Munich Open Source Switch 'Completed Successfully'

Qedward writes "Munich's switch to open source software has been successfully completed, with the vast majority of the public administration's users now running its own version of Linux, city officials said today. In one of the premier open source software deployments in Europe, the city migrated from Windows NT to LiMux, its own Linux distribution. LiMux incorporates a fully open source desktop infrastructure. The city also decided to use the Open Document Format (ODF) as a standard, instead of proprietary options. Ten years after the decision to switch, the LiMux project will now go into regular operation, the Munich City council said."

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Re:Other Motives

[couchslug]

Let's also not forget that all commercial closed source software from US companies should be presumed to have been backdoored by the NSA with the vendors cooperation (coerced or bought).

Snowden proved the US government will stop at nothing to spy on every communication it can. Foreign governments running Microsoft operating systems hand the NSA the keys to their kingdom.

FOSS advocates should hammer this relentlessly. It is not at all fanciful in light of the US goal of total global communication surveillance.

Further, if a disgruntled "Snowden" has access and can leak data, that means others have the same ability and may use information for their own financial or other benefit. When you consent to NSA surveillance, you aren't trusting just an "agency", but everyone in that agency with access to your data. If they grab your proprietary corporate secrets and sell them to competitors they may financially ruin you.

Pleasant dreams.