2008 – An interesting year for LiMux
So it’s the end of the year and it’s time to look back for me… my 6th year working for Munich’s LiMux project and my first year as deputy project manager. Wow, maybe I’m a permanent fixture soon 
In my opinion as the responsible one for our public relations I think Open Standards have been a very important task for us last year. We adressed our concerns about OOXML and other closed standards to many decision makers around Europe. Our City Mayor explained at the event “Being Open About Standards” in Brussels in June, that there is a great opportunity for SMEs in software market, when public administrations use free software and open standards. We decided to exclusively use the open standard ODF for internal document exchange by the end of 2009 and we added ODF to the list of accepted formats during november 2008 – there’s no docx on it.
Finally, Microsoft won this fight at ISO, but they lost the battle on respectability worldwide, I think.
The beginning of our cooperation with the german Federal Foreign Office was another interesting thing in 2008. We identified some topics to cooperate and nowadays to this purpose frequent discussions take place. Two public authorities having exactly the same idea of free software and open standards. We shared a booth at Linuxtag in Berlin and at SYSTEMS in Munich to show other interested administrations: yes, it works! My special thanks to W. Langer and T. Werner in Berlin!
Releasing our WollMux under the EUPL, a free software licence, was another milestone for my activities in 2008. After two years of discussing the pros and cons with our legal department, our decision makers and the development team (who was absolutely willing to publish their code) we released this software on May 29th during the Linuxtag in Berlin. Thanks to Matthias and Christoph, our developers!
We also started a cooperation with the Open Source Observatory and Repository, set up by the IDABC program and run by the European Commission. The repository is hosting our WollMux and we have been the beta tester for this infrastructure. Furthermore, we actively take part in the discussions started by OSOR to strengthen the network of european public authorities using free software and open standards. Very interesting networks occur.
Another highlight was the press conference by our City Mayoress and project sponsor, Christine Strobl. Regrettably I was on holidays in Greece, but the day was prepared very well She talked about some advantages for Munich because of the LiMux project: local and communal business promotion, improvement in efficiency, open standards and guaranteed future. Thanks to Peter and Frank for preparation.
Additionally, there have been many other interesting events, discussions and results – our first booth at CeBIT, our participation at DebConf in Argentinia, our participation at the LiSoG-Benchmark Project, some nice articles for online and print magazines (thx to Julia), my visits to The Hague, Amsterdam, Brussels, Malaga, Leipzig, Vienna, Düsseldorf, Duisburg, Augsburg, many times in Berlin, Geneva, Bern, Utrecht, Darmstadt, Nuremburg, Hof and others. Unfortunately I had to cancel my trip to OOoCon in Bejing, I think this would have been an amazing experience.
But the real project progress is measured by the internal advance. Business before pleasure.
Nowadays, a lot of work is done silently in the background, because the project has been set up and is running, there’s nothing new, just business as usual. Further development of the client or the WollMux, managing the internal communication, managing the project, and so on. It’s time to reap the fruits of our last two year’s work.
Two departments finished their migration to our LiMux Basisclient and to OpenOffice.org, some more started the process with small units. Our newly formed MUV-Team (migration assistance on site) helps to master the different challenges at the other departments. The members of our new elected City Council got notebooks running with the LiMux Basisclient, so they act as cutting-edge users for mobile working, eg for our upcoming teleworkers.
In November we could release version 2 of our LiMux Basisclient, including the switch to Debian etch and many improvements in FAI/GOsa² for the administrators. Thanks to Florian, Jan-Marek, Robert and Michael!
The migration to OpenOffice.org (in some departments a first step before the switch to Linux) is ongoing and in some departments the final exit from Microsoft Office was achieved. Congratulations!
Our newly started subproject “consolidation of infrastructure” achieved the first up-and-coming results and surely will continue to improve the heterogenous situation in Munich’s IT. Thanks to Uli.
The numbers are steadily increasing and I’m sure we will manage to migrate most of our workplaces until 2011. But there’s a long way ahead and a lot of work has to be done. The next year hopefully will be the year of finishing our migration to OpenOffice.org, whereas the linux client numbers will highly increase in 2010.
2009 straight ahead
The next year hasn’t started yet, but the planning is in progress. You can meet us at least at the following events:
- Open Source Meets Business, Nuremburg, January 28th
- Chemnitzer Linux Tage, Chemnitz, March 14th-15th
- OpenExpo Bern, Bern, April 1st or 2nd
- LinuxDays, Geneva, June 3rd or 4th or 5th
- BerlinOPEN, Berlin, June 23rd
- Linuxtag 2009, Berlin, June 24th-27th
- tbc…
Finally, I’d like to thank all of my team members, all of our partners, thanks to everyone giving us feedback and helping us by writing free software!
But my very special thanks to Stefanie, my indispensable right-hand colleague 
Thank you all and see you next year!
/me is going to Sri Lanka now for three weeks. Keep your chin up!