Floschi’s Blog

Again one more year is over now and yes, it’s time to look back what has happened in 2009 in and around the LiMux project. That’s my personal look back, not neccessarily the one of the City of Munich.

There are again some rumors about LiMux’ dead here in Munich. I don’t want to comment on the origin of them, but to the responsible company: This doesn’t work out. LiMux is more alive than ever and the story goes on very well. Sure

To encounter the many rumors and anti-lobbying activities, I’m running my personal comments in this blog. And in 2009, I started an own category “LiMux questions” with the first article “Why did Munich choose free software“. Feel free to ask questions to me.

ODF as standard, OpenOffice.org everywhere

LiMux has achieved one very important goal. The open standard Open Document Format (ODF) is now Munich’s primary used internal document exchange standard, beside of PDF for non-editable documents. Congratulations to all, who made this great success happen! Our standard office workplace consists now of OpenOffice.org (Writer, Calc, Impress, Draw), Mozilla Firefox and Thunderbird and many other sometimes needed apps like e.g. GIMP.

This achievement is not just replacing one office software by another. Well, every workplace is migrated to OpenOffice.org, but it was an almighty effort to be able to do this switch, to get rid of many vendor lock-ins created in the past. Over 20,000 templates have been consolidated and migrated, either to templates, macros or web apps. Most of them use our self developed free software WollMux to assist our employees in the administration’s template jungle. A number of business apps had to be adapted to use ODF instead of vendor locked-in Microsoft mechanisms.

SAP is one of them, one of the apps penetrating many of our business processes, the same like in other big companies/administrations. We did some self customizations to enable the communication with OpenOffice.org. And of course, we shared our experiences (at Linuxtag, thx to Uwe Hähle). We want to publish our customizations, but at the moment the SAP company is examining the legal aspect for some months now. We’ll see, if 2010 might be a break-through.

LiMux Basisclient pilots ready

Another achievement in 2009 was the establishment of linux client pilot areas inside every of our 12 departments. This was, beside the OpenOffice.org migration, the fundamental step to increase the drive for our client migration in general during the upcoming years. Yes, these are only small areas (together with our completely migrated departmetns round about 2,500 clients), but to get them up and running is important to be able to get a closer look into the IT infrastructures, the needed business apps and their interfaces inside of every single department (which invented the wheel for its own in the past). And of course, to train the IT staff step-by-step for this technical change.

LiMux’ Community Engagement

We try to be part of as many as possible events to actively share our experiences and to show: YES, Munich can! If interested, I try to put them into LiMux’ google calendar. We also started our inofficial twitter feeds or identi.ca dents. And I upload some of our talks at planetlimux.

Important for me was the winning of the German DebConf 2011 bid, so I hope to win the global bid in March 2010 and to welcome the Debian community in Munich in 2011.

We’re also part of the Open Source Meeting, a new event created by OpenOffice.org and Mozilla in Munich, which will take place every month from 2011 and targets interested beginners and professional free software enthusiasts as well. @Florian and Carsten: good job, go on!

Of course, I have to mention our WollMux. This year we started the WollMux Roadshow together with DBI company and the Linux Solutions Group (LiSoG), including events in Munich, Stuttgart and Hamburg. It’s like a promotion tour for OpenOffice.org as basis, WollMux for template management and Munich as the one bringing both together. Every event got well criticisms and we’re planning to go on next year.

Improving ODF as leading open standard was the goal of the first ODFplugfest in The Hague. I took part to get an impression of things moving in this (former) battlefield and I was amazed about the team work done there.

We’re committed to give others back our experiences after 2 years of office migration and we took part in the first OpenOffice.org congress of Economy and Administration in Wiesbaden, and we also joined the OOoCon in Orvieto later this year.

LiMux – the upcoming future

The whole project will be adapted during the next months for the final big step, the client migration in general. Some improvements and optimizations in the project structure, to learn from the past and be ready for continuing the success story.

For me there is a big change, a good one in my opinion. From 2010 on I will be responsible for just one topic: Munich’s external IT communication and relationships, especially in the field of open standards and free software. Yes, I worked on this topic also during the last years, but from now, it’s the only one I can improve in a more general view, not only with LiMux as focus. Interesting times ahead for me

And now 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!

Thank you all and see you next year!

Florian

The next roadshow event on September 24th is a very special one. The WollMux is a guest of SUN Microsystems in Hamburg, the OpenOffice.org development headquarter.

The event is co-organized by the Linux Solutuions Group (LiSoG), SUN Microsystems, OpenOffice.org Deutschland e.V. and DBI company, the experts supporting Munich’s OpenOffice.org migration.

For more information have a look at these sites and please register if you’re interested to join:

• Information provided by LiSoG
• Information provided by SUN

See you in Hamburg on Thursday!

Our WollMux is on tour again, next week on July 14th he will visit Stuttgart. Together with LiSoG, OpenOffice Deutschland e.V. and DBI this free software tool for template management and processing will be presented to you.

More information is here (german only).

Register until July 7th.

My comments after one week “openess” in Germany’s pulsating capital

First part of my programm was the new event “Berlin Open“, organised by a team of students lead by Prof. Lutterbeck of TU Berlin. Topic was “Open Innovation” and during the two conference days many talks by quite different people showed an impression of the very interesting aspects around “openess” – in mind, music, software, (geographical) data and research.

Germany’s secretary of state Schallbruch clearly commented that the Federal Government is not amused about what’s going on with document interoperability; a hint to Microsoft and their behaviour with OOXML in general (which was declined by his Ministry) and ODF interop as shown in Office 2007 SP2. And he announced that the user software for Germany’s new electronic ID (ePA) will be free software. Great, thank you fed gov!

Also a very interesting talk by Simon Hampton, Google’s lead of public policy in Brussels, about Google’s Openess with 4Cs. And many others… Just one more to mention. PhD Leonhard Dobusch talked about his studies of four different (non) migration projects in four Municipalities, Vienna, Frankfurt, Berlin and Munich. His conclusion: “Speaking as economist, I could tell you, what Munich is doing is real innovation”. Thank you, Leonhard!

To sum up this event: interesting speakers, quite good location, only few participants. Changes in concept neccessary, but only if repeated. Thanks to Prof Lutterbeck and his team. Good luck in retirement!

Let’s go on with the next event, Europe’s leading event on free software and business, the Linuxtag. From Wed to Sat our LiMux project was ready for sharing experiences in four different talks during the conference and at the booth together with our partners from Foreign Office, Federal Office for IT-Security and the Federal Open Source Competence Center, which also organised the booth; thanks for that. Besides general information about our project it was the WollMux people asked about, wanted to know more. Great. A clear todo for our office team to get some needed public improvements on presentation and documentation done, finally.

(This photo shows our booth staff on the left, Matthias, Michael and Jens, thank you! – and our LiMux project manager Peter Hofmann togehter with Munich’s CIO Karl-Heinz Schneider, both visiting Linuxtag on thursday for some meetings with the fed gov and others)

Linuxtag again was an opportunity for strenghtening the network of governments using free software and talking about future plans. Thinking strategic, I’m sure it is the time for a real change now for public administrations – if we have the courage to think about what we will need not only tomorrow, but the day after tomorrow. Let’s do it, now!

I attended Jan Wildeboer’s (RedHat Open Source Evangelist) keynote at FUDCon, which was held together with Linuxtag for the first time. He is responsible for the world wide conspiracy against Microsoft, as he was told by a MS lobbyist in Brussels. He talked about the important role of open standards and explained the idea of twitter/facebook/… folks beeing the next open source programmers; so we shouldn’t ignore them. You can find him at identi.ca, for sure.

The DebConf 2011 could be in Germany and at the moment three german regions think about a nomination, Berlin, Rhein/Rhur and… Munich. So I (as non Debian developer) attended the first common meeting as the onliest one speaking for Munich. Where were the many Debian people from Munich?

Today I shortly visited the last day of Linuxtag and was quite disappointed about some exhibitors have already gone. E.g. the french people left behind a nearly empty booth and also some other business booths were “open space for free people”. Hm, strange.

To sum up Linuxtag: a lot of conference talks, great opportunities for networking, imho fewer visitors than last year at our booth and the Berlin Fairground trying to get too much money for every step they moved. Changes for future urgently needed, maybe change the location?

My final statement: Dear Berlin Open organizers, you’re doing a great job, but it is an absolute “must” to join Linuxtag next year. Not two independent events, one in common. And Linuxtag, thank you for all, but please decide if Messe Berlin is really the right partner for you… and not only for you, but also for the free software and open standards movement. Berlin is such a great location, maybe there are other places?

Thanks

Two events to be aware of:

• Linuxtag 2010: June 9th until 12th, link
• OpenOffice.org public administrations congress Germany: October 6th and 7th, link

Two successful days for ODF interoperability

It happened in The Hague the last two days, probably you wouldn’t imagine before

Over 40 people working together, defining test scenarios, creating test documents, running many tests on different platforms and using plenty different ODF implementations – people from community driven projects like Abiword, KOffice, OpenOffice.org as well as software vendors like Google, IBM, Oracle, RedHat, SUN and – of course – Microsoft. And many other people interested in improving the level of OpenDocument Format interoperability.

Some initial talks pointed out the dutch strategy to achieve more openess. Secretary of state Frank Heemskerk explained that he will push the 3 Os, meaning Open Standards, Open Source and Open Content for the Netherlands. Ineke Schop and Fabrice Mous from the dutch governmental programm Netherlands in Open Connection (NOIV) showed how NOIV supports implementing this policy. Robert Weir (OASIS ODF TC chair) and Oliver-Rainer Wittmann explained the way to ODF 1.2 and the next versions on day II. And finally, Doug Mahugh from Microsoft’s interoperability team stated why documentation on every implemetation is important.

But the main topic was to do tests and to improve interoperability. This pic show the pleasant atmosphere offered by NOIV to the participants for a maximum of creativity.

What exactly are the results?

Well, one of the most important things for me was the spirit to work together across all prejudices. Remember, free software developers and fulltime workers for big companies like Google, IBM, Oracle, RedHat, SUN and Microsoft sitting together to achieve better interoperability for ODF. Great.

We discussed the need for a function status overview for different ODF implementations in addition to a simple validator. What will be the best valid ODF file, if there are non interoperable functions? Won’t be real exchangeable. One to do for the future.

Many test scenarios were created and runned, so the people from implementors got ideas were to put hands on for improvement. There’s a lot to do, we wrapped-up in the end. It’s not only a matter of OpenOffice.org compared to Microsoft Office. To get real interoperability for e.g. citizens we should go ahead. ODF is an enabler of interoperability – now it’sup to implementors to do their homework until next meeting. We all agree that there should be perpetual plugfests. Maybe we could host one of the next in Germany?

My opinion:
A good start, a lot to do fixing concrete issues and also defining general principles, validators with functional analysis, all contributors are willing to do so, great.

Thanks a lot to NOiV.

For more information here we go:

• official web site: http://www.odfworkshop.nl
• plugtest Wiki: http://plugtest.opendocsociety.org
• #ODFplugfest tweeds: http://twitter.com/#search?q=odfplugfest
• #ODFplugfest dents: http://identi.ca/tag/odfplugfest

Wow. They’re realizing that no one will pay for proprietary software, when there are cheaper alternatives of free software. So they give away their current office suite nearly for free, see this website. Just for students.

That’s cool, isn’t it? No, it is not!

It’s a trap. The same trap like pre installed Windows on every hardware you can buy. You won’t pay much for this version, but you have to extend, you have to buy upgrades, you have to … and you have to pay for them!

You can use this software, of course. But you can’t you this software as you like, you can use it as Microsoft likes you to do. That’s the difference.

If you’re willing to do so, you can use the software, but you can’t change it. Never.

They’re trying to get students hooked on their office produkt. That’s it.

Don’t be stupid. You don’t have to pay anything to use OpenOffice.org, for example. You can share it, you can change it, you can use it like you want to do!

Together with the Linux Solutions Group (LiSoG) and DBI company we arrange the first “WollMux Day” on Feb 18th, 2009 in Munich.

Information in german: here.

From now on it’s officially possible to send ODF documents to our city administration. We added the ODF standard to the list of accepted formats.

Why did this take so long? Well, we had to ensure that all of our twelve departments are able to read ODF files, even if they did not yet switch to OpenOffice.org at every single workplace. But now we managed it

So feel free to send ODFs to Munich.