NEWS Munich – the city whose switch to Linux was seen as so significant it attracted a personal visit from Steve Ballmer – has announced that its year-long trial has proved a success and the local government is sticking with open source for its desktops.
The migration will officially take place on 1 July, with 14,000 desktops to permanently migrate to the open-source platform. The pilot was run by SuSE Linux and IBM but the eventual contract – which could be worth tens of millions of euros – will be put out to tender.
A roadmap for the 'LiMux' project, which will see 16,000 city employees change operating system, was developed by the two vendors but the government hasn't decided on whether to use it or not yet.
The city's shift to Linux is the biggest ever move from proprietary software to open source, with municipal PCs and notebooks migrating from Microsoft Office to OpenOffice and using Mozilla browsers. The decision was taken after city officials voted 50 to 29 in favour of making the change.
The decision will doubtless come as a blow to Microsoft, which pulled out all the stops to get the city to stay with proprietary software.
According to a document seen by USA Today, among the concessions the software behemoth was prepared to punt Munich's way were undercutting a Linux bid by $12m; letting Munich license some stripped-down Windows and offering training and support for nothing.
It's thought the migration will be complete by 2008 or 2009.
Earlier this week, Norway's second city, Bergen, announced it would be following in Munich's footsteps and opting to run on Linux.
Comments
There are 6 comments. Join the discussion
1. M. Attab
I have tried Linux Desktop system, and found out, it would be a waste of time, to think migrating from windows to Linux, the Linux Graphic user interface (GUI) it is still far behind
And running the application, on Linux
It is like going back to WordPerfect
and other dos application, give me a break, I will stick to Windows no matter what, I think Linux should concentrate on the Network/server side, and stop wasting time trying
for Desktop operating system too far behind.............
2. anonymous
This is exactly what Microsoft need in order for them to get to grips with reality.
Maybe now they will realise the world is not dependant on them and start to market good solid software at a reasonable price.
Are the days of mega downloads of fixes on the way out? Doubt it but it is a nice thought
3. Joseph Robertson
My memory betrays me. What was the folk tale?, the guys name who had his thumb in the crack in the damn. Well his thumb just wore out. Finally the walls are crumbling and the true OS winner will float to the surface and take the world role it deserves. Business managers and all the ministers of propaganda can't put humpty dumpty back togather again. It is only a matter of time now.
Joseph Robertson
4. Joseph Robertson
Hey Look on the bright side. Maybe Bill Gates will start investing in some really important projects like his old partner Paul Allen did with Space Ship one. Go Paul Allen.
http://www.scaled.com/projects/tierone/
5. Choke y J
What about software suites like, Adobe, Macromedia, and various other productivity programs that run only on Windows? Does Linux have a viable solution that works similar to those programs? Will Linux remain a free open-source software? It would be funny if someone licensed and packaged it like Microsoft. Just my two cents....
6. Martin Bachmann
It's not all about open- or closed-source, about M$ or Linux.
This is more about having true options. We've lost the (realistic) freedom of choice many years ago, now the world gets it back, piece by piece.
That's what this is about.