Munich Migration at Robert Pogson

The decision of the city of Munich to migrate to GNU/Linux has been a long story and continues. Current status is that all 14000 work stations have been converted to FLOSS applications and 12000 staff trained in their use. 2000 work stations run GNU/Linux. Since they are now using thin clients, the conversion of the rest should be fairly easy. Less than 50% of the budget has been spent to date.

see Debconf2009 keynote

While the naysayers point to Munich as an example of failure the migration is sure to succeed because of its German thoroughness. Naysayers harp on budget, usability, re-training costs etc. Re-training has been only 16% of the cost so far. The project has won awards for usability. The costs going forward will be very small because they no longer will have to upgrade periodically at M$’s whim.

My Mission

My observations and opinions about IT are based on 40 years of use in science and technology and lately, in education. I like IT that is fast, cost-effective and reliable. I do not care whether my solution is the same as yours. I like to think for myself.

My first use of GNU/Linux in 2001 was so remarkably better than what I had been using, I feel it is important work to share GNU/Linux with the world. I have been blessed by working in schools where students and school systems have benefited by good, modular software easily installed in most systems.

I have shown GNU/Linux to thousands of students and hundreds of teachers over the years and will continue in some way doing that until I die in spite of the opposition.