-------- Original Message -------- From: "Nectarios Koziris" <nkoziris [ at ] cslab [ dot ] ece [ dot ] ntua [ dot ] gr> Subject: [ Fs-oss ] City of Munich approves Linux migration plan To: "'Free Software / Open Software'" <fs-oss [ at ] grnet [ dot ] gr> The Council of the German city of Munich officially adopted on 16 June 2004 detailed plans to migrate its 14,000 desktop and notebook computers from Microsoft software to Linux operating system and open source office applications. The Council of Munich had voted on 28 May 2003 in favour of the migration of its desktop and notebook computers to open source operating system and office applications. The decision was based on a study comparing the alternatives and assigning 6,218 (out of 10,000) points to a Linux/OpenOffice migration, vs. 5,293 to an upgrade of Microsoft Windows. This move, unprecedented on this scale in the European public sector, has been widely commented and discussed since then. Following a test phase conducted in cooperation with SuSE Linux and IBM, the Council formally adopted on 16 June 2004 detailed plans to manage the migration process, which is expected to last until 2009. The migration will be gradual, starting this year with office desktop applications (OpenOffice.org office suite and Mozilla Web browser running on the existing Windows NT desktops), and then moving to operating system and more specialised applications over a period of five years. The projected cost of the migration project, dubbed LiMux (for Linux and Munich), is EUR 35 million. A call for tender for the management of the migration is expected to be published shortly. According to many observers, the conversion of Germany's third largest city government to open source software for the desktop is likely to have a "network effect" and to lead to a wave of other conversions in Germany's public sector as well as among Europe's major cities. http://europa.eu.int/ISPO/ida/jsps/index.jsp?fuseAction=showDocument&documentID=2640&parent=chapter&preChapterID=0-140-194 ------------------------------------------------------- Nectarios Koziris, Assistant Professor National Technical University of Athens (NTUA) School of Electrical and Computer Engineering Department of Computer Science Computing Systems Laboratory Heroon Polytexneiou 9, Polytexneioypolis (Zografou Campus), Zografou, 15773, Athens, Greece e-mail: nkoziris [ at ] cslab [ dot ] ece [ dot ] ntua [ dot ] gr, nkoziris [ at ] cs [ dot ] ntua [ dot ] gr http: www.cslab.ece.ntua.gr/~nkoziris Tel: +30-2-10-7721531, Fax: +30-2-10-7721292