One city's move to open source

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In September, the city of Munich said that its switch to Linux for desktop computing would not get going until next year--one year later than planned and three years after it first announced its move to the open-source operating system. The IT department there is expecting to move 14,000 desktops from Windows NT 4.0 to Linux and from Microsoft Office 97 and 2000 to OpenOffice.

Armbruster is confident that these kinds of delays won't happen with his city's migration. "We haven't seen any resistance from users in the city of Mannheim. We have talked with department managers and power users and they accept our strategy to slowly move to Linux," he said.

"Most of the problems in Munich are due to resistance from users--they don't want to change to Linux."

--Gerd Armbruster

The problems with Munich's switch encouraged Armbruster to publicize Mannheim's process, to show that an open-source migration can go more smoothly.

"Microsoft is probably very happy about the project in Munich because of its problems," he said. "One year ago, I didn't want to go public about our migration. I have now gone public because the project in Munich is not a success, but our project is. I wanted to say, 'Here is a city with about 6,000 employees where open source and open standards work already.'"

The OpenOffice migration
The first stage in Mannheim's migration to OpenOffice, the evaluation of its Microsoft Office documents, started earlier this month. It is using a migration analysis tool called SCAI MAS to scan 500,000 administration documents and so identify which files cannot be automatically converted to OpenOffice.

"We expect that maybe 10 or 20 percent of documents will have problems when we move from Word to OpenOffice.org," Armbruster said.

Some of the macros contained within the Microsoft Office documents can be automatically converted into OpenOffice macros, but some will need to be reengineered.

The evaluation project is due to be finished in mid-January, after which the IT department will start migrating the first departments to OpenOffice. It plans to switch over only two departments in the first year, one of which will be the IT department.

Although some Mannheim employees will not have access to OpenOffice.org for a few years, they have already been using at least one open-source application for almost two years--the Firefox browser. Armbruster says the city has been using the Mozilla browser since version 0.8 came out in February 2004. Microsoft's Internet Explorer is not used for Internet access for "security reasons," he said.

"We want to move to Linux on the desktop when it has the same look and feel as Windows."

--Gerd Armbruster

When Mannheim has finished its move to OpenOffice, it will start its migration to desktop Linux. This delay will not only give the city time to replace its 145 Windows-specific applications with programs that will run on Linux, but it should also ensure that the Linux desktop environment is more mature by the time Mannheim adopts it.

"In every new Linux version we see more Windows functionality," Armbruster said. "We want to move to Linux on the desktop when it has the same look and feel as Windows."

Armbruster did not say what version of Linux it plans on installing in the future, but he is a fan of Ubuntu, a free Linux distribution based on Debian. Ubuntu is the distribution that will be offered to city employees to try out at home, Armbruster said.

"I think Ubuntu is very interesting, more interesting than SuSE or Red Hat's desktop products," he said. "I have friends who wanted to try Linux at home, and when they installed SuSE or Red Hat, they had 500 or 800 programs. You don't need 800 programs; with Ubuntu you get fewer applications,"

Although other German cities echo Mannheim's view on the importance of open standards, many are reluctant to change, as they have only recently moved to proprietary technologies such as Active Directory, Armbruster said.

There are other reasons why government agencies may find it hard to follow Mannheim's lead in adopting open standards. Mannheim is a long-term user of Unix, which has meant that the migration to Linux is easier for it than for bodies that predominantly use Microsoft software.

Cost is also likely to be a prohibitive factor for many government agencies. Mannheim's migration to Linux is expected to cost millions of euros. That short-term cost could be difficult to justify to senior management executives, who are unlikely to fully understand the need for open standards.

Ingrid Marson of ZDNet UK reported from London.

Yawn......

Oh no! Not another CNET open source promotion disguised as a story. Who the hell cares? What about all the cities that tried open source and abandoned it in favor of Windows because thier support costs were too high? Not that MS is always right, but all the pro Open Source stories on CNET are making me susipcious...

[Lindy01]

Ditto

I could not agree more.

You got to love the fact that goverment no matter where you live, knows how to waste your money.

Orgnizations that are successful worry about cost and not political agenda's.

Their software was more compatible before the change because the wide spread use of MS products.

What works the best....and cost the least is what is best for the tax payers.

[Betty Roper]

It is a little weird

Considering that CNet Networks relies so heavily on coverage of proprietary products and advertising from mainstream companies (like Microsoft) you would think they risk alot by beating the open source anti-proprietary drum so often.

And I assume that most of their readers are searching for mainstream product information when they visit the site. Another story about Linux in Mannheim is hardly going to help there.

I don't get it. One for the media planners to figure out I guess.

[penguinista3]

More than just cost of licenses

The cost of being lock in to one Vendor and as a result letting that vendor dictate your IT strategy and cost is not low cost. Open source software is great precisely because it frees the city from being under the thumb of one vendor.

For example, if it cost you alot of money to go to college and graduate school, would you abandon a college degree...because the cost of not going is much higher. In the end, having intellectual independence and self reliance is cheaper.

[Lindy01]

What

The cost of being locked into one vendor.....what is that cost??? I see that all the time.

The only cost I see is being forced to upgrade about 10 years later....much like people being forced off of NT 4.0 to Windows 2003 because they dont support NT 4.0 anymore....even then not everyone is doing it.

You analagy is weak at best.

I could easily point out the cost savings of and support headaches saved by going with one vendor.

[Lord Kalthorn]

You are chucklrific

What are you locked down to if not one vendor when going to Open Source? You decide; ok, I will switch. That first decision is the only you don't get when going with Microsoft. Once you've decided... say... SuSe; you're locked into SuSe without the same upheaval you went through with changing from Microsoft. Linux Desktops and UI might all look the same, but everyone is different in some way. You will have to go through the training and the switching and the checking all over again if you wanted to change.

So, with Linux, you are still locked into to one Vendor. How that Vendor, even Microsoft, dictates IT Strategy is questionable. Your IT Strategy could be... we'll upgrade this and this, we'll keep this. Microsoft has no say in this; it is all down to the CIO. Maybe there is a new upgrade all the other cities have! (Giggles girlishly) but ultimately, you don't have to have it unless you decide you want it. What everybody else is doing is dictating IT Stategy more than anything else. Rather, I say, one Vendor who exists and is answerable to you, and gives you all the support you could ever need, than a few Hippie Linux-Folk programmers who don't actually care what you think whatsoever. Because they don't; I know, I was and partly am a Developer, and Developers don't care about customers. They Develop to develop, only the marketting layer of Microsoft wants you to be happy.

"For example, if it cost you alot of money to go to college and graduate school, would you abandon a college degree...because the cost of not going is much higher."
This one made me laugh the most. Ok, so we're a City. The City has been to College and Graduate School and is apparently doing a College Degree. Should it abandon the old thing for a new thing, just because the cost is staying is higher? That is such a dreadful sentance, I take my hat off to you for making it sound like it makes sense.

Intellectual Independence? Self Reliance? How delightfully ridiculuous do you sound. Do you get Intellectual Independence and Self Reliance from Linux?

[lingsun]

They sound like idiots

Go to open source regardless of the time and money? Sounds like left-wing politicians in action. Let's see how many millions they waste.

[Lindy01]

lol

They have a limitless supply of both....they dont have to report their earnings and cost cutting measures.

[open-mind]

Probably cheaper in the long run.

Any migration from A->B costs money, so it's absurd to compare upgrade costs to migration costs. Should compare upgrade costs over the next 20 years between the two platform choices.

Once they step away from Microsoft's high prices and profit margins, seems like their costs should go down. All of Microsoft's wealth had to come from somewhere.

[ChasmoeBrown]

How Many?

Just curious - how many of the respondents to this thread work,
directly or indirectly, for Microsoft?

[Betty Roper]

And..?

What if they all do? Statements stand or fall on their own regardless of a person's agenda.

How many people asking about people working for Microsoft work for Red Hat or Novell?

Silly stuff.

[UntoldDreams]

Hahaha

Considering it's not logical for your average citizen to defend convicted monopolies it's probably not so hard to figure out where the loyalties lie...

Example:

Not many people defend oil companies for pollution...

Not many people defend Drug companies for making billions of dollars on flue medication...

No one in their right minds defends a cellular phone company...

...So why would your average citizen ever go out of their way to defend a billion dollar corporation like Microsoft?

[Lindy01]

Not I

I just think with such a logical type of business (IT) people would make such illogical decisions.

As a systems engineer in a 60,000+ employee company I would not risk my job on something that will take a long time to implement and cost more than a more widely industry supported solution. The true cost of converting documents/data, and re-training everyone will probably never come out.

Even more disturbing was when the facts came out MS cut them a huge deal to stay with them. If I lived in that town I would be exercising my voting rights.

Only a government agency could get away with such waste.

Silly comments

Just read all the previous comments with a smile....
What local governments can do is look ahead and plan long term. Business companies can't, because they have to meet monthly, quaterly, and yearly targets (This is why businesses have started to move or outsource their IT to developping countries, are buying each other for consolidation, etc.)
France's railway and road system is second to none BECAUSE of government decision (certainly not businesses). Germany's car industry has become so potent because of government decisions. The Internet came about BECAUSE of government decisions. Cutting gas emission will come about BECAUSE of government decisions. Etc.

How many businesses HAVE TO upgrade their hardware because of software components they have no say or no control about? I know many. How many companies cannot do business properly with other partners because one of them is locked in proprietary applications? I know many.

A piece of news like this is important because it can help businesses, education establishments, and local authorities look around. After all, isn't choice what it is all about?

[alucinor]

Political Motivation

If Washington's or New York's government IT was locked-in to a single German corporation as large and influential as Microsoft, I'm sure these U.S. cities would be looking to migrate as well.

Hopefully, when Munich and Manheim and other foreign cities migrate to Linux, they'll go with local vendors. This will probably be the case with Munich, as they're migrating to Debian.

Since "Linux" usually means an open pool of IT knowledge and infrastructure -- like science -- I can see its attractiveness to countries who want to take full ownership of their IT. Even if they migrate to Red Hat or Novell, it's insignificant to move people from Gnome on RHEL or Gnome on SUSE to Gnome on [insert distro here] -- using the same set of apps on either -- than it is from Windows to any Linux distro.

[richto]

rubbish

What rubbish. Hardly anyone uses Linux - a few local councils across the whole of Europe - hardly mass market is it. Less then 0.5% of web surfers are running Linux. No signs of any increase in the adoption curve at all.

Actually Windows is still taking market share from Linux in major markets such as web servers - Windows increased market share by 10% at the expense of Linux this year alone - see Netcraft.

These places that are trying to implement a third world IT policy by moving to Linux are all without exception having major issues implimenting this freeware junk. It costs them far more than an integrated Microsoft solution ever would.

It says it all that the users dont want it either.

Whoever lives in those locations should vote these muppets out of office ASAP for wasting lots of money.