Moving the Goalposts

The City of Munich started a migration to LiMux Linux in 2003 with big dreams. The goal was to achieve software independence by converting all of their desktop computers within a few years. As time drags on they have reduced their goals to 80% conversion and the timeline keeps slipping a few more years into the fututre. Here are a few of the promises they have made; remember that as of the end of 2008 the city has only managed to convert 10% of the 14k they originally promised.

This page will be updated as new information is found or released.
Last update: December 9, 2009

October 2004: Complete by the end of 2008. "Munich aims to begin migrating its desktop computers to Linux at the latest in early 2005 and to complete the project by the end of 2008." (source)

September 21, 2006: 80% conversion by 2008.

"Today, we're still working in both the Windows and Linux worlds," Schiessl said. "But over the next two years, the Linux world will get bigger, while the Windows world will get smaller." "A full migration to Linux is "unrealistic," Schiessl said. Some hardware and software products in the public administration will continue to require Windows, and some -- particularly in the area of desktop publishing -- will continue to require systems from Apple Computer Inc., he said."  (source)

September 25, 2006: 80% conversion by mid-2009

"The tests are over. We have fixed the bugs and solved some of the problems," Florian Schiessl, deputy chief of the Linux client team, told ZDNet UK on Monday. "Everything we wanted done for the first release is working at the moment."

Schiessl said it would be impossible to migrate all users to open source, but that 80 percent would move across by between late-2008 and mid-2009.

Mid-2008 : "Large part" by "end of 2009".

By the end of 2009 a large part of the city administration should be using the basic client and running open source applications.All remaining departments are scheduled to begin the migration process during 2009. Since most choose the path of soft migration, this will also mean deploying free software to run on Windows clients, such as OpenOffice.org, Firefox, Thunderbird, and the image editing program Gimp. Both the basic client and the Wollmux plugin will continue to be developed.(source)

December 2008: "most of our workspaces by 2011". "The numbers are steadily increasing and I’m sure we will manage to migrate most of our workplaces until 2011." (source)

June 2009: '80% conversion no later than mid-2012' (Bis spätestens Mitte 2012 sollen 80 Prozent der 14.000 Computer in der Stadtverwaltung auf Linux umgestellt sein.) (source)