German state moving 30,000 PCs to Linux and LibreOffice - The Document Foundation Blog

the government has given the go-ahead for the first step towards complete digital sovereignty in the state, with further steps to follow.

The term digital sovereignty is very important here. If a public administration uses proprietary, closed software that can’t be studied or modified, it is very difficult to know what happens to users’ data:

We have no influence on the operating processes of such [proprietary] solutions and the handling of data, including a possible outflow of data to third countries. As a state, we have a great responsibility towards our citizens and companies to ensure that their data is kept safe with us and we must ensure that we are always in control of the IT solutions we use and that we can act independently as a state.

Digital sovereignty seems to be the primary impetus, so this might go far. Saving money is secondary.

They will need to stay the course and not be tempted with huge Microsoft savings Microsoft will give them just like what happened with Munich: https://www.zdnet.com/article/linux-not-windows-why-munich-is-shifting-back-from-microsoft-to-open-source-again/

So the Germany has been moving back and forth between Microsoft and Linux / open-source.

When Munich decided to ditch many of its Windows installations in favor of Linux in 2003, it was considered a groundbreaking moment for open source software -- it was proof that Linux could be used for large-scale government work. However, it looks like that dream didn't quite pan out as expected. The German city has cleared a plan to put Windows 10 on roughly 29,000 city council PCs starting in 2020. There will also be a pilot where Munich runs Office 2016 in virtual machines. The plan was prompted by gripes about both the complexity of the current setup and compatibility headaches.

Do you know what this smells like? Corruption and consulting companies with friends in the govt looking for ways to profit.

What else can be more profitable for a consulting company than shifting the entire IT of a city or a country between two largely incompatible solutions? :)

This is unironically a good move for them. As Office gets more and more interconnected you have to wonder if there's a danger of using sensitive data as training for their AI. Not only will it save them money it'll also keep their data secure.

I hope they do not try to save that money but rather take the opportunity to invest some of it into the open source ecosystem that are now relying on.

I have an idea in which federal state Microsoft Germany headquarters will move next...

Doesn’t Germany do this every so many years to get a better Microsoft deal?

I wonder if this is related to https://www.sovereigntechfund.de/. This as it shouldn't be about saving cost. It should be about being sovereign.

Moving to Firefox will make a huge impact too

If they put as much money into these foss projects as they where giving microsoft before, maybe Libreoffice will become halfway decent.

I use Libreoffice and it's fine for a non-power user, but it sure has some rough edges

A good number of European cities and countries have tried Linux and open source software in the past. They use it for a few years and then they have almost always have quietly gone back to MS Windows and Office products.

As much as I enjoy using Linux, (and no, I don't use Arch), and open source for my own needs, I would be willing to bet after a few years, this German state will quietly move back to Micosoft products again.

Awesome. Bravo.

Which municipality was it that switched to Linux only to be seduced back to Windows?

Sadly, I think most employees would hate it particularly if the transition isn't well managed.

Awesome. Now stick with it!

And remember, different isn't wrong, it's different.

MS will erect another campus and things will go back to "normal". Hopefully this will last at this time...

Good documentary about MS hold over German government: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=duaYLW7LQvg

BASED

The last time I tried it, which is now a few years ago, LibreOffice Calc was substantially slower than Excell for larger spreadsheets. Like a difference between night and day, it was no acceptable substitute if productivity was a concern, which it usually is.

Imo a big swoop change like this, which is done for ideological reasons, but without practical considerations, is doomed to fail and leave a lasting bad impression in peoples' minds. Imo it would have been far better to only drop windows 10/11 for a familiar looking Linux distro, while continuing to use Microsoft Office.

Well, guy who actually lives there (Schleswig-Holstein) here. Be precise in what's written in tfa. What it laments about is that one (single) work place is about to be installed and that subsequent steps are about to follow.

I don't want to sound too pessimistic here. The fact, that this topic is on the high level agenda shows that it has strong supporters - for the moment.

But weighing in past decades' province goverment's spendings in large scale software projects and peoples' fear of everything even marginally IT, I'm very reluctant to see the big move here. Opposition against changes to my windows is simply unfathomable strong.

Nevertheless - and I mean that - it's a good development.

This makes me want to try LibreOffice again. Is it really close-enough to on-par? I tried OpenOffice and LibreOffice a few times through the years and always found weird hiccups, like filetype issues, files looking different between programs, weird UI choices, etc... I would love to have a legitimate replacement option.

Let's hope they put the money they save into the projects

i could swear they did this before.. like 10+ years ago when ODF was being pushed hardcore, but then i read they switched back to microsoft for some reason.

Haaa! It feels good to hear. I hope that theyll support free software financially.

o7

... told them 20 years ago already. Well then, finally ...