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.
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
LETS GOOOOO
Would love to see further movements towards foss software in many other governments
Fingers crossed that this will be an indisputable success. ๐ค
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. ๐
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.
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.
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 โ๏ธ๐
Munich racist shitheads (a.k.a. CSU) absolutely do love that sweet "freedom money" a.k.a. bribes though. Corrupt fuckers...
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.
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.
This is the sort of adoption we need to bring Linux into the mainstream
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.
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.
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.
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 )
Plus government computers are always old as shit so Linux should install nice and easy, give em mint for that windows like UI.
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.
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.
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
It's gonna be a rough few months for the IT department
Actually being able to troubleshoot things yourself instead of waiting for a reply from Microsoft support is a godsend.
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.
Conveniently, this could be a path to competence for those juniors in the long term.
You a glass half full type person, huh? Honestly, I admire that attitude. I hope you can keep that.
Imagine them switching to Linux and suddenly shit works
Let's hope it sticks when Microsoft backs up the money truck.
188K doesnt sound much
Some localities in Germany have been incorporating Linux into their systems for 20+ years.
That may explain why the financial benefits seem low.
A cost worth cutting nonetheless
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"
The hacker community it's very focused on Linux since most servers in the world run it. The fly by night script kiddies and botnet creators definitely prefer end user systems though.
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
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.
Same goes for any software.
I don't understand why people act like Windows is the holy grail of computing.
It sucks, it barely works for 90% of users, and the rest will use anything else.
Just as Linux will work for 98% of people, and those last ones are due to handful of evil companies.
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.
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.
๐คช๐
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.
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.
Ofc its Schleswig-Holstein. The only sane state with sane politicians
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.
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.
This is great! I hope it succeeds, and shows others that it is possible.
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.
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