they will save 188,000 € on Microsoft license fees per year
It’s gonna be a rough few months for the IT department
public services of an entire german state switches from Microsoft to open source (Libreoffice, Linux, Nextcloud, Thunderbird)
Submitted 10 months 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
Gutek8134@lemmy.world 10 months ago
daw@feddit.org 10 months ago
Imagine them switching to Linux and suddenly shit works
jjlinux@lemmy.ml 10 months ago
Lol, I was thinking the same thing. “plug it in, OK, done”. No drivers and none of that shit.
Shayeta@feddit.org 10 months ago
Actually being able to troubleshoot things yourself instead of waiting for a reply from Microsoft support is a godsend.
BarbecueCowboy@lemmy.dbzer0.com 10 months 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’.
BassTurd@lemmy.world 10 months 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.
innermachine@lemmy.world 10 months ago
This is the sort of adoption we need to bring Linux into the mainstream
finitebanjo@lemmy.world 10 months 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 10 months 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.
skvlp@lemm.ee 10 months ago
This is great! I hope it succeeds, and shows others that it is possible.
RejZoR@lemmy.ml 10 months 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.
JasonDJ@lemmy.zip 10 months ago
It’s not.
The problem is that one percent that does need Windows.
Unicorns suck in IT. It’s a small number of systems that take a disproportionate amount of admin overhead.
So IT leadership has to decide if they support a separate OS for a small percentage of users, or one OS that works for everyone (Windows).
barsoap@lemm.ee 10 months ago
Those boxes will be unicorns no matter what, though, also, they’re not necessarily part of the general IT infrastructure. Someone in catastrophe defence might be running fluid simulations using some god awful expensive windows-only software but chances are they can manage their own box, and if not, the ministry will still have IT staff who can deal with that kind of thing.
catloaf@lemm.ee 10 months ago
Those proprietary apps are the really big factor. A lot of stuff is run from a browser these days, but some systems are just too expensive to replace.
RejZoR@lemmy.ml 10 months ago
I mean, at my work we mostly have operating apps that just run inside browser anyway. Our mail clients also run in browser. Only some internal apps are something specially that feels like JAVA designed or something that should run on Linux as well. We could easily use some Linux distro and with KDE or Cinnamon/MATE/XFCE it would be roughly similar to Windows 11. Most people have no clue what version we have, they just know it’s Windows. You could just tell them it’s special new version of Windows for companies and they’d just eventually adapt to it not knowing it’s not really Windows at all.
boonhet@lemm.ee 10 months ago
Things are slowly starting to get better in a lot of the fields I interface with.
Payroll and accounting software? Many great browser-based offerings. Unfortunately that also means the backend is running in the developer’s servers, but these applications were generally proprietary to begin with.
EMR company I’ve done a lot of work with (used to be an engineer there), has essentially halted progress on their Windows-only native client (and it was DEEPLY entrenched in Windows) and is now browser based, retaining 99% of functionality. This one always connected to a proprietary backend anyway.
Own a VW, Audi, Seat, Škoda, Bentley or Lamborghini (depending on model year for some of those)? The popular 3rd party diagnostic software for those, called VCDS, now has a mobile variant if you buy the wireless dongle instead of the cable - it runs a server in the dongle itself that you connect to via wifi, and it displays the sofware as a website. Of course it’s available for non-mobile browsers too.
IsThisAnAI@lemmy.world 10 months ago
Windows + office + account and identity management all come with Ms 365 business in the first tier past family. For about $15 or $16 a month you can use InTune to set up logins and select enrollment with MFA as well a provision computers and management with InTune.
It’s very slick and there is a reason business use it. This thread is somewhat delusional on how easy it is to manage and how terrible office 365 is.
Sanctus@lemmy.world 10 months ago
UntilI can log a user on and have all their stuff automatically sync or download on Linux. Microsoft can have office computers. But please, please let Linux take over gaming.
exu@feditown.com 10 months ago
The advantage Windows has is Intune for device management.
The disadvantage is having to use Intune.Linux is just much easier to script an install an manage using any of the IaC tools you might already be using for your servers. Yes, you can manage Windows with the same tools but it just isn’t as reliable in my experience.
Lv_InSaNe_vL@lemmy.world 10 months ago
This is my biggest thing. How come nobody really has any MDM or MEM for Linux? One that actually offers everything that Intune does.
Hell i even use AD (Yes Microsoft Active Directory) on my Linux servers because it actually works
chaosCruiser@futurology.today 10 months ago
The best thing about R is that it’s written by statisticians. The worst thing about R is that it’s written by statisticians.
MonkderVierte@lemmy.ml 10 months ago
Unless deployment is really that much better and easier
In staging, i made a batch script to run the shortcuts on desktop we had to run to check if setup was successful. But i couldn’t just run the command of the shortcut but had to run the shortcut itself, because that made a difference.
In short: no.
raspberriesareyummy@lemmy.world 10 months 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.
gedaliyah@lemmy.world 10 months ago
There are some striking studies about how use of LLMs impacts cognition. You’re not wrong.
raspberriesareyummy@lemmy.world 10 months ago
Sadly I took my claim from observation of the real world. And I wasn’t even talking about machine learning systems yet. Some teenagers and young adults nowadays are already walking zombies hooked to tiktok.
IsThisAnAI@lemmy.world 10 months ago
Y’all are delusional.
Office is fantastic and better than goggle as well any foss alternative.
Fizz@lemmy.nz 10 months ago
I hate microsoft as much as the next guy but their office suite is best in class. Its far better funded which makes it so surprising that the other suites arent to far behind. I think with proper funding other suites can get to a point where it makes sense to switch to them.
raspberriesareyummy@lemmy.world 10 months ago
Here, you dropped an /s
barsoap@lemm.ee 10 months ago
No idea where that number is from but at the start it’s just going to be getting rid of MS Office and Exchange, switch to FLOSS telephony, not getting rid of Windows. Licensing costs for 30k seats are certainly higher but you have to offset that with not getting any support from MS any more. Dataport will need a couple of in-house developers to resolve issues and work with upstream. Actual development, not tier 1 support and translating administrative instructions into templates.
Also for the state it’s not really about the money, but sovereignty. 188k are also peanuts in 18bn worth of state budget, that’s yearly maintenance for what 30km of state roads. Given that we currently don’t have any potholes we can afford it.
raspberriesareyummy@lemmy.world 10 months ago
Ah, okay - if Windows remains, they are not nearly exploiting the cost saving potential. That explains the low number.
I love software development, I hope they have such people as well. In terms of maintenance though, my (reasonably comolex) software is nearly maintenance free and much easier to operate. I believe that can be true for all custom developments, generic solutions are more complex by their nature of having more functions than needed in any specific use case.
Buffalox@lemmy.world 10 months 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 10 months 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 10 months 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.
null_dot@lemmy.dbzer0.com 10 months ago
Can you imagine the moaning?
tja@sh.itjust.works 10 months ago
The German Microsoft headquarters are in Munich.
null_dot@lemmy.dbzer0.com 10 months ago
I thought this was the bribe?
Mrkawfee@lemmy.world 10 months ago
Microsoft supports genocide which also makes them attractive to fascists.
raspberriesareyummy@lemmy.world 10 months ago
Munich racist shitheads (a.k.a. CSU) absolutely do love that sweet “freedom money” a.k.a. bribes though. Corrupt fuckers…
lowleekun@ani.social 10 months 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 ✌️😎
rottingleaf@lemmy.world 10 months ago
I think they have already switched and went back at some point?
Appoxo@lemmy.dbzer0.com 10 months ago
Nope. Some other state that tried.
Panties@lemmy.ca 10 months ago
I think that’s Munich
A_norny_mousse@feddit.org 10 months ago
LiMux