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Microsoft Alternatives project (MAlt): Taking back control using open software

231 points by jrepinc 7y ago

carwyn 7y ago
This is perhaps the most poignant comment in the article: "CERN has enjoyed special conditions for the use of Microsoft products for the last 20 years, by virtue of its status as an “academic institution”. However, recently, the company has decided to revoke CERN’s academic status, a measure that took effect at the end of the previous contract in March 2019, replaced by a new contract based on user numbers, increasing the license costs by more than a factor of ten."
- BlueTemplar 7y ago
  Reminds me of the recent Google Maps price increase. My nearly million-people town's public transport route planning software has had frequent outages since...
  - asark 7y ago
    If there's one widely used Internet or Web service that seems like it really ought to be run by the government, it's mapping and routing. It's kinda infrastructure, governments have or should have the info already, and there's not much benefit to having multiple projects handling it. The data and basic API should at least come from a government source, I'd say. Let companies but whatever sugar they want on top of that (streetview, say).
    - jedimastert 7y ago
      It's not really run IRL though, or at least the US government isn't putting out official atlases (I don't think?)
      - HillRat 7y ago
        The Census Bureau’s TIGER/Line is the authoritative repository of US streets and features data, regularly updated by municipalities and counties. For-profit mapping services augment the data and use drivers to make sure they’re on top of streets changes, but you can do a great deal of work with just Census and municipal GIS data.
        mixmastamyk 7y ago
        Used Tiger as my first online map in the mid 90s, thanks for the blast from the past. Probably found it thru "Cool site of the day."
        Somasis 7y ago
        TIGER's great, but if you're going to use it you might as well just use OpenStreetMap in the end; a lot of the data in the US is based on TIGER data and then reviewed, as TIGER has had a lot of issues with things like misnamed roads and misalignments of roads.
      - throwaway2048 7y ago
        The United States Geological Survey releases tons of mapping data.
    - syshum 7y ago
      IN the US there are multiple government programs that are suppose to Track GIS data including Roads, however like with all things government it is very expensive, inefficient, and of low to poor accuracy. There are entire teams of people in the OpenStreetMaps project dedicated to fixing the inaccuracies of these government databases This is why google spends m/billions having people physically drive the roads and walk around cities (and to get live photos) I never really understand why people want government to take over things, in the history of government there is never been a well run, properly executed, highly efficient service. Government by it very nature is incapable of producing good services
      - maxerickson 7y ago
        OpenStreetMap imported a bunch of US data while Census was in the middle of a project to improve the quality of their data. The stuff that had been improved is pretty good. The stuff that hadn't been improved isn't tracking the current version of the government data, it's from 2007 or whatever.
      - deleted 7y ago
        [deleted]
      - mattkrause 7y ago
        Nonsense. The CDC does a fantastic job keeping tabs on diseases. The FAA has made air travel ridiculously safe. NOAA and NASA produce accurate forecasts of weather and tides. The National Parks are gems. GPS is absolutely amazing.
    - mises 7y ago
      Do you really want to see your nice, clean google maps application replaced by committee-designed garbage? Besides, where in the Constitution does it say that's allowed? The only reason GPS turned out as well as it did was because it was a military service opened to the public.
      - foota 7y ago
        What? The constitution doesn't have to explicitly allow something. And your argument for GPS turning out well would seem to be an argument in favor of government controlled systems working well?
        syshum 7y ago
        >>>The constitution doesn't have to explicitly allow something Yes it actually does, if the Constitution does not Grant the power to the Government then that power is Reserved for the States and the people We have forgotten what the constitution is, it is a document outlines what the government is allowed to do, everything else is suppose to be forbidden. Instead somehow over the last 200 years a few of the vague parts of the constitution have be misinterpreted (the commerce clause as an exampled) to give the federal government near unlimited power
        foota 7y ago
        Honestly? I don't really care what the constitution says, I think it makes way more sense for our government to have a blacklist of laws they can pass rather than a whitelist. That said though, I acknowledge that you're right. Fortunately for me, the courts seem to disagree :-)
        syshum 7y ago
        It only makes sense if you support Authoritarian governments and oppose liberty for individuals Granting the government unlimited authority then "blacklisting" only come things is a recipe for abuse, which is what we have today if you are a person that believes in individualist freedoms it is a fundamental difference as to who is the master and who is the servant, you believe the people are subverted to the government. I believe like our founders that We the people are the masters, I believe in self-governance, I believe in Self Ownership, I believe in liberty. it is sad we as a society has lost respect for indivualism and liberty
    - moksly 7y ago
      It kind of already is, but there isn't a coordinated global effort of any kind. Every GIS department has an unbelievable amount of mapping information. Because we need to, and because a lot of governments, especially in Europe, it's illegal for us to rely on google because they track too much. Some of the data is private, and rightly so, as it contains detailed private informations of properties used for internal BI. In Skanderborg Kommune of Denmark, the GIS department has even started running it's own street-view feature. But again, that's just a tiny piece of the total area of Denmark and neighboring cities might do things completely different. We do have national initiatives like opendata.dk, that tries to extend APIs for all this data, but that's still just on a national level. I think open street map should really be the "google maps" option exactly because it's both open and global, and I do think the public sector should put as much of it's data into it as possible, but I have no idea how we should fund it.
      - toomuchtodo 7y ago
        > but I have no idea how we should fund it. Grants from government bodies, with governance and stakeholders in the non-profit that operates OSM. Once that is in place, it becomes straightforward for governments and other contributors to treat OSM as the canonical Source Of GIS Truth.
    - _pmf_ 7y ago
      And it piggybacks from an operational standpoint on GPS, so currently the private service leverages the public one.
    - nerd7473 7y ago
      I agree with you there. It's an important service that was orginally created by the military (though I'm not sure which one).
pianoben 7y ago
Two thoughts come to my mind. One, this article and the project it covers will be good negotiating leverage against Microsoft's fee increases. I wouldn't be surprised if they end up winning back lower license fees and sticking with MS in the long run. Two, what a boneheaded move on Microsoft's part, PR-wise. CERN is an internationally-respected research institution which is widely admired by the kinds of people who make purchasing decisions. Why poke the bear, especially when business is going so well?
- downrightmike 7y ago
  Short term investment's need for ever growing revenue/profits. If they raise everyone's license costs 23% this year, investors will be happy. Then MSFT will have to raise their rates again next year.
- rat9988 7y ago
  From a different point of view, I don't see using PR to have lower fees very ethical. It looks to me like "lower our fees, or we are gonna trash you in our PR, and you know we have a good reputation".
  - rootsofallevil 7y ago
    I guess it depends on whether CERN merits academic status or not. If it does, then this is fine. If it doesn't then I agree. It seems to me that CERN is a research institute but whether that is counted as an academic institution, from a licensing POV, is a different question
    - jhbadger 7y ago
      As somebody who has worked at research institutes in the US, this comes up a lot. Some companies say that an academic user must have an e-mail address ending in ".edu" (which in the US means a school or university), but others define it more broadly to include non-profit research institutes as well. It gets murky because many research institutes actually have grad students doing their projects there (even if they are officially enrolled at a university elsewhere).
cookiecaper 7y ago
This project sounds awesome, but apparently one has to be a CERN employee/affiliate/something to see the referenced project page with all the details? Clicking the links to http://cern.ch/malt http://cern.ch/malt just takes one to a login page. Used the Google auth option and get forwarded to a page that says I'm not authorized.
- batbomb 7y ago
  This is endemic to many CERN projects, even things that are often open source are behind a login. Or - the source (or export of it from CERN's GitLab) will be available, but documentation is behind a login page.
  - dessant 7y ago
    Reminds me of Mozilla issues on GitHub and Bugzilla. You'll find important discussions that reference Google Docs documents with plans for architectural changes, roadmaps, or other details pertaining to the issue, but the documents are restricted to Mozilla employees. This is especially frustrating if you want to learn more about the issue, or you'd like to contribute to the project. https://github.com/search?q=org%3Amozilla+docs.google.com&type=Issues https://github.com/search?q=org%3Amozilla+docs.google.com&ty...
    - kumarharsh 7y ago
      It's the same with several Facebook projects.
  - XenophileJKO 7y ago
    That is an interesting point. If they "default" to private seems a little like wanting their cake and eating it too.
Proven 7y ago
Taking control of what? It's a simplistic view. Not that it's necessarily wrong, but in some cases you may gain control of your software but lose control over your time (lower productivity) or income. It's a blanket judgment to say everyone would gain from switching to libre alternatives. I don't have an opinion about the choice they made. I only believe it doesn't work for every user out there. For example personally I'd rather let MS control the software and pay them market price for it, than take on the burden of trying to control everything (impossible).
mattnewport 7y ago
They seem to be primarily concerned with the free as in beer rather than the free as in speech aspects of open source and in "taking back control" of their software licensing costs. Nothing wrong with that but it doesn't seem like the most important battle in today's world of surveillance capitalism to me.
- Create 7y ago
  Because CERN is pretty much active in the global surveillance effort (recruiting and training), hence the authwall people are discussing above. The previous DG openly despised anonymity.
  - jononor 7y ago
    How exactly is CERN involved with that?
  - swebs 7y ago
    Are you confusing reality with Steins;Gate?
  - sneakernets 7y ago
    Pff, everyone knows all you need is an old IBM computer, a hot pocket, and a circuit-bent microwave to outsmart CERN.
gen3 7y ago
I'm honestly pretty happy about this. I'm hoping that by aiming to replace the commercial products they use with opensource alternatives, the alternatives leave with a better polish and user experience. I also see CERN as an institution that is willing to hire the devs needed to maintain / support a project.
- 300bps 7y ago
  I also see CERN as an institution that is willing to hire the devs needed to maintain / support a project. I didn't see where CERN said how much the licensing costs were per year but they did say that their MAlt project is a cost-saving initiative. Developers are pretty expensive right now.
  - m0zg 7y ago
    They are nowhere near as expensive in Europe, where CERN operates. Yes, even in Switzerland.
    - 12345675456tyg 7y ago
      Really? I'm a Swiss citizen who works in an international team with colleagues in the U.S.A., and I don't see any difference between my income and theirs. Could you elaborate? I'm genuinely interested.
  - PretzelFisch 7y ago
    They will need to hire more then just developers to run a successful software project
  - ForHackernews 7y ago
    I'd do work on a CERN-led libre software project for free. If CERN can put together the right management structure, I suspect they'd have plenty of devs willing to volunteer. Of course, organizing a large distributed free software effort is its own challenge.
- berti 7y ago
PretzelFisch 7y ago
Even at 10x the price commercial software, could be cheaper than building/maintaining their own replacement products.
- c487bd62 7y ago
  And when they raise the price to 20x or start doing something shady you can just move everything to a cheaper and more ethical competitor. Except that you can't.
- mr_toad 7y ago
  If they can do for email & telephony what they did for the web, they wont need to maintain it themselves.
- imglorp 7y ago
  There are many, many other advantages to open source than price.
- la_barba 7y ago
  I remember being shocked after reading in the MS lawsuit that IE cost 100 million dollars to develop in like the 90s. What!? I wonder how much Google has spent on Chrome..
Theodores 7y ago
The Microsoft products are probably mostly being used by admin staff rather than Nobel Prize winners at CERN. They probably have the canteen menu typed up in Word and the receptionists using Microsoft Outlook. Then in the visitor centre some automated Powerpoint presentations for passing five year olds to learn about the atom. The point of an educational discount is that it is for the core educational stuff. I doubt that they are running Microsoft Access on any of those supercomputers and I doubt that 49 Petabytes of data goes onto NTFS formatted storage. They probably got sold an enterprise educational deal decades ago when Microsoft were trying to indoctrinate all students to learn their products. I mean, why use LaTeX when you can do it in half the time in Word? It was good at the time. CERN were well placed to do everything with the WWW and have a culture of it, to be doing things the Chromebook way where you don't have desktop software any more. Maybe Microsoft have given the kick they need and maybe peripheral admin things should be paying for Microsoft software since these subsidiary operations are not hardcore research.
- tyingq 7y ago
  It sounds like the first two products being moved off of are Outlook/Exchange and Skype, and that use of those is fairly widespread.
- eesmith 7y ago
  Your description doesn't seem relevant. Most universities don't have Nobel Prize winners, so the ratio of winners to support staff is 0. Most universities also do have canteens and receptions .. and yes, many even have visitor centres. As https://www.timeshighereducation.com/news/academics-minority-more-two-thirds-uk-universities https://www.timeshighereducation.com/news/academics-minority... points out, "Academics in the minority at more than two-thirds of UK universities" Support staff, btw, might include a glass blower for the chemistry department .. who does no teaching but may also print up a price list in Word. So the educational discount cannot be meant for only "the core educational staff" as that's simply not the observed policy at universities.
ChuckMcM 7y ago
TL;DR version: CERN used Microsoft software under academic licencing terms, Microsoft revoked the terms and created a 10x cost increase (and budget hole). CERN is going to replace the software with something else. This is such a beautiful, real life, example of the Piracy Paradox that I've kept a copy in my Evernote database. The Piracy Paradox is this; Vendor A counts the number of copies of their software that are running in a region/venue/company, multiplies by the list price of that software, then subtracts the revenue received and comes up with a number they are "losing due to piracy." The assumption, which the media often simply buys into, is that if the software were impossible to obtain without paying list price, the vendor would receive much more more money. However, the reality is that if you could make the software impossible to obtain, then the revenue received would simply be zero. It wouldn't be purchased because it is priced above the market value of its utility to the customer. The result is that the "piracy numbers" that are bandied about, whether it is for CAD software, DVD movies, or Computer Games, is overstated by three or even four orders of magnitude. Validation that this effect was a real effect has been proven multiple times, the two most famous examples have been the "99 cent single" price of iTunes and the watch all you want video subscription service of NetFlix. In both cases, the arrival of a pricing system that more accurately reflected the value perception of the consumer, whether it was that albums/CDs were too expensive to buy for the one or two songs you really cared about, or that DVDs were over priced for the occasional viewing, better pricing schemes reduced the amount of digital content that was used outside the terms of a use license dramatically. The challenge for vendors is that the products they sell just aren't worth the same amount to every possible consumer. There are tools available to evaluate the elastic cost value of a fungible service but implementing them is challenging. I am really surprised that Microsoft didn't negotiate something that would give them some revenue, as it stands the success of this effort will reduce revenue from CERN from what it was to nearly zero it seems. I'm guessing there was a cost increase between 2x and maybe 5x that would have not kicked off this effort. And of course a number of large laboratories will see the success of CERN and then they too will eliminate Microsoft as a cost item in their budget (ideally to spend more on the science, but sadly that isn't always the case).
IloveHN84 7y ago
It would be interesting also to have an Apple Alternatives version, especially for system apps (iOS and Mac OS)
- sgt101 7y ago
  Android and Linux?
mxuribe 7y ago
Cheers to Cern! I'm not above paying for quality software/service...but games like what MS and others play in the name of capitalism, get annoying quickly. Awww, man...The relevant project website is behind a login[0]. Would have loved to see it. In any case, would be cool if big (or at least well-known) orgs. like CERN begin to adopt more open source offerings, and positively stir up vendors who support such OSS offerings. NextCloud comes to mind...now that is a model that i'd like to support at the enterprise level. Software is free, support is paid for - this seems reasonable and fair to me. Once again, kudos to CERN! [0] = http://cern.ch/malt http://cern.ch/malt
- fbartels 7y ago
  > NextCloud comes to mind... Cern is actually for some time already using Owncloud for this. https://owncloud.com/cern-smashbox-and-owncloud-collaboration/ https://owncloud.com/cern-smashbox-and-owncloud-collaboratio...
remir 7y ago
This could be interesting if other institutions and perhaps even public administrations are willing to participate in this effort and pool resources to make this a sustainable thing. That being said, it's difficult to know what this project is targeting since it is behind a login page.
zaphirplane 7y ago
Strange that I need to sign in to see the project page
hereme888 7y ago
So... does anyone have access to the CERN postal and is willing to post non-confidential info on the software alternatives? Otherwise I'll try to get access to the project and post it here.
- fbartels 7y ago
  https://reddit.com/r/linux/comments/bzsmsb/microsoft_alternatives_project_malt/eqyegmk?context=3 https://reddit.com/r/linux/comments/bzsmsb/microsoft_alterna...
ajxs 7y ago
I always have a bit of a grim chuckle when I think back to the days when Microsoft was the boss villain of enterprise software. I even still have a 'KMFMS' T-Shirt in the closet.
lanevorockz 7y ago
Excellent effort, my business runs completely open source since 2000s and it’s always constantly improving. Closed source has so many downsides that it only means that companies that adopt are nothing more than lazy.
hoseja 7y ago
I'd wager a guess that overall, Microsoft has gotten more value out of CERN research (cough www cough) than CERN has gotten out of using Microsoft products.
- notimetorelax 7y ago
  Heh, www is what blindsided Microsoft and they had to catch up.

231 points by jrepinc 7y ago

This is perhaps the most poignant comment in the article: "CERN has enjoyed special conditions for the use of Microsoft products for the last 20 years, by virtue of its status as an “academic institution”. However, recently, the company has decided to revoke CERN’s academic status, a measure that took effect at the end of the previous contract in March 2019, replaced by a new contract based on user numbers, increasing the license costs by more than a factor of ten."

BlueTemplar 7y ago
Reminds me of the recent Google Maps price increase. My nearly million-people town's public transport route planning software has had frequent outages since...
- asark 7y ago
  If there's one widely used Internet or Web service that seems like it really ought to be run by the government, it's mapping and routing. It's kinda infrastructure, governments have or should have the info already, and there's not much benefit to having multiple projects handling it. The data and basic API should at least come from a government source, I'd say. Let companies but whatever sugar they want on top of that (streetview, say).
  - jedimastert 7y ago
    It's not really run IRL though, or at least the US government isn't putting out official atlases (I don't think?)
    - HillRat 7y ago
      The Census Bureau’s TIGER/Line is the authoritative repository of US streets and features data, regularly updated by municipalities and counties. For-profit mapping services augment the data and use drivers to make sure they’re on top of streets changes, but you can do a great deal of work with just Census and municipal GIS data.
      - mixmastamyk 7y ago
        Used Tiger as my first online map in the mid 90s, thanks for the blast from the past. Probably found it thru "Cool site of the day."
      - Somasis 7y ago
        TIGER's great, but if you're going to use it you might as well just use OpenStreetMap in the end; a lot of the data in the US is based on TIGER data and then reviewed, as TIGER has had a lot of issues with things like misnamed roads and misalignments of roads.
    - throwaway2048 7y ago
      The United States Geological Survey releases tons of mapping data.
  - syshum 7y ago
    IN the US there are multiple government programs that are suppose to Track GIS data including Roads, however like with all things government it is very expensive, inefficient, and of low to poor accuracy. There are entire teams of people in the OpenStreetMaps project dedicated to fixing the inaccuracies of these government databases This is why google spends m/billions having people physically drive the roads and walk around cities (and to get live photos) I never really understand why people want government to take over things, in the history of government there is never been a well run, properly executed, highly efficient service. Government by it very nature is incapable of producing good services
    - maxerickson 7y ago
      OpenStreetMap imported a bunch of US data while Census was in the middle of a project to improve the quality of their data. The stuff that had been improved is pretty good. The stuff that hadn't been improved isn't tracking the current version of the government data, it's from 2007 or whatever.
    - deleted 7y ago
      [deleted]
    - mattkrause 7y ago
      Nonsense. The CDC does a fantastic job keeping tabs on diseases. The FAA has made air travel ridiculously safe. NOAA and NASA produce accurate forecasts of weather and tides. The National Parks are gems. GPS is absolutely amazing.
  - mises 7y ago
    Do you really want to see your nice, clean google maps application replaced by committee-designed garbage? Besides, where in the Constitution does it say that's allowed? The only reason GPS turned out as well as it did was because it was a military service opened to the public.
    - foota 7y ago
      What? The constitution doesn't have to explicitly allow something. And your argument for GPS turning out well would seem to be an argument in favor of government controlled systems working well?
      - syshum 7y ago
        >>>The constitution doesn't have to explicitly allow something Yes it actually does, if the Constitution does not Grant the power to the Government then that power is Reserved for the States and the people We have forgotten what the constitution is, it is a document outlines what the government is allowed to do, everything else is suppose to be forbidden. Instead somehow over the last 200 years a few of the vague parts of the constitution have be misinterpreted (the commerce clause as an exampled) to give the federal government near unlimited power
        foota 7y ago
        Honestly? I don't really care what the constitution says, I think it makes way more sense for our government to have a blacklist of laws they can pass rather than a whitelist. That said though, I acknowledge that you're right. Fortunately for me, the courts seem to disagree :-)
        syshum 7y ago
        It only makes sense if you support Authoritarian governments and oppose liberty for individuals Granting the government unlimited authority then "blacklisting" only come things is a recipe for abuse, which is what we have today if you are a person that believes in individualist freedoms it is a fundamental difference as to who is the master and who is the servant, you believe the people are subverted to the government. I believe like our founders that We the people are the masters, I believe in self-governance, I believe in Self Ownership, I believe in liberty. it is sad we as a society has lost respect for indivualism and liberty
  - moksly 7y ago
    It kind of already is, but there isn't a coordinated global effort of any kind. Every GIS department has an unbelievable amount of mapping information. Because we need to, and because a lot of governments, especially in Europe, it's illegal for us to rely on google because they track too much. Some of the data is private, and rightly so, as it contains detailed private informations of properties used for internal BI. In Skanderborg Kommune of Denmark, the GIS department has even started running it's own street-view feature. But again, that's just a tiny piece of the total area of Denmark and neighboring cities might do things completely different. We do have national initiatives like opendata.dk, that tries to extend APIs for all this data, but that's still just on a national level. I think open street map should really be the "google maps" option exactly because it's both open and global, and I do think the public sector should put as much of it's data into it as possible, but I have no idea how we should fund it.
    - toomuchtodo 7y ago
      > but I have no idea how we should fund it. Grants from government bodies, with governance and stakeholders in the non-profit that operates OSM. Once that is in place, it becomes straightforward for governments and other contributors to treat OSM as the canonical Source Of GIS Truth.
  - _pmf_ 7y ago
    And it piggybacks from an operational standpoint on GPS, so currently the private service leverages the public one.
  - nerd7473 7y ago
    I agree with you there. It's an important service that was orginally created by the military (though I'm not sure which one).

pianoben 7y ago

Two thoughts come to my mind. One, this article and the project it covers will be good negotiating leverage against Microsoft's fee increases. I wouldn't be surprised if they end up winning back lower license fees and sticking with MS in the long run. Two, what a boneheaded move on Microsoft's part, PR-wise. CERN is an internationally-respected research institution which is widely admired by the kinds of people who make purchasing decisions. Why poke the bear, especially when business is going so well?

downrightmike 7y ago
Short term investment's need for ever growing revenue/profits. If they raise everyone's license costs 23% this year, investors will be happy. Then MSFT will have to raise their rates again next year.
rat9988 7y ago
From a different point of view, I don't see using PR to have lower fees very ethical. It looks to me like "lower our fees, or we are gonna trash you in our PR, and you know we have a good reputation".
- rootsofallevil 7y ago
  I guess it depends on whether CERN merits academic status or not. If it does, then this is fine. If it doesn't then I agree. It seems to me that CERN is a research institute but whether that is counted as an academic institution, from a licensing POV, is a different question
  - jhbadger 7y ago
    As somebody who has worked at research institutes in the US, this comes up a lot. Some companies say that an academic user must have an e-mail address ending in ".edu" (which in the US means a school or university), but others define it more broadly to include non-profit research institutes as well. It gets murky because many research institutes actually have grad students doing their projects there (even if they are officially enrolled at a university elsewhere).

cookiecaper 7y ago

This project sounds awesome, but apparently one has to be a CERN employee/affiliate/something to see the referenced project page with all the details? Clicking the links to http://cern.ch/malt http://cern.ch/malt just takes one to a login page. Used the Google auth option and get forwarded to a page that says I'm not authorized.

batbomb 7y ago
This is endemic to many CERN projects, even things that are often open source are behind a login. Or - the source (or export of it from CERN's GitLab) will be available, but documentation is behind a login page.
- dessant 7y ago
  Reminds me of Mozilla issues on GitHub and Bugzilla. You'll find important discussions that reference Google Docs documents with plans for architectural changes, roadmaps, or other details pertaining to the issue, but the documents are restricted to Mozilla employees. This is especially frustrating if you want to learn more about the issue, or you'd like to contribute to the project. https://github.com/search?q=org%3Amozilla+docs.google.com&type=Issues https://github.com/search?q=org%3Amozilla+docs.google.com&ty...
  - kumarharsh 7y ago
    It's the same with several Facebook projects.
- XenophileJKO 7y ago
  That is an interesting point. If they "default" to private seems a little like wanting their cake and eating it too.

Proven 7y ago

Taking control of what? It's a simplistic view. Not that it's necessarily wrong, but in some cases you may gain control of your software but lose control over your time (lower productivity) or income. It's a blanket judgment to say everyone would gain from switching to libre alternatives. I don't have an opinion about the choice they made. I only believe it doesn't work for every user out there. For example personally I'd rather let MS control the software and pay them market price for it, than take on the burden of trying to control everything (impossible).

mattnewport 7y ago

They seem to be primarily concerned with the free as in beer rather than the free as in speech aspects of open source and in "taking back control" of their software licensing costs. Nothing wrong with that but it doesn't seem like the most important battle in today's world of surveillance capitalism to me.

Create 7y ago
Because CERN is pretty much active in the global surveillance effort (recruiting and training), hence the authwall people are discussing above. The previous DG openly despised anonymity.
- jononor 7y ago
  How exactly is CERN involved with that?
- swebs 7y ago
  Are you confusing reality with Steins;Gate?
- sneakernets 7y ago
  Pff, everyone knows all you need is an old IBM computer, a hot pocket, and a circuit-bent microwave to outsmart CERN.

gen3 7y ago

I'm honestly pretty happy about this. I'm hoping that by aiming to replace the commercial products they use with opensource alternatives, the alternatives leave with a better polish and user experience. I also see CERN as an institution that is willing to hire the devs needed to maintain / support a project.

300bps 7y ago
I also see CERN as an institution that is willing to hire the devs needed to maintain / support a project. I didn't see where CERN said how much the licensing costs were per year but they did say that their MAlt project is a cost-saving initiative. Developers are pretty expensive right now.
- m0zg 7y ago
  They are nowhere near as expensive in Europe, where CERN operates. Yes, even in Switzerland.
  - 12345675456tyg 7y ago
    Really? I'm a Swiss citizen who works in an international team with colleagues in the U.S.A., and I don't see any difference between my income and theirs. Could you elaborate? I'm genuinely interested.
- PretzelFisch 7y ago
  They will need to hire more then just developers to run a successful software project
- ForHackernews 7y ago
  I'd do work on a CERN-led libre software project for free. If CERN can put together the right management structure, I suspect they'd have plenty of devs willing to volunteer. Of course, organizing a large distributed free software effort is its own challenge.
berti 7y ago

PretzelFisch 7y ago

Even at 10x the price commercial software, could be cheaper than building/maintaining their own replacement products.

c487bd62 7y ago
And when they raise the price to 20x or start doing something shady you can just move everything to a cheaper and more ethical competitor. Except that you can't.
mr_toad 7y ago
If they can do for email & telephony what they did for the web, they wont need to maintain it themselves.
imglorp 7y ago
There are many, many other advantages to open source than price.
la_barba 7y ago
I remember being shocked after reading in the MS lawsuit that IE cost 100 million dollars to develop in like the 90s. What!? I wonder how much Google has spent on Chrome..

Theodores 7y ago

The Microsoft products are probably mostly being used by admin staff rather than Nobel Prize winners at CERN. They probably have the canteen menu typed up in Word and the receptionists using Microsoft Outlook. Then in the visitor centre some automated Powerpoint presentations for passing five year olds to learn about the atom. The point of an educational discount is that it is for the core educational stuff. I doubt that they are running Microsoft Access on any of those supercomputers and I doubt that 49 Petabytes of data goes onto NTFS formatted storage. They probably got sold an enterprise educational deal decades ago when Microsoft were trying to indoctrinate all students to learn their products. I mean, why use LaTeX when you can do it in half the time in Word? It was good at the time. CERN were well placed to do everything with the WWW and have a culture of it, to be doing things the Chromebook way where you don't have desktop software any more. Maybe Microsoft have given the kick they need and maybe peripheral admin things should be paying for Microsoft software since these subsidiary operations are not hardcore research.

tyingq 7y ago
It sounds like the first two products being moved off of are Outlook/Exchange and Skype, and that use of those is fairly widespread.
eesmith 7y ago
Your description doesn't seem relevant. Most universities don't have Nobel Prize winners, so the ratio of winners to support staff is 0. Most universities also do have canteens and receptions .. and yes, many even have visitor centres. As https://www.timeshighereducation.com/news/academics-minority-more-two-thirds-uk-universities https://www.timeshighereducation.com/news/academics-minority... points out, "Academics in the minority at more than two-thirds of UK universities" Support staff, btw, might include a glass blower for the chemistry department .. who does no teaching but may also print up a price list in Word. So the educational discount cannot be meant for only "the core educational staff" as that's simply not the observed policy at universities.

ChuckMcM 7y ago

TL;DR version: CERN used Microsoft software under academic licencing terms, Microsoft revoked the terms and created a 10x cost increase (and budget hole). CERN is going to replace the software with something else. This is such a beautiful, real life, example of the Piracy Paradox that I've kept a copy in my Evernote database. The Piracy Paradox is this; Vendor A counts the number of copies of their software that are running in a region/venue/company, multiplies by the list price of that software, then subtracts the revenue received and comes up with a number they are "losing due to piracy." The assumption, which the media often simply buys into, is that if the software were impossible to obtain without paying list price, the vendor would receive much more more money. However, the reality is that if you could make the software impossible to obtain, then the revenue received would simply be zero. It wouldn't be purchased because it is priced above the market value of its utility to the customer. The result is that the "piracy numbers" that are bandied about, whether it is for CAD software, DVD movies, or Computer Games, is overstated by three or even four orders of magnitude. Validation that this effect was a real effect has been proven multiple times, the two most famous examples have been the "99 cent single" price of iTunes and the watch all you want video subscription service of NetFlix. In both cases, the arrival of a pricing system that more accurately reflected the value perception of the consumer, whether it was that albums/CDs were too expensive to buy for the one or two songs you really cared about, or that DVDs were over priced for the occasional viewing, better pricing schemes reduced the amount of digital content that was used outside the terms of a use license dramatically. The challenge for vendors is that the products they sell just aren't worth the same amount to every possible consumer. There are tools available to evaluate the elastic cost value of a fungible service but implementing them is challenging. I am really surprised that Microsoft didn't negotiate something that would give them some revenue, as it stands the success of this effort will reduce revenue from CERN from what it was to nearly zero it seems. I'm guessing there was a cost increase between 2x and maybe 5x that would have not kicked off this effort. And of course a number of large laboratories will see the success of CERN and then they too will eliminate Microsoft as a cost item in their budget (ideally to spend more on the science, but sadly that isn't always the case).

IloveHN84 7y ago

It would be interesting also to have an Apple Alternatives version, especially for system apps (iOS and Mac OS)

sgt101 7y ago
Android and Linux?

mxuribe 7y ago

Cheers to Cern! I'm not above paying for quality software/service...but games like what MS and others play in the name of capitalism, get annoying quickly. Awww, man...The relevant project website is behind a login[0]. Would have loved to see it. In any case, would be cool if big (or at least well-known) orgs. like CERN begin to adopt more open source offerings, and positively stir up vendors who support such OSS offerings. NextCloud comes to mind...now that is a model that i'd like to support at the enterprise level. Software is free, support is paid for - this seems reasonable and fair to me. Once again, kudos to CERN! [0] = http://cern.ch/malt http://cern.ch/malt

fbartels 7y ago
> NextCloud comes to mind... Cern is actually for some time already using Owncloud for this. https://owncloud.com/cern-smashbox-and-owncloud-collaboration/ https://owncloud.com/cern-smashbox-and-owncloud-collaboratio...

remir 7y ago

This could be interesting if other institutions and perhaps even public administrations are willing to participate in this effort and pool resources to make this a sustainable thing. That being said, it's difficult to know what this project is targeting since it is behind a login page.

zaphirplane 7y ago

Strange that I need to sign in to see the project page

hereme888 7y ago

So... does anyone have access to the CERN postal and is willing to post non-confidential info on the software alternatives? Otherwise I'll try to get access to the project and post it here.

fbartels 7y ago
https://reddit.com/r/linux/comments/bzsmsb/microsoft_alternatives_project_malt/eqyegmk?context=3 https://reddit.com/r/linux/comments/bzsmsb/microsoft_alterna...

ajxs 7y ago

I always have a bit of a grim chuckle when I think back to the days when Microsoft was the boss villain of enterprise software. I even still have a 'KMFMS' T-Shirt in the closet.

lanevorockz 7y ago

Excellent effort, my business runs completely open source since 2000s and it’s always constantly improving. Closed source has so many downsides that it only means that companies that adopt are nothing more than lazy.

hoseja 7y ago

I'd wager a guess that overall, Microsoft has gotten more value out of CERN research (cough www cough) than CERN has gotten out of using Microsoft products.

notimetorelax 7y ago
Heh, www is what blindsided Microsoft and they had to catch up.