they will save 188,000 € on Microsoft license fees per year
LETS GOOOOO
public services of an entire german state switches from Microsoft to open source (Libreoffice, Linux, Nextcloud, Thunderbird)
Submitted 2 days ago by not_IO@lemmy.blahaj.zone to technology@lemmy.world
https://euro-stack.com/blog/2025/3/schleswig-holstein-open-source-digital-sovereignty
Comments
atlien51@lemm.ee 12 hours ago
Buffalox@lemmy.world 1 day ago
Fingers crossed that this will be an indisputable success.
Allegedly a similar project in Munich went really really well, but was shut down when the right wing came into power.
For some reason the right wing of Munich doesn’t like freedom. 🙄Zwuzelmaus@feddit.org 1 day ago
was shut down when the right wing came into power.
…and when M$ moved their headquarters into the city of Munich, making some nice impact on the city treasury.
Buffalox@lemmy.world 1 day ago
They had already moved it, so Munich didn’t have to switch back for that.
But yes I bet it was a factor as in corruption.
lowleekun@ani.social 1 day ago
Well there is never enough money for the workers that they need for open source but there is always more than enough money for companies and their consultants ✌️😎
raspberriesareyummy@lemmy.world 1 day ago
Munich racist shitheads (a.k.a. CSU) absolutely do love that sweet “freedom money” a.k.a. bribes though. Corrupt fuckers…
Mrkawfee@lemmy.world 1 day ago
Microsoft supports genocide which also makes them attractive to fascists.
tja@sh.itjust.works 1 day ago
The German Microsoft headquarters are in Munich.
null_dot@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 day ago
I thought this was the bribe?
null_dot@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 day ago
Can you imagine the moaning?
redditor_chatter44@sh.itjust.works 13 hours ago
Would love to see further movements towards foss software in many other governments
Puddinghelmet@lemmy.world 13 hours ago
Moreeeee MOREEEE preach it
RaptorBenn@lemmy.world 1 day ago
Holy fuck, that’s the clearest sign for war prepararion ive seen from Europe yet, they don’t want the US in their computers.
sockenklaus@sh.itjust.works 14 hours ago
In other news: the German military partners with Google to provide the software for their new cloud service…
spongeborgcubepants@lemmy.world 19 hours ago
This has been planned for quite some time, so not really.
Also, other states insist on using Palantir so there’s that…
MangoCats@feddit.it 14 hours ago
I have seen this happen before, for a while, then somehow M$ convinced them to switch back.
bonnashejve@europe.pub 12 hours ago
very interesting observation… I came to conclusion if USA withdraw from NATO - EU and Great Britain will not send military troops to Poland in case russian invasion
zqps@sh.itjust.works 6 hours ago
I think you may have the thread confused.
Blackmist@feddit.uk 18 hours ago
Don’t worry. They’ll get a big discount on licenses and swap right back again.
RaptorBenn@lemmy.world 4 hours ago
I dunno, free’s still a lot cheaper, once it’s setup, it’ll be so much more flexible, it’ll hardly be worth going back.
MangoCats@feddit.it 14 hours ago
At that scale it starts to be about the cost of support, and if M$ will hold their hands for the installation, configuration and maintenance, at some point that costs the state more to provide for Linux than the M$ licenses…
Vinstaal0@feddit.nl 19 hours ago
A small part of Germany, but maybe
RaptorBenn@lemmy.world 4 hours ago
Hopefully it sets an example and path for others to follow.
innermachine@lemmy.world 1 day ago
This is the sort of adoption we need to bring Linux into the mainstream
finitebanjo@lemmy.world 1 day ago
This and software companies openly supporting Linux. For example, if Adobe and AutoCAD among others would build some tars then you could see it.
Ironically, Game Engines are ahead of the curve on this. You could build Unreal Engine from the github page on Linux for many years now and we also have Godot and Blender. I think several PCB design and also architecture tools already exist on Linux as well, so there is definitely room for a lot of industries and businesses to shift away from Windows as long as they can find a competent tech guy to maintain everything with minimal downtime.
barsoap@lemm.ee 1 day ago
Blender got ported to Linux in 1998, to Windows in 1999. The modal interface and key command language is no accident, it literally is a 3d vi.
Linux is generally strong when it comes to 3d graphics workstations, it inherited IRIX’ market share, plenty of artists around, especially in the film industry, who’d go on a strike if you took away dragging windows with alt+LMB. Graphics, that is, CAD is dominated by Windows as CAD started out as 2d sketch software which ran on cheap DOS machines.
Houdini is also Unix-native and Blender’s only surviving competitor (considered by features, not industry inertia), Maya started out as cross-platform IRIX+Windows.
driving_crooner@lemmy.eco.br 1 day ago
Microsoft blocking email access to the ICJ director may be the best thing to happen for Linux adoption since the SteamDeck. Now every Microsoft lobbyst can be asked what would happen is the US government order Microsoft to block them out of their infrastructure.
chronicledmonocle@lemmy.world 1 day ago
Germany has done this multiple times before. Microsoft has historically swept in with some sweetheart deal to lure them back.
Hopefully it sticks this time.
supersquirrel@sopuli.xyz 1 day ago
Hard to catch fish if you see the fish as dumb idiots, for some reason the fish don’t seem to respond well to it idk.
MangoCats@feddit.it 14 hours ago
The German IT fish keep coming back for the bait - never bothering to avoid the hook.
BoycottPro@lemm.ee 1 day ago
I sometimes wonder what if everyone who spends money on licensing fees instead takes the same amount of money and puts it into FOSS. Imagine what we could achieve? Likely the money would be used more efficiently because they could donate it to non-profit companies which don’t need to pay tax.
MangoCats@feddit.it 14 hours ago
Just remember, the license fees mostly don’t go into development, or maintenance, or security, or any of that, they mostly pay for “sales” which includes a strong component of end customer support. When you divert “all that money” into FOSS, FOSS development and maintenance might be lucky to get 20%, the other 80% will be spend training and employing tech support.
BoycottPro@lemm.ee 7 hours ago
There are companies which offer training and support to FOSS. Companies could also pay those companies.
raldone01@lemmy.world 18 hours ago
And there could be insight into whether the money is actually used for developing the relevant application.
Gutek8134@lemmy.world 1 day ago
It’s gonna be a rough few months for the IT department
Shayeta@feddit.org 1 day ago
Actually being able to troubleshoot things yourself instead of waiting for a reply from Microsoft support is a godsend.
BassTurd@lemmy.world 1 day ago
Assuming the IT staff isn’t comprised of a bunch of junior techs that only know the Microsoft suite and not the actual inner workings of how email and Linux works.
BarbecueCowboy@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 day ago
I feel like most of the items aren’t going to be real troubleshooting.
It’s been a good bit since I worked the support desk, but even with generic microsoft updates, most of the ‘questions’ were basically the worst users finding a way to say ‘It used to be this and I want it to be this way, hold my hand for an hour while telling me its not this way anymore until I get tired and then complain to someone else’.
daw@feddit.org 1 day ago
Imagine them switching to Linux and suddenly shit works
jjlinux@lemmy.ml 1 day ago
Lol, I was thinking the same thing. “plug it in, OK, done”. No drivers and none of that shit.
Wolf@lemmy.today 12 hours ago
I’m more surprised that a city in Germany didn’t switch to Linux a decade or more ago.
Late to the party is still showing up, good for them.
unabart@sh.itjust.works 8 hours ago
Too busy faxing each other. Germany is Luddite Land, by choice.
Source: moved here 7 years ago. Germans are a weird bunch. Change is not welcome in just about any form.
Nice to see them adopt the open source apps, though. They can probably get some screaming deals on some US Robotics 56k modems on eBay Local.
🤪😘
ConstantPain@lemmy.world 1 day ago
Just wait for Microsoft to start astroturfing the initiative.
kent_eh@lemmy.ca 1 day ago
Embrace, extend, extinguish will accelerate.
MITM0@lemmy.world 1 day ago
What makes you think FOSS cannot use the sane strat ?
gamer@lemm.ee 1 day ago
Didn’t the Trump admin suspend enforcement of foreign anti-bribery laws? Microsoft just has to write a check to the right person to kill this.
Tuuktuuk@sopuli.xyz 1 day ago
Breaking anti-bribery laws of a country is illegal, no matter whether they are enforced in some other country or not. Of course Microsoft can break the law and then keep paying large fines until they decide to no longer break the law.
RealM__@lemmy.world 1 day ago
I admire the plan, but I doubt the public sector is going to completely acclimate to Linux. The average age of an employee in the public sector is something like 40+.
You might get lucky and get them to use one new program like LibreOffice, but there’s no way you’re going to completely revamp every desktop PC to Linux. I work in this field, and while everyone has been nice and friendly, they (and the entire system around them) are also hugely resistant to digital change. If they ever make the move to a Linux Desktop environment, the IT support will go through hell.
Wrrzag@lemmy.ml 22 hours ago
Eh, I don’t know. I’ve worked developing software for the administration and their computer use is just the applications (web or native) they had built to perform their tasks. The OS is very irrelevant to them, some orgs even had shortcuts to these native programs put in their intranet, back in the days of java applets.
Obelix@feddit.org 1 day ago
I know what you are saying, but it is not so bad: First of all, most things people are doing at work is not really related to the OS underneath. So if you are responsible for creating passports, you are using the special government program for passport creation. If you are a policeman, you are using the special police software to do your policework. Yeah, you need additional training, but in the best case your usual software keeps working. Most people are not really interacting with the OS during their work day.
(and let’s be honest: Microsofts totally insane UI changes are also requiring lots of training. If you are used to just click on some specific buttons that somebody told you to click on, you’re totally lost in Microsofts crazy wonderland of ridiculous UI changes )
CheeseNoodle@lemmy.world 23 hours ago
Plus government computers are always old as shit so Linux should install nice and easy, give em mint for that windows like UI.
MangoCats@feddit.it 14 hours ago
Cross platform app development has been a viable and very available choice for 20+ years now.
Organizations which are developing their specialty applications locked in to a specific OS… get what they deserve.
Lv_InSaNe_vL@lemmy.world 14 hours ago
Look im an IT guy, and enforcing 2FA for all accounts at our company directly caused at least 2 people to quit at my company.
People are enormously resistant to change. It doesn’t even matter if it actually impacts their job or anything, they will freak out and complain.
Hell 2 weeks ago I added a 3rd AP to one of our offices and just the act of moving the APs around caused enough of a disturbance that HR heard about it. And that was me giving them better internet! There wasn’t even any downtime! I just moved the things that sit on the ceiling and nobody notices!
MangoCats@feddit.it 14 hours ago
the IT support will go through hell.
I thought IT support was already in perpetual hell?
For the last 10+ years “the desktop” has been over 90% the browser, and the Chrome, Firefox, Edge user experiences are pretty similar to start with. Chrome on Linux vs Chrome on Windows is virtually indistinguishable.
I gave my wife a Dell laptop new from the factory with Ubuntu on it about 3 years ago. The printer support in Windows was already bad, and yes it’s a bit worse in Linux, otherwise she just complains less and has fewer screaming fits of frustration.
doktormerlin@feddit.org 22 hours ago
There used to be skins for KDE that made it look and feel 1:1 like Windows XP, I don’t know if these things still exist. If yes, there you have it: Just make the system behave like Windows and they won’t notice a difference. They only have to use Office, Mail and print files anyways. Most other tools they use are browser-based and will feel the same way
thanksforallthefish@literature.cafe 19 hours ago
Yep still exist.
MangoCats@feddit.it 14 hours ago
The names have changed. I literally had that conversation with “an engineer” 20 years ago wherein he concluded “I don’t know, if I have to learn new names for most of the programs I use (Word, Photoshop, maybe two others) I don’t think I want to use that other OS.” I had to support his position, if you can’t retrain to click on “Libre Office Writer” instead of “Office Word”, then a move to Linux isn’t for you.
Ironfist79@lemmy.world 14 hours ago
I also work for the state and it’s pretty discouraging how MS has us by the balls on everything. Every application we use is written in VB.net or Visual C# which also depend on running on a Windows server. Switching to Linux would be a nightmare and cost millions for no real gain.
harsh3466@lemmy.ml 1 day ago
Let’s hope it sticks when Microsoft backs up the money truck.
lostbit@feddit.nl 1 day ago
188K doesnt sound much
HellsBelle@sh.itjust.works 1 day ago
Some localities in Germany have been incorporating Linux into their systems for 20+ years.
That may explain why the financial benefits seem low.
exchange12rocks@lemm.ee 1 day ago
Certainly not this one: 6 EUR/user/year doesn’t cover even Windows
midori_matcha@lemmy.world 1 day ago
A cost worth cutting nonetheless
Madagaskar_sky@lemmy.world 12 hours ago
I think the big money is in support contracts.
lazynooblet@lazysoci.al 1 day ago
If the trend continues then maybe the hacker community will start focusing on Linux. Can you imagine “I don’t need a virus scanner, I use Windows, the under dog OS”
gedaliyah@lemmy.world 1 day ago
I switched to Thunderbird about a year and a half ago.
Last week I had to help a coworker with their Outlook and holy shit is it so much worse than when I dropped it. There is so much AI garbage in every little thing and bad design getting in the way of just sending and receiving emails.
Same thing for the other office products
Vinstaal0@feddit.nl 1 day ago
LibreOffice is a great alternative for 99% of people, but there is that 1% of people who is gonna be disappointment. This is a great step though.
RejZoR@lemmy.ml 1 day ago
I can’t see a reason why Linux distro wouldn’t be enough for 99% of office machines. Unless deployment is really that much better and easier with Windows and MS Office. And whatever proprietary apps they use that need running on certain OS.
yournamehere@lemm.ee 1 day ago
it is just step 1
we will get rid of all closed source shit.
weak bavarians failed after successfull transistion to “LiMux” (their linux fork) they got bribed with 8k M$ jobs in munich.
but not the state of schleswig-holstein! we will prevail.
neon_nova@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 day ago
That is such a crazy amount of money on license fees, especially when you consider that there are mostly free alternatives. I am always choosing foss options as I build my small business.
Right now, I am using onedrive, and Microsoft for my business email. Which I think comes out to like $5 a month.
My understanding is that for reliable email, you need to host with microsoft or google otherwise you are more likely to get sorted into junk mail. If that is incorrect, please let me know.
skvlp@lemm.ee 1 day ago
This is great! I hope it succeeds, and shows others that it is possible.
raspberriesareyummy@lemmy.world 1 day ago
That sounds like a ridiculously lowballed amount. Also, working with open source tools should increase productivity and decrease brainrot among workers in the public sector. Using Microshit kills brain cells. Not even joking, I actually think it makes users fucking dumb.
BlameTheAntifa@lemmy.world 1 day ago
I prefer Evolution over Thunderbird, personally. But to be fair, there aren’t any mail clients for Linux that I genuinely would say I like. I’m always open to suggestions, though.
sommerset@thelemmy.club 1 day ago
Unfortunately nextcloud sucks
seven_phone@lemmy.world 1 day ago
Lie to me once Microsoft shame on you, lie to me twice shame on me.
toastmeister@lemmy.ca 1 day ago
An interesting fact about Europe is they disobeys their own procurement laws to choose Microsoft software, whether its corruption or what I’ve got no idea, I assume so though.
thickertoofan@lemm.ee 1 day ago
Good, amazing but I’m not a linux fanboy who will feel giddy for this. My friends would definitely press me over this. But yeah I’m happy
Cenzorrll@lemmy.world 1 day ago
I’m not seeing nextcloud mentioned in the article. If they are moving to nextcloud, I wish them the best. It’s great for my personal use, but from my experience it’s lacking in what I would expect in a work environment. With a government entity coming to use them, it would be fantastic to see some improvements on them because they’re almost there.
lechekaflan@lemmy.world 1 day ago
There in that place where closed systems are frowned upon, Install Linux, Problem Solved.
TheLastOfHisName@lemmy.world 15 hours ago
It would be nice to see the European governments start a genuine effort on funding open source development, and start laying the foundation for a migration to their own Linux distro. Microsoft isn’t trustworthy. Hell, most American big tech is untrustworthy. Moving your government offices to an in house developed OS is going to be paramount for their security in the future.
bonnashejve@europe.pub 12 hours ago
Agree. Fb, Whatsapp, Instagram, Linkedin, Quora, Twitter, Tumblr - I do believe that social networks should be independent and decentralized and not manipulated by one person - thats why Lemmy, Mastodon is the best choice for me
Vinstaal0@feddit.nl 11 minutes ago
I hate it so much that Whatsapp made itself a social media
Mwa@lemm.ee 14 hours ago
from what i know Germany already does this