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Munich's Linux migration heads south for the winter

Delayed until 2006

By Lucy Sherriff • Get more from this author

Posted in Software & Security, 6th September 2005 14:51 GMT

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Munich's city administrators' much-discussed migration to Linux has been delayed until 2006, according to reports, because of an additional pilot phase that was not accounted for in the original plans.

Project leader Peter Hoffman told CNet that as planning progressed, he and his team realised that the pilot phase, which will now run through the first half of 2006, was "more important than we first thought and should last longer". This means that the project will finish at least a year behind schedule, and a full three years after administrators first elected to shift to open source.

The project involves moving the city administration's 14,000 desktops from Windows NT 4.0 and Microsoft Office to Linux and OpenOffice. The Lord Mayor's office, boasting 250 desktops, is reported to be first in line for the transfer, but even that will not happen until mid-way through 2006, and not all the machines will make the switch right away.

Hoffman said: "Some departments will start with OpenOffice on Windows, others will start with OpenOffice on Linux. It depends on their infrastructure."

He explained that when a department has a small number of simple Office macros and templates, but a large number of complex applications, it is easier to switch to OpenOffice on Windows before switching to Linux. ®

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