Windows to Linux switch - Munich's mayor speaks

While the Bavarian capital has effectively suspended the second phase of its open source migration project, there's a big difference between suspended and cancelled. Chrisitian Ude, the mayor of Munich, is now hoping to get Berlin to change its mind on the thorny issue of software patents.

The Social Democrat mayor has put out the official word on the LiMux project, proclaiming loudly that no one has given up on it. A small IT firm from the region, SWM Software Marketing, had previously sowed seeds of doubt by publishing an alarmist statement; the document confirmed that the project had been frozen since the first call for bids had been suspended.

The LiMux project, which was to migrate the City's laptop and desktops from Windows to Linux, has become a very sensitive subject in the Bavarian capital.

"The town stands by the LiMux initiative and its strategic decision in favour of open-source solutions," the mayor said in a statement on the city council's website. Munich's techies have already presented "the strategic advantages of Linux solutions" to fellow Bavarian councils in Nuremburg and Augsburg.

"We are happy to see the interest that our project is attracting in those towns, as well as in Vienna," said Ude.

If the Austrian capital's local authority, also controlled by social democrats, has effectively recognised the advantages of open source, it has followed a somewhat different - and more timid - path from Munich's. Vienna is leaving it up to its 16,000 users to choose whether or not to use an OS based on Linux.

The call for bids for the second phase of the Linux project has been "effectively pushed back so as the financial and legal risks [of the European directive on software patents] must be examined beforehand", according to the mayor.

According to the timetable established in June by the city of Munich, all its computers, which run on Windows NT, will be equipped with OpenOffice and Mozilla this year.

Between 2005 and 2006, Windows NT will be progressively replaced by a Linux-based OS on all machines. The call for bids for the second phase, which was due to go out at the end of July, has now been pushed back.

The third stage of the project, which consisted of migrating the servers and specialised applications towards non-proprietary solutions, was not expected to take place before 2008.

Ude has attracted favourable attention from the Green Party, who called on him to put pressure on the Berlin government to withdraw its support for the directive on software patents. In its current form, the document would create a patents system similar to that of the US - a system opposed by the free and open-source software movement as well as by Europeans SMEs.

The mayor of Munich doesn't want to go into battle alone, however. "It all depends from now on the European councils and businesses who are interested in open source: they must exert their influence on national governments and on the European authorities."

Estelle Dumout writes for ZDNet France