Munich Linux Year-In-Review: 1100 New Conversions in 2009

Florian Schiessl, one of the LiMux Linux project managers, and primary spokesperson for the LiMux project,  has posted a year-in-review on his blog.

A couple of points stand out:

First, Munich has finally installed OpenOffice.org on every machine and is using ODF as default file format:

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.

So it took about five and a half years to migrate just the office software. At the time that Munich decided to go Microsoft-free, they said they would be switching to OpenOffice.org in just a few months. It was not supposed to take an almighty effort to accomplish.

Second, since August, Munich has only managed to convert another 300 machines to the LiMux Linux distro:

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).

So, assuming Munich still runs the same number of workstations they did six years ago, they have now converted 17.8% of their workstations (2,500 machines out of 14,000 total) to Linux. 

Munich reported 1400 completed conversions as of November 2008, so that means the total for the year 2009 (actually 13 months, if you include December of 2008) is about 1100 new conversions to Linux. That's a rate of about 85 per month for the year 2009.

The rate for the last part of the year was fairly consistent with the annual rate. Munich converted 300 machines during the last four months of the year, a rate of 75 per month during September-December.

For the entire project, which is now ending it's 79th month, the rate is of conversion has been 31 per month, or about one per day since May 28, 2003.

Assuming they can continue to convert 85 machines per month, the project will be completed in another 11.2 years, in the year 2020.

USA Today Misses the Point

Byron Acohido, at USA Today online's "Technology Live" blog, has posted a story about IBM's marketing efforts to convince businesses to switch to Linux instead of upgrading to Windows 7. IBM was involved in 2003 in convincing the City of Munich that it was somehow a Good Idea to switch from Windows to Linux, and Mr. Acohido says this:

In the spring of 2003, Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer cut short a skiing trip to race to Germany to try prevent the city of Munich from excising Windows and Office from 14,000 desktop PCs. Ballmer failed. IBM and German Linux distributor SuSE worked furiously behind the scenes to persuade Munich to make the switch to a Linux system.

Since then, Linux has steadily gained market share on desktops and servers throughout Europe and Asia, and on the servers powering many data centers of North American companies. Amazon's retail operations, for instance, use Linux servers. But most U.S. companies have stayed loyal to Windows and Office as the operating system and productivity suite of choice for desktops and laptops used by employees.

Notice anything?

I notice that there is no mention that over 6.5 years later, Munich has only managed to convert 15.7% of their desktops to LiMux Linux.

I also notice that there are no data or sources to back up the claim that "Linux has steadily gained market share on desktops and servers throughout Europe and Asia".

And finally, I notice that servers and desktops are conveniently lumped together, even though legacy servers mostly ran Unix, and are only operated by experts, so converting to Linux on a server is usually much easier than converting a desktop from Window to Linux.

Servers and desktops are apples and oranges, so the entire quoted section above is very misleading, to say the least.

Given that after 6.5 years of expensive and intensive effort, under a mandate from the city council, and under the spotlight of global news coverage, the Linux desktop share within the city of Munich offices is only 15%, then it is likely that the share "throughout Europe and Asia" is infinitesimally small.

200 More!

My goodness, we are getting updates from Munich fast and furious now. The newest is here (.pdf).

On slide 4 of the presentation, it states that as of August, 2,200 out of 14,000 (15.7%) Munich city workstations are using the LiMux Linux software. That is an increase of 200 since the previous update a month earlier. 

That's pretty impressive for Munich. They have struggled to convert 800 per year for the last several years, so 200 in one month is a new milestone.

If Munich can continue to convert 200 each month, they will reach their lowered target of 80% conversion to Linux in about 3.75 more years. That would be approximately May of 2012, on track with their most recently stated goal.

Can they keep up this pace? Or was the month of July just a fluke? Keep us posted, Munich!

Another Munich Linux Update

LiMux project manager and spokesperson, Florian Schiessl, presented at the Debian developer conference "DebConf 2009", and gave an update on the status of the project. He has posted presentation slides here. 

Slide 7 informs us that, as of July, out of the 14,000 workstations in the city departments,  "2,000 workplaces are using the Debian GNU/Linux based client".

That is an increase of 200 since May, when they had converted 1,800. 

Also, from the same slide, it appears that Munich has finally completed installation of OpenOffice.org on all 14,000 desktops. The slides do not state whether any of those desktops still have Microsoft Office or other similar products installed.

Munich Conversion Rate Remains the Same

The Munich LiMux Linux conversion team has updated their English language page to show that as of May 2009, they had migrated a total of 1800 computers to LiMux Linux:

Status quo of the LiMux project Mai 2009:

  * 100% work stations using Firefox and Thunderbird
  * 12.000 work stations using OpenOffice.org
  * 1.800 work stations migrated to LiMux
  * all other units of the City Council start the migration to Linux in 2009

Six months prior, in November '08, the count was 1,400 completed LiMux conversions, meaning they migrated 400 machines in about six months for an annualized rate of 800/year. That rate is very similar to their pace during the previous year--from November '07 to November '08, Munich converted 740 machines.

Munich's most recently published goal is to achieve 80% conversion by the end of 2012. That means about 9,400 machines to convert in 3.5 years. That cannot not happen unless Munich can quickly accelerate from 800 per year to almost 2,700 per year for the rest of the project

Throw Your Users Into the Pool!

Some Linux advocates have started to notice that the Munich LiMux Linux migration has not been successful. One somewhat disturbing example appears in a recent Linuxinsider.com article called, "How to Advocate for Linux Without Coming Across as a Lunatic": 

'Throw People Into the Pool'

"Carla Schroder is right on as usual," blogger Robert Pogson told LinuxInsider. "I have introduced thousands to GNU/Linux, and turning them loose on it works very well. Young people are much more accepting of change if they can see the benefits in person."

People "who do the long song and dance to migrate people as Munich did are wasting a lot of time and energy," Pogson added. "It is much more efficient to give a short introduction and to throw people into the pool -- they will be highly motivated to learn to swim." [emphasis added]

So Mr. Pogson blames the Munich failure on the IT department in Munich. He thinks Munich has been giving their users too much training. Munich should just turn on the machines and let the users figure out the rest for themselves! The users will love you for it.

Maybe Mr. Pogson thinks the users (at least the ones who don't drown in the pool) will also write their own software to replace critical applications which are not Linux compatible.

Google Chrome OS and the Lesson of Munich

Today Google finally announced that they are, in fact, working on a long-rumoured operating system, called Chrome OS. Chrome OS is still a year away from being released, but that did not dampen enthusiasm among the anti-Microsoft zealots.

But Jack Schofield at the Guardian cautions against irrational exuberance by noting the lessons of Munich:

"...the idea that businesses are soon going to replace Windows with Chrome OS is beyond fanciful. ...They're not going to rewrite 10-15 years worth of [legacy] programs to run them via Chrome OS any time soon. Even if they want to, and can afford the attempt, it's going to take a decade...

But look at Munich as being more typical of the enterprise problem. It started to convert from Windows to Linux in 2003 (after a two-year study) and reckons it will have 80% of its desktops running LiMux by 2012. ("The remaining computers are currently running Windows NT 4 or Windows 2000," according to a case study.) So the whole project is taking more than a decade, it's costing more than staying with Microsoft (if you include the cost of training), and Munich will end up with significantly worse software (ie OpenOffice) than if it had stuck with Microsoft."

Put that in your pipe and smoke it.