LiMux

LiMux - The IT evolution is a project of the Munich City Council, which was installed through free software to currently about 15,000 workstations of urban employees. All workplaces use since 2009 and OpenOffice.org WollMux. The second goal is to get to 2013 with over 80 % of the administrative PCs the operating system on the client LiMux. Due to the novel for the public sector orientation of the software procurement based on open source LiMux is the world sporadically present in the media and is being watched by the proprietary software industry and the advocates of free software alike. The portmanteau word LiMux is composed of Linux and Munich.

The addition of "IT Evolution" is contrary to the " revolution" that is trying to change by a sharp cut the current situation. " LiMux - The IT Evolution" is supposed to be a slow but continuous development, as the target has a more modern, the requirements on the workstation better adapted IT landscape.

Until early 2012 the city of Munich has saved by its own account with the LiMux project about 25 % of the cost compared to a Windows installation, further has also reduced the number of errors. A published comparison statement from November 2012 indicates a saving of more than 10 million euros higher than a comparable Microsoft solution.

In December 2013, the transition has been successfully completed addition to the cost savings of more than € 11 million could gain freedom in the selection of software the city.

History

The reason for the migration was the end of support for Windows NT 4 by Microsoft in late 2003; thus was a detachment of the over to another Windows NT 4 necessary. Against this background, Munich was in a preliminary study (client study) five possible configurations of the administrative desktops from three perspectives ( economics, technology, strategy) examine, from pure Microsoft-based solutions to pure open source solutions.

In the winter of 2003 traveled Steve Ballmer, CEO of Microsoft, to talk with the mayor of Munich, Christian Ude, to illustrate the alleged disadvantages of an imminent change - his remarks, however, were discarded. The exact content of discussions are not known.

The study found ultimately a tie between two alternatives. The majority of the Munich City Council then decided to use the solution, the "strategy" is the more advantageous in the field in order to support and may in the long term determine the outflow itself ( = cost reduction) the designed on vendor independence IT strategy of the city administration.

The decision not said that henceforth only used open source software, but only that they 'll prefers. As much more important point of the decision contained the proviso that in the future to be developed or to be tendered publicly specialized procedures to be implemented web-based. Exactly this should prevent a too strong coupling of the operating system, office suite, and specialized software.

Since August 2006, there is also an animal mascot for LiMux in Munich Hellabrunn, the king penguin GoniMux.

The initial test phase of LiMux went in September 2006 to the end, was what started from 19 September 2006 to replace the Windows workstations in the core area of the city administration through a customized Debian GNU / Linux with the K Desktop Environment 3 and OpenOffice.org. The multiple Linux installation runs it through the free software from FAI automated and configured by the Free Software GOsa ².

On 16 May 2007 took mayor Christine Strobl for the IT project contrary to the certificate " use Ruggedized base client " by TÜV IT. TÜV confirmed by a comprehensive certification process, the usability of the LiMux - based clients as a user interface for interactive computer systems according to the ISO standard 9241-110. " A decisive factor in this assessment that the newly designed and KDE 3 based interface and the additional programs contained ( inter alia [ ...]) an effective, efficient and satisfactory work for the employees of the municipal government is possible [ ... ]. "

A published only in their summary and therefore not verifiable study of HP in January 2013, was commissioned by Microsoft in order, on the other hand comes on additional costs of 43.7 million euros by the system change away from Windows. This study, however, was criticized by the press because of incorrect assumptions and a lack of accountability. The city of Munich itself contradicts the study and points to a number of shortcomings, which can be read in the summary without knowing even the details of the study. The city assessed the study as not scientifically valid.

At LinuxTag in May 2013, about ten years after the start of the project, the project manager of Limux announced the completion.

In February 2014 LiMux became a topic at the Munich municipal election. Sabine Nallinger the candidate of the Greens to the mayoral elections has spoken out against the use of Linux in the Munich city administration. She claimed that the migration to Linux would have led to many problems in the city administration, so they would now ". A solution that works no matter which software " A day later, the choice of candidate relativized their own statements already again.

Goals and implementation

Within the project, the city of Munich has by October 2013 over 15,000 desktop PCs converted ( approximately 18,000 desktops) from Windows NT 4.0 or Windows 2000, and Microsoft Office on the Linux operating system and OpenOffice.org.

2003-2004 a fine concept for migration was developed, which began in June 2004 and cost the same order as a Microsoft solution would have. Migration was interrupted in the summer of 2004, because the city wanted to examine the legal implications of software patents. Beginning in late 2006 launched the actual migration of desktops.

In May 2009 1800 workstations to Linux had been converted, 12,000 took advantage of OpenOffice.

In June 2010, more than 3,000 jobs had been converted, in November 2010, there were 4000 until the end of 2010 there were 5,000. Middle of April 2011 was half in mid-August 7600, mid-December 2011 three quarters, April 2012, more than 10,000 June 2012 considered converted 11,000 and 11,700 November 2012 the planned 12,000 PCs. The state in October 2013, more than 15,000 computers have now been converted, the original target of 12,000 was significantly exceeded.

The AG usability of the project group interviewed regularly to users, in order to achieve a good fit to the needs of employees. The plan is a simple as possible using the software.

The conversion will be monitored carefully. A successful migration may cause other cities and communities to transform their IT infrastructure from Windows to Linux.

Switching to OpenOffice.org

The transition to OpenOffice.org, partly in advance under a Microsoft operating system, is flanked by a specially developed tool, the egg-laying WollMux (or short WollMux ). This application written in Java communicates with OpenOffice.org via UNO interface. The WollMux replaces some applications in Munich used together with Microsoft Office. Its main functions are:

• Letterhead System: Fill letterhead templates automatically comply with city-wide appearance, hall function;
• Form system: Support the agent for preparing documents based on templates that require certain inputs, template selection, automatic printing of different copies, automatic calculation of values ​​from the inputs and pasting in appropriate places;
• Text blocks: supporting the clerk when creating documents from text blocks;
• Assistance for conducting proper dispositions: automatically create and print different versions of a document with corresponding conducting proper dispositions.
• Merge: Merge own module because the merge of OpenOffice.org in many areas to cover the needs of the city of Munich inadequate.

2007 were equipped with the OpenOffice.org program over 8000 users. According to a spokesman of the LiMux project user satisfaction was so great. From mid-2010 to use all office workstations OpenOffice.

WollMux since end of May 2008 publicly available as free software.

Client

The LiMux Client 4.1, from August 2012, based as the LiMux Client 4.0 on Ubuntu 10.04 LTS and KDE desktop 3.5. It includes, in addition OpenOffice.org, Mozilla Thunderbird and Mozilla Firefox other Free Software products.

As of December 2012 was still no public release of LiMux client on the grounds that he was specifically tailored to the infrastructure.

In the future, will be used instead of OpenOffice LibreOffice.