they will save 188,000 € on Microsoft license fees per year
It would be nice to redirect a part of that money to support the development of used software. Thunderbird for example is constantly at risk of being shut down.
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
I hate it so much that Whatsapp made itself a social media
from what i know Germany already does this
Would love to see further movements towards foss software in many other governments
Moreeeee MOREEEE preach it
LETS GOOOOO
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.
🤪😘
Ofc its Schleswig-Holstein. The only sane state with sane politicians
ambitious plan
Good, good, but I guess it is only a plan to negotiate for lower prices.
But if they actually deliver without going back… 😍
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. 🙄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 ✌️😎
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.
Munich racist shitheads (a.k.a. CSU) absolutely do love that sweet “freedom money” a.k.a. bribes though. Corrupt fuckers…
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Since 1948 Mayors of Munich were members of the Social Democratic Party of Germany. Just one exception, Erich Kiesl (CSU) 1978-1984.
While I don’t necessarily disagree, wasn’t it mostly less bad than the rural areas all around?
Microsoft supports genocide which also makes them attractive to fascists.
The German Microsoft headquarters are in Munich.
I thought this was the bribe?
Can you imagine the moaning?
This is the sort of adoption we need to bring Linux into the mainstream
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.
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.
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.
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.
“competency” in IT is more about your skills with the tools your company is using. My current company only has one super minor server running Linux so even if someone so advanced with Linux they make Richard Stallman look like a M$ shill wouldnt be a competent engineer in my infrastructure.
I do get what you’re saying though and I wish more things would move to Linux in general. It’s much nicer to manage.
You a glass half full type person, huh? Honestly, I admire that attitude. I hope you can keep that.
you’re a “wish you all the best” type person huh? I hope you can keep that
I hope so. I would have loved the opportunity to be in that position, and if I was still working as a sys admin, I’d still live it.
Or way worse, what you said but senior techs.
Microsoft has been at this long enough that there is an army of old guys whose only - but extremely specialized - skillset is navigating arcane GUIs for group policies and AD administration. But drop them in a bash terminal and they’re like a fish dropped on a tennis court.
Ew. I didn’t think of it that way, but your right. Hopefully the seniors are tech smart and not just MS smart.
MS smart
Modern MS infra administration is far from “navigating arcane GUIs”: it’s all about PowerShell, IaC, automation etc.
Yeah now it’s all about navigating obscure web pages that mysteriously change every few months haha
true
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’.
'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
Yeah, but that already happens every time Microsoft does a major version “upgrade”.
And imagine how much more handholding it’ll require when you fundamentally change everything about their computer lmao
Imagine them switching to Linux and suddenly shit works
Lol, I was thinking the same thing. “plug it in, OK, done”. No drivers and none of that shit.
Just wait for Microsoft to start astroturfing the initiative.
Embrace, extend, extinguish will accelerate.
What makes you think FOSS cannot use the same strat ?
Mostly because the FOSS community doesn’t have a single point of leadership that is maniacally focused on becoming a total monopoly.
And that’s a good thing
Yeah but we can aspire for FOSS to take over the world right ?
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.
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.
Let’s hope it sticks when Microsoft backs up the money truck.
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.
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.
The German IT fish keep coming back for the bait - never bothering to avoid the hook.
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
It’s horrendous. Can’t even explain how bad it is now.
Yup. I switched to linux on my home computer and now the more time I spend with it, the more I pity my work computer for the cancer it has to deal with.
I have an Outlook account from when I decided to use it specifically to receive and interact with clients as a freelance artist.
My freelance gig didn’t launch, so I kinda forgot about it. This week I remembered that account and logged on… Only to find the most disgusting interface a user has ever seen! There are (almost) no shortcuts, not a gram of intuitiveness to be found…
Horrible horrible platform
