Munich has declared that its decade old move to open source software is finally over and that it is a huge success with over 15,000 systems running Linux and OpenOffice.
Back in 2003 the German city decided to reduce its dependence on proprietary operating systems and software and adopt Linux operating system on desktops and servers; install open source office productivity suites for all its number crunching, presentation and word processing needs; and other free software as needed.
The city has revealed [PDF] that the system now has a “project acceptance certificate” and that the project has been formally completed and the entire system is in regular operation.
Navigating to council’s website shows us the stats as of May 2013, which roughly translates to “15,000 jobs use free software such as Thunderbird and Firefox; 15,000 jobs use OpenOffice.org and the WollMux; and 14,000 jobs use the LiMux client.” The information may not be entirely correct as The Register points to this mailer wherein it is stated that the council had decided back in October 12 to switch to LibreOffice.
The council’s decision of going open source and the successful execution of the same will definitely spearhead quite a few similar projects across the globe.
