Abandoning Windows, Munich, Germany embraces open-source again

After many years, the city of Munich, Germany, once again embraces open source. The recently elected governing union of Munich stated in a joint agreement that the city will focus on open standards and free and open-source software when technically and economically feasible. The alliance will be in power until 2026. “We will adhere to the principle of ‘public money, public code’. That means that as long as there is no confidential or personal data involved, the source code of the city’s software will also be made public,” the agreement states.

It means that as long as no confidential or personal data is involved, the relevant software of the municipal government will be open source, and software such as Microsoft Windows and Office will be abandoned again.

This decision has received a lot of criticism. After all, Munich has already tried to switch from Microsoft software to Linux, and then from Linux to Microsoft. The economic cost in the process is huge and it takes a long time.

In 2003, the Munich City Council voted to start the LiMux project (based on Ubuntu’s “Munich Distribution”) to migrate all government software systems and civil servants’ personal computers from Windows to open-source software platforms. By 2013, 80% of the city’s desktop computers were running LiMux software.

In 2017, after trying Linux and open-source software for 15 years, it finally couldn’t last, and Munich officially decided to return to Windows.

Via: ZDNet