After long delays, the Munich IT department has made progress in implementing the 5-point plan for open source that the city council decided on four years ago. “Everything is working,” SPD city councilor Lars Mentrup told online, with a “replacement program” launched by the Green-Red coalition after the Linux-based desktop project LiMux ended in 2020. He hopes the still-open “relaxation program” will be the “next milestone” in steps toward digital sovereignty. It aims to provide an opportunity to technically qualified developers from around the world to “advance their open source projects and work closely with the city administration”.
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Mentrup wants to address this part of the initiative in his welcome speech Forum Munich Digital In the Bavarian capital on 21 November. Applications are already possible. The IT department’s “Open Source Program Office” (OSPO), which was set up as a “hub” in January, writes, “Sabbaticals are attractively remunerated so that programmers can be released by their employer. ” There is no obligation to follow the instructions. In principle, a fixed-term permanent position of six months can be envisioned, as well as temporary freelance assignments for administrative staff and external programmers.
Mentrup said that 200,000 euros would be available for the relaxation. As a rule, two relevant short-term positions can be filled per year. It is about “developing solutions together that will advance not only Munich, but also other administrations around the world.” It is a unique approach “that combines the innovative strengths of the open source community with the specific needs of public administration.” There is one in Berlin from mid-2023 Proposal from the Greens to the Senate To establish a comparable funding initiative, which the current black-red state government has not yet taken up. In principle, the Social Democrats also see other large cities such as Hamburg as allies in the region.
View of the Bund and Schleswig-Holstein
In early 2022, Greens city councilor Judith Greif complained that the IT department was not committed to supporting the public representatives’ curriculum. Newly elected IT official Laura Dornheim promised reforms in July 2022. OSPO, led by Kubernetes pioneer Klaus ‘KLML’ Mueller, is now up and running. Above all, its aim is to actively look at projects with free software that may be of interest to Munich, to maintain contact with the community, to advise the administration on software purchases and to clarify legal questions. it Provides strategic support with a current budget of 75,000 euros Internally frequently use open source programs such as Consul for citizen participation, Vue.js for building web applications, OpenAPI generators for open interfaces, or Robot Framework. Commercial support and financial assistance is also available for work on core functionalities (open core) of various relevant projects.
According to the alliance’s plan, the principle of “public money, public code” should also be brought to life. A related campaign states that taxpayer-funded programs should be free to administer and reusable. City’s own projects So now published on GitHubThere are currently 106 repositories on the Munich site. After the SPD and CSU decided to return to Microsoft in 2017, everyone involved ruled out a LiMux revival. Mentrup knows that the anger has now largely subsided. The alliance is completely counting on not falling into the clutches of Microsoft, SAP & Co. We’re watching closely to see what the federal government is doing with the Windows alternative OpenDesk and what Schleswig-Holstein is doing with the conversion to open source on desktop that has been started there.
(AKN)
