Ministry of Software Development

On June 14, 2008, one of Munich's migration project managers posted on his blog job openings for software developers. The blog post doesn't say how many positions were open, but at the OpenOffice.org site a similar posting mentioned four openings.

Whether that was four in addition to the existing twenty LiMux employees, or if the four were included in the twenty isn't clear. I wonder if the original cost estimates and proposals for the Munich transition included the cost of adding a city staff of software developers?

What have Munich's software developers been doing? Before June, they were creating a software program called "WollMux", for one. Paid employees of the city of Munich had to write a plug-in for OpenOffice.org because it could not handle forms, letterheads, and templates for a city government. But then just a month or two after releasing WollMux they were looking to hire four more developers.

Even with WollMux and a team of at least twenty IT staff dedicated to the open source migration, the city has not yet completed a transition to OpenOffice.org, which they have been working on since 2003. They are hoping that 2009 might be the magic year that that finally happens.