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

First: This column is my personal opinion and not necessarily the one of the Municipality of Munich.

OK, let’s start my FAQs with this simple question:

Why did the Municipality of Munich chose to use free software?

Short answer:

This was a political decision for independence, freedom of choice and a free market. The decision based on facts.

Long answer:

1. EOL for MS WinNT4

Microsoft company announced the end of life/support for Microsoft Windows NT4, which was widely used on the administration’s desktops. So the Municipality, like every other public authority, had to examine the next step.

2. Examining alternatives is a legal requirement

The City Council asked the administration the show alternatives. This was a demand of the german law. It’s unlawful to chose one solution or provider without examining alternatives. The administration decided to take this question serious and prepared a preliminary study together with an external consulting company.

This study examined three main factors of five different alternatives (ranging from proprietary software for operating system and office suite to free software for both, including some mixtures of both). The study answered the questions about

• Is it technical possible to use the alternative?
• How much does it cost to introduce the alternative?
• What are the strategic advantages and disadvantages of the alternative?

3. Let the politicians decide

Finally, the result was a draw of two examined alternatives. A draw in total, that means not in every detail aspect. The perfect situation to balance pros and cons, to discuss them and to focus on the things the coucil wants to stress. Great.

One of the two equal alternatives was based completely on proprietary software. This alternative had lower overall costs in the short term, but chosing this would have meant to tighten the dependencies on this proprietary software vendor. So the lower short term costs faced high long term costs. And from the strategic point of view, other products of the same vendor should have been introduced to ensure security and operation of the desktops.

The other equal alternative was based on free software. Of course, changing the architecture meant higher costs to invest in the beginning. But it was clear, that this was the only possible solution if we want to escape from the vendor lock-in.

The administration presented this draw to the members of the City Council in 2003.

4. Political decision for independence, freedom of choice and a free market

On May 26th in 2003, the City Council decided by majority of Social Democrats (SPD) and Greens for the long term strategy of the administration’s desktops. The main objectives to chose this alternative were

• Increase the independence from software and hardware vendors, consultants, external timelines
  This means to get the opportunity of choices.
• Reduce the hurdles for small and medium sized companies to take part in the software market
  More competition means higher quality for lower prices for all of us. Monopolies hamper this.
• Reduce the IT costs in the long term by deciding on our own.
  Of course an investment has to be made to get rid of the vendor lock-in, the so called exit costs (Gartner). But after the change, we all benefit from the opportunities of choices.

There were two decisions. The first one knows everyone:

• Free software and open standards for the desktop operating system and the office suite.

The second isn’t known as much as the first one, but also a very important one:

• Business (legacy) applications should be procured platform open in the future.

This long term goal means learning from the past and reducing the vendor lock-in again by applications which doesn’t take care of the operating system and office suite the user uses. Communicate with open standards and don’t force the user to a specific operating system or office suite.

5. Successful verification of the decision

The City Council decided and asked the administration to examine this alternative more in detail, before spending any money. This was the detailed conception phase in 2003 and 2004. Together with another IT and consulting company the administration re-examined the chosen free software way. And the result was quite the same. So the Council decided in 2004 to start the migration and authorized the money for the two times independently estimated costs.

My personal conclusion

This shows clearly that Munich’s decision is based on facts. Facts that have been revised by two independent consulting companies, by the administration, by the office for administrative audit, by the audit court of Bavaria.

So it’s not a kamikaze mission by some crazy free software enthusiasts, as blamed to me many times (e.g. by limuxwatch, imho the Microsoft paid anti lobbyist blog). But of course, it was a political decision which had to be made in 2003 and I admire the members of the 2003 City Council for this courageous decision against all lobbying attacks. It was the right decision during a time, when many other public administrations didn’t event think about alternatives, which was completely illegal, but common these old days.

I will continue this “LiMux question” column everytime when there’s some time left. Please feel free to send me your question.

Florian

Yesterday the possible bids for the upcoming selection process presented themselves at DebConf 9 in Cáceres.

Beside the bid from Bosnia there are 3 german regions competing for one german bid until end of this year, of course our pulsating capital Berlin, the Rhein/Ruhr area and Munich.

Our Munich entry slide:

Impressions from Munich

Then we described some facts and figures about Munich and ended up with a statement by City Mayor Christian Ude, welcoming Munich’s bid:

C. Ude

“The City of Munich uses free software and open standards. Both are an essential base for our information technology. I would be pleased to welcome the worldwide developer community of Debian GNU/Linux in Munich in 2011.”

At the moment we’re the onliest only region with such a strong political committment and support. Great.

I think it is really important for Munich to host recognized open source events to show the broad support for openess and freedom in Bavaria’s capital. Political support is one success factor, but politicians everywhere imho slowly realize nowadays, that there’s no future for being dependend or locked-in to special vendors. Fine

Some thoughs about dc9 will follow the next days.

Gute Idee:

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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

Home again after one week traveling at first to Budapest and then to Geneva. In the Hungarian capital I talked mainly to representatives of public administrations of this – in the sense of free software – rapid developing country. One current matter is how to do a procurement process and give free software a chance to participate. Well, I think this question is really answered by many other member states and they would have a closer look, e.g. to the Netherlands. Hopefully.

In Geneva I gave a presentation about LiMux at the linuxdays.ch, the biggest event in the french speaking part of Switzerland. Attendees were from private companies and public administrations as well.

One question I have been asked both times was: what was Microsoft’s reaction after loosing Munich? Did they try to step up the political pressure? Did they try to convince decision-makers to do the other way?

Well, I answered them like I always do, of course. The best is to be prepared that their lobbyist will come and visit everyone who can decide anything. Realising this helps, to see that’s just their way to sell products. Not to improve the failing points, but to convince anyone, that he needs useless new things.

But the intensity the questions were asked shows me, that there may be real problems. Also my last dispute with Wouter van Vugt (a non self-confessed Microsoft lobbyist) points this way. Maybe it’s time for a next penalty by the European Commission for them?

Interesting things are ongoing. You remember the rumors after realizing that Microsoft got a deal in Switzerland for 42 million CHF? Now RedHat and 18 other companies ask the court to decide wheter this was legal or not. I’m curious if the court follows the governments argumentation, that there is no sufficient alternative available for servers and clients. I think there are many examples showing the contrary.

Jan Wildeboer wrotes an interesting blog post about this. The title says everything: Asking Switzerland for more neutrality…

No, it is not in my opinion. But I think that is what Microsoft now tries to make us public authorities think. I know about the facts behind the scenes. I know that this company declines real support for ODF by doing something strange, not aiming at real interoperability, but at a Microsoft implementation of ODF, not compatible with others. So they, as worldwide market leader, can proof the insufficiency of ODF. And they have the solution for us. Use OOXML instead. It implements every function Microsoft Office does. And the next step is, that other interested implementations should improve their products to implement everything OOXML does. Really simple, isn’t it?

I fear that this argumentation (OOXML is the better standard) is very persuasive for all the public authorities who don’t know facts behind. They see that there’s a really open standard, everyone is talking about (ODF). And that everyone wants Microsoft to implement this standard, although they had an own “open” standard OOXML. Now they implement this unliked “alien” standard and nothing wents fine. So the conclusion seems to be consecutive, that the standard is the problem. If saved as OOXML (from Microsoft Office) everything is OK. They are the market leader worldwide and almost everyone uses their product (despite some dissidents). And then, Microsoft is again the leader on everything, Office products, exchange standards and so on.

It is the right time to rise up against this behavior. Again and again. They had not learnt the lesson. We need real interoperability, not controlled by one vendor, but discussed and implemented by many competitive products. Let’s discuss what action can be taken to get closer to real interoperability.

I blogged at OSOR.eu:

http://www.osor.eu/communities/openoffice-in-public-authorities/blog/odf-is-not-the-same-as-odf

Hi,

just a small collection for me, please feel free to add interesting links or ressources about this topic.

Rob Weir: Update on ODF spreadsheets

Rob Weir: Follow up on excel 2007 sp2s ODF

Rob Weir: Battle for ODF interoperability

Jeremy Allsion: In Office SP2, Microsoft manages to reduce interoperability

Jomar Silva: Microsoft now attempt to fragment ODF

ODF Alliance: Microsoft’s ODF support falls short, additional fact sheet

Microsoft (OOXML based): Document Interoperability Initiative Drives Development of New Tools

… to be continued!