tax Deductible.

For the new office, I ordered a Pioneer PDP-4330HD high-definition, flat-screen plasma TV. I chose this unit because all the electronics and connections are in a separate box which can be 20′ away from the display. The box has a VGA jack in the front so it’s easy to plug in a laptop and project in 1024×768 mode.

Clay Shirky, brilliant as usual: “Now, when I say these are three things you have to accept, I mean you have to accept them. Because if you don’t accept them upfront, they’ll happen to you anyway. And then you’ll end up writing one of those documents that says ‘Oh, we launched this and we tried it, and then the users came along and did all these weird things. And now we’re documenting it so future ages won’t make this mistake.’ Even though you didn’t read the thing that was written in 1978.”

Echo

Since it’s so easy to create all kinds of XML feeds with CityDesk, I thought I’d create an experimental Echo feed, in hopes of officially being the first publisher on earth to use the new format, along with all the celebrity and fanfare that should entail. The feed is here. It is generated with off-the-shelf CityDesk (well, the 2.0 beta).

Please be aware that the Echo syntax itself is still changing rapidly and while I will attempt to keep up with those changes, I may not always be able to do so.

Please email me to suggest corrections to the format or if you notice something that doesn’t match the rapidly-evolving spec.

Jason Fried likes this dialog from OmniWeb 4.5 :

I have to disagree. I think it’s a nice feature that shouldn’t be advertising itself, it should just happen automatically and silently. It’s a permanent redirect, that’s what it means, and designers of web browsers know that a lot better than users, so why should users be inflicted with the need to make a complicated decision about something they don’t understand as well as the software designers? Especially in the form of a modal dialog that interrupts whatever the user is trying to accomplish.

Unnecessary UIs like this that pop up to brag about a cool feature the developer implemented are a little bit obnoxious. Too many software developers just can’t bring themselves to implement completely invisible features. They need to show off about what a great feature they just implemented, even at the cost of confusing people. Really great UI design disappears. It’s a matter of taking away, not adding. Is this dialog any better than the Windows Help Find Setup Wizard?

For devotees of the arsDigita soap opera, another insider’s view. Much overlooked in the fact that incompetent VCs destroyed the company was the fact that demand for the company’s product (Internet consulting) had plummeted.

From Aaron Swartz‘s devastatingly funny parody of Tufte’s latest:

• PowerPoint is standard…
• …but bad.
• Why?

 

 Does anyone have any experience with the quality of the IP*Works components? (Discuss)

Scoop: Salam Pax has a photo blog.

Construction has finally begun on the new Fog Creek office. Remember how I said you should start looking for an office nine months before you need it? Make that ten.

Beware National News Magazines Claiming Cycles Are Permanent

Fortune writes, “Professionals have never had a tougher time finding a job. It’s not just the economy; the rules of the game are changing.” This is, quite frankly, no different than four years ago during the “New Economy” bullshit when they were blabbing about a new, permanently high level for stock prices as if there would never be business cycles again. It’s just bullshit. The economy is cyclical and has been for hundreds of years. In fact the sure sign that things are about to change is when the conventional wisdom becomes, “things will never change.”

Cover Letters

Here’s some advice for people writing cover letters. Don’t take any of the standard career-services-office advice for writing cover letters, or your cover letter will look exactly like everyone else’s cover letter. If you write one of those “I work great on teams but am also a strong independent worker” cover letters, your cover letter will look just like everyone else’s, and you won’t stand out. The way to stand out is to write a letter that reflects your unique personality and highlights the reasons why you want to work at the place to which you are applying. 95% of the cover letters I receive do not include anything about Fog Creek and show no sign that they have been customized in any way for the job in question. This sends a signal that you are simply spamming your resume to hundreds of jobs, which, in turn, sends a signal that you are both desperate and not willing to work very hard.

Here’s the thing: the very best candidates have come to realize that they have a choice of where to work, and when they apply for a job, they are applying because there’s something intriguing about that particular job, not because they’ll take any work that comes along. And you can see it in their cover letters. For example, if I were to see something like “I’m happy where I am, but I’ve always wanted to move to New York and if Fog Creek is anything like you describe it on your website, it sounds like a great place” you would sound a lot more desirable than someone who writes, “You will find that I am a very hard worker.” If you make your cover letter interesting, make it personal, and drop hints that you have choices in the world, you will sound more like one of the top 1% candidates.

By the way, we received something like eighty applications for our opening. Probably 50% of those people were qualified and at least ten of them were great. I won’t say more because we’re still in the interviewing stage.

Fog Creek is hiring a Support Engineer. (This position has been filled.)

Steve Pavlina has written up some great business tips for shareware and games developers.

Steven Den Beste: “Citydesk cannot be beaten.” [Well, not without knowing the cheat codes.]

Ellen Ullman’s new book The Bug is a terrific novel about a programmer coming unravelled because of a killer bug nicknamed The Jester which seems to only appear at the worst possible times. Highly recommended. (There’s a bug in the book, too, probably left in as a reward for real programmers. I don’t want to spoil it for you so I’ll describe it in an HTML comment right here.)