Munich: rumors of switching to Windows are greatly exaggerated

Got a continuation of the story of installing open source programs on the municipal computers of Munich. Recall that in November 2013 the city council completed the lengthy procedure for the migration of 15,000 computers to open source software. The decision to abandon proprietary programs Windows and Microsoft Office was made in 2003. After preparation, planning and retraining of personnel, the city systematically transferred offices from Windows NT to its own distribution kit, LiMux. The procedure took 10 years.

However, a week ago the media reported that the city administration was supposedly thinking about getting rid of Linux. “South German newspaper” Sueddeutsche.de wrote that “because of the innumerable censures of users, the city plans to sign a contract with an independent expert group to develop a plan for getting rid of technically lagging and non-functional software”.

An explanation of this was given by Stefan Hauf, a representative of the city administration .

Hauf confirmed that the new mayor had ordered an audit of urban IT systems, including the choice of operating system. But the goal of this audit is not at all to switch back to Windows, Hauf explained. “We are talking about organizational tasks, cost analysis, productivity and convenience of computer systems for users. We are talking about collecting facts so that we can make a proposal for further development. ”
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Hauf, however, confirmed that some users complain about the inconvenience of the Kubuntu-based LiMux distribution, which they installed on city computers. However, he said, most problems are related to the compatibility of document formats in OpenOffice, and many problems can be solved simply by replacing OpenOffice with LibreOffice.



Stefan Hauf explained that there is no talk about any unconditional transition to Windows. In any case, the decision will be made by a commission of selected members of the city administration, most of whom support LiMux, he said.

Munich is one of the first cities in Europe, which completely switched to free software and thereby saved millions of euros from the city budget. As of November 2013, the cumulative budget savings exceeded 10 million euros.

LiMux brings with you a completely ready to use desktop environment based on open source software, including the free office software OpenOffice, which work with the open format Open Document Format (ODF).