Munich shifts from proprietary to open source software
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In Munich, Germany, city officials are replacing proprietary software with open-source alternatives, focusing on infrastructure rather than desktop operating systems.
Dr. Laura Dornheim, Munich’s chief digital officer, explained the city previously adopted and then abandoned a Linux desktop distribution called LiMux due to political factors, a change in government prioritized a relationship with Microsoft. Now, Munich is prioritizing cost savings and greater control over its IT systems.
The city is swapping VMware for Proxmox, Jira and Confluence for OpenProject and XWiki, and Oracle databases for PostgreSQL. These infrastructure and collaboration changes are projected to save at least €1.5 million annually. Munich also aims to share its publicly funded software with other cities. DAVe, an application for traffic data analysis, is already used in Wolfsburg, Germany, and the city is developing MUCGPT, an AI application for internal use.
The city established an Open Source Program Office in 2024 to coordinate these efforts and promote the "public money, public code" principle, ensuring that software developed with public funds is available for others to use and improve.
