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Doesnt 10 million euros seem like a very small amount for the city of munich to save?
What is that in percentage to their technology budget?

-I found a reference to their arts budget alone at over 160 million euros:
http://www.muenchen.de/rathaus/home_en/Department-of-Arts-and-Culture/statistics_dates_facts

>>In my company, we did have a pilot project which aimed at switching from Microsoft Office to OpenOffice. The results were... disastrous. Some reasons:
>>- Support Personnel had to be trained to be proficient in solving OpenOffice issues experienced by users;
>>.....

Limux projects explain how they tackled all of these issues.

Have a look :

http://media.ccc.de/browse/conferences/eh2010/EH2010-3784-de-limux.html

http://www.muenchen.de/rathaus/dms/Home/Stadtverwaltung/Direktorium/Strategische-IT-Projekte/LiMux/Dokumente/2012_Juli_London20120709.pdf

They didn't. It's Debian sarge/KDE based.
http://www.muenchen.de/Rathaus/dir/limux/english/index.html

From http://www.muenchen.de/Rathaus/dir/limux/english/index.html:
LiMux Basisclient based on Linux and free software:
Debian GNU/Linux sarge“ (Distribution), K Desktop Environment - KDE (Graphical user interface), OpenOffice.org (Offices), Firefox (Browser), Thunderbird (E-Mail), Gimp (Image editing)

http://www.muenchen.de/Rathaus/dir/limux/english/index.html

See http://www.muenchen.de/limux

and http://www.muenchen.de/Rathaus/dir/presseservice/2011/Pressemitteilungen/481205/fsfe_preis.html

In Google translation

excellent project LiMux - Document Freedom Day

(03/30/2011) For its commitment to open standards and free software is replaced by the city of Munich as part of the global campaign "Document Freedom Day" by the Free Software Foundation Europe (FSFE), an award that was contrary to Munich's mayor Christine Strobl IT now . "The city of Munich shows a model that can reach a large German Government on Free Software. With the project LiMux Munich is in the use of open standards is a pioneer in Germany and in Europe. We hope that this modern and open attitude by many imitators, "pointed Karsten Gerloff, president of FSFE, emphasized at a small ceremony in Munich's town hall, attended by the municipal IT managers Gertraud Loesewitz, head of IT, Karl -Heinz Schneider, LiMux project leader Peter Hofmann, staff of the LiMux project teams, departments and representatives of the Open Source community took part in Munich. "Munich is a citizen-driven, flexible and open city. This is also reflected in the use of open standards and free software. With the use of open source software, we also strengthen the economy in Munich, by giving the many Munich-based IT service providers the opportunity to participate in the development "explained Mayor Strobl Munich motivation for LiMux.

"LiMux" is presently the largest Linux project in the public sector. With it, the state capital Munich to 2013 about 80 percent of its 15 000 PC workstations on the free operating system Linux. All PC workstations are already equipped since 2009 with an open communication office (OpenOffice.org, Thunderbird, Firefox) and almost 6,000 computers have been converted to the Munich-based Linux operating system. The state capital also has the single document template system, developed WollMux 'which is as free software under the European Union Public License (EUPL) published and other users for free as an open standard available (www.wollmux.org).

I would still call that a success, even if they were initially naïve in some respects.

See http://www.muenchen.de/limux

and http://www.muenchen.de/Rathaus/dir/presseservice/2011/Pressemitteilungen/481205/fsfe_preis.html

In Google translation

excellent project LiMux - Document Freedom Day

(03/30/2011) For its commitment to open standards and free software is replaced by the city of Munich as part of the global campaign "Document Freedom Day" by the Free Software Foundation Europe (FSFE), an award that was contrary to Munich's mayor Christine Strobl IT now . "The city of Munich shows a model that can reach a large German Government on Free Software. With the project LiMux Munich is in the use of open standards is a pioneer in Germany and in Europe. We hope that this modern and open attitude by many imitators, "pointed Karsten Gerloff, president of FSFE, emphasized at a small ceremony in Munich's town hall, attended by the municipal IT managers Gertraud Loesewitz, head of IT, Karl -Heinz Schneider, LiMux project leader Peter Hofmann, staff of the LiMux project teams, departments and representatives of the Open Source community took part in Munich. "Munich is a citizen-driven, flexible and open city. This is also reflected in the use of open standards and free software. With the use of open source software, we also strengthen the economy in Munich, by giving the many Munich-based IT service providers the opportunity to participate in the development "explained Mayor Strobl Munich motivation for LiMux.

"LiMux" is presently the largest Linux project in the public sector. With it, the state capital Munich to 2013 about 80 percent of its 15 000 PC workstations on the free operating system Linux. All PC workstations are already equipped since 2009 with an open communication office (OpenOffice.org, Thunderbird, Firefox) and almost 6,000 computers have been converted to the Munich-based Linux operating system. The state capital also has the single document template system, developed WollMux 'which is as free software under the European Union Public License (EUPL) published and other users for free as an open standard available (www.wollmux.org).

I would still call that a success, even if they were initially naïve in some respects.

Obviously, plus a LOT of political intrigue in the background. And, possible the German are a lot smarter than the Swiss. Munich is well along the conversion path:

http://www.muenchen.de/Rathaus/dir/limux/english/147197/index

You take a reasonable position with your suggestions. I am basing some of my points on the transition by the City of Munich from Microsoft to Linux and Microsoft Office to OpenOffice. A quick search will reveal that the City of Munich has contributed in a very significant way to the OpenOffice community by releasing a very sophisticated document management system - http://www.muenchen.de/Rathaus/dir/limux/wollmux/229499/p_e.html . This process occurred in only a few years after the adoption of OSS.

It is certainly true that some people might use Linux as a negotiating strategy; in fact, I would argue that a CIO that doesn't try this manoeuvre is failing due diligence :)

I am sure that there are cases where people failed to execute the Open Source strategy, and in the resulting retrenchment MS gained the customer back. Management support is another issue: the first ever FOSS implementation back in mid-1990's was Greg Wettstein's Roger Maris Cancer Center. Sadly, a management change resulted in Dr. Greg leaving, and the Center switched back to MS. No IT implementation is ever finished or permanent, so changes forth and back should not be a surprise. Really large installations, of course, require some sort of commercial support which has been hard to come by, but between Novell, IBM and RedHat one can find it now.

I think it is clear by now that a FOSS switch is quite possible given a reasonable budget, competent execution and management support---all the factors required for the success of any project.

Munich is the Capitol of Bavaria, Germany. Bavaria is the high tech capitol of Germany and the richest state in Germany. They have always been ahead of the curve. It is no wonder that they are migrating to Linux and adopting open source software where it makes sense. With Munich being home of some of the largest high tech companies in the world, it would make sense for the government of Munich to adopt similar policies. I for one, praise Munich and it's government for thinking out of the box. The licensing fees they will save on Windows can certainly be spent better elsewhere.

> Why Debian?

See here:

http://www.muenchen.de/Rathaus/dir/limux/english/1 47197/index.html

OK?

Don't know. MS gave a ca. 50% rebate when GNU/Linux came into play. As a customer, I would feel ripped off, and I can well understand that one decides not to want to have to do anything with this vedor in the future.

However, money was not so much involved in the decision. The study and decision papers are online. After the rebate offered, MS was the cheaper solution in the short term, but Munich weighed independence of public data and long-term saves more heavily

I just expressed my respect to those people a minute ago. It takes a lot of courage to do this, having Microsoft Germany in your city and all that...

If you want to show them respect, go to http://www.muenchen.de/home/81124/contact_form.htm l and put in your thanks!

The fields' descriptions are as follows (top to bottom):
Name
Given name
Location
E-Mail
Topic (use "Sonstiges" = Miscellaenous)
Comments / Questions / Suggestions

http://www.muenchen.de/Rathaus/bb_dir/presse/2004/ 08/99502/limux_softwarepatent.html

Here's a translation:

The [Bavarian] state capital Munich certainly holds on to the Linux project that was decided on by its city council, and upholds its strategic decision in favor of an open source project. [reference to dpa report, a German news agency]

"It was just yesterday that the IT experts of the city explained the strategic benefits of its Linux project to the city administrations of Augsburg and Nuremberg [two other Bavarian cities, Nuremberg is the 2nd largest one]. We were pleased to see that those cities, like Vienna (Austria), are interested in Munich's open source solution." All that is correct to say is that the bidding process for the base client has been temporarily put on hold because the legal and financial risks due to a draft directive proposed by the EU Competitiveness Council (which would allow for the very broad patentability of software) need to be checked into.

In the opinion of the mayor, it is now the highest priority that all European municipalities and enterprises that have a vested interest in open source take influence on the EU institutions and the national governments of the EU member states. The goal must be that the envisioned directive does not take effect as a European law. In that regard, Munich concurs with a decision by the European Parliament, "which once again is attempted to be turned around and into the opposite, by small EU committees that pander to the interests of large corporations".

Isn't CSU the biggest party in Bavaria (where Munich is)?
yes.
Or is yet another case where the city is more progressive that the (rural) areas arround?
The country Bavaria was always ruled by the CSU. Munich is different ... its current mayor is from the (left-wing) Green party, for example.
source
If they are against this Linux plan, have they the power to stop it?
Not right now - but four years is a long time.

See (with Babelfish if you don't read German) http://www01.silicon.de/cpo/ts-csh/detail.php?nr=1 3043
For background, see http://www.spd-rathaus-muenchen.de/presse/press14- Linux-MS_030403.pdf and
http://www.muenchen.de/aktuell/clientstudie_kurz.p df

There is the summary of the official "client study" available as PDF file. Since Munich relaunched its homepage I can't find it on their servers anymore, but it's here mirrored here (German). According to this mailing list posting there's also an Englisch and French translation available.

I am working in Munich for a large publishing house in IT and what I heard (partly, though, from munichs Microsoft workers) the whole project isn't doing well. When I met a MS employee lately he had that evil grin when he said: "If there is one thing that won't bring OpenSource on the Desktop it will be the Munich migration! They [the Munich IT department] are rather incompetent, they are currently even trying to run Winapps inside VmWare, and they don't have the manpower to get the thing flying."

I am not sure how far he really is into the subject but from what I know from living in munich for 20 years now is that the city is cutting back on finances, and that there was more than one project that wasn't really thought through before making the decision. I really, really hope they can handle it, but the latest relaunch of www.muenchen.de, the cities new online-portal, was a catastrophe (a friend of mine worked at the project) and if that's any indication than they might be in trouble...I don't have any inside information, I am just stating what I learned from watching the "Rathaus" through the years as a munich citizen...

Lispy

The article asks the source of the 80% figure. The original report is here (in German). On page 34, footnote 1, there is the assumption that 80% will be using VMWare for 4 to 5 years.

Actually, a lot of the cost is that of the switch and the re-training. I suspect that in 5, 10 years, when the next technology switch is to be done, the price for keeping Linux will be ridiculously low. One has to keep in mind that "long term" usually means just some five years maximum in this area.

I also suspect that no such complete technology switch will have to be done - Upgrades are much more smooth with Linux. Take Debian or RedHat - you can upgrade just the software when a new release comes out, and keep everything in place; most things will still work afterwards, and no re-configuration is necessary...

By the way, the details of Unilogs study can be found at
the city of Munich's website ; unfortunately it's in German. But you can try to babelfish the summary at the Heise news site .