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
from what i know Germany already does this
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…
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?
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.
Would love to see further movements towards foss software in many other governments
Moreeeee MOREEEE preach it
LETS GOOOOO
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.
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 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.
And there could be insight into whether the money is actually used for developing the relevant application.
I don’t see how this gives any insight into how your subscription price is being used for products relevant to you.
Your subscription price is the source of those dividends. It pays the shareholders, it pays the sales staff’s commissions, it pays for management, it pays for executive salaries and bonuses, it pays for legal counsel, it pays for political lobbying. Your subscription price is working hard, for the company, not for you.
Ahhh 😅😂
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
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.
Holy fuck, that’s the clearest sign for war prepararion ive seen from Europe yet, they don’t want the US in their computers.
This has been planned for quite some time, so not really.
Also, other states insist on using Palantir so there’s that…
I have seen this happen before, for a while, then somehow M$ convinced them to switch back.
Yeah, I think this happens somewhere in Germany every few years. MS then makes a concerted effort to woo some politicians back, and a few years later we have news that a city or state is moving back to MS. Yes, it is good that cities / states are trying Linux and challenging MS, but there is soo much more to any of this than technical superiority or licensing fees.
In other news: the German military partners with Google to provide the software for their new cloud service…
https://www.heise.de/en/news/Bundeswehr-relies-on-Google-Cloud-10397526.html
A small part of Germany, but maybe
Don’t worry. They’ll get a big discount on licenses and swap right back again.
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… Of course, when they lean so heavily on M$ for keeping their systems running, the temptation for abuse becomes strong…
If I were “head of state” I would insist on development of homegrown talent to at least maintain the systems, hopefully configure and even build them too, not as a matter of money, but as a matter of security, independence, etc. I would try to pull back before reaching the point of developing locally used systems that aren’t used elsewhere, that’s not good long term, but if you develop the local talent to run the things, and they naturally build some of their own things, encourage that to be shared with the larger world in addition to leveraging the best shared (locally vetted, secure) tools from elsewhere.
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.
Ain’t no such thing as free.
Okay.
When it’s just you, on your own PC, and you don’t value your time, it’s free.
Just from the license fees here, we’re talking what, roughly 2000 employees?
At that scale, you’re going to be paying for support. Whether through a third party, or employing enough people to fix all the things that can go wrong. And not everyone in IT knows enough about Linux to fix broken boxes.
I once recommended Linux for our customer servers, to be installed hundreds of miles away. And what I found was that employees who knew Linux (and specifically how to fix it when it fucks up) were more expensive than the trained monkeys we sent out to fix things, who at least knew how to copy data off it and reinstall Windows/slap a new drive in it, and that issues were my fault for recommending it. It was also easier to talk customers through some settings in Windows if it falls off the network somehow, than it was to deal with getting them to type things into a command line.
And that’s before you even consider servers and where your stuff all goes. With MS it goes into “the cloud”, and you don’t need to worry too much about anything other than paying for it. With your own hardware, you very much need to worry because if you don’t, then one day it won’t be there any more.
Im not dumb guy, i was just talking in …ah idc
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
I think you may have the thread confused.
Absolutely not. Open source software shift means not just installing Linux on your pc but also rejecting social media which now are instrument of manipulation and lie. It is clearly seen how social media channels (mentioned above) quickly remove posts that contradicts major ‘PARTY LINE’. I see it ALL the time. ‘Know the truth and truth makes you free’. Slavery starts when people live in lie.
So what’s the right distro to prepare for a Russian invasion?
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.
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.
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
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
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”.
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.
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.
Certainly not this one: 6 EUR/user/year doesn’t cover even Windows
It actually does now. Your M365 license also includes a windows license.
The cheapest M365 I see is 8 USD/month, not per year
Maybe you responded to the wrong person? I didn’t talk about price but yeah M365 is paid monthly. Mostly, you can get annual licenses with a bit of a discount.
But an exchange online license is only $4/month ;)
Mate, are you sure you don’t confuse per year and per month numbers? Those 180000 is per YEAR (for 30000 users)
A cost worth cutting nonetheless
Small state.
Let’s hope it sticks when Microsoft backs up the money truck.
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.
The problem is education. People know how to use Windows/Microsoft products, and are too lazy to learn anything else. Saying “that other thing sucks” is easier than admitting “Idk how to use that other thing, and I’m too lazy to learn”, especially in a corporate environment where you can’t climb ladders by acknowledging your own shortcomings.
Get LibreOffice/Nextcloud/etc into schools, and the problem will be solved in a single generation.
People ‘know’ how to use Microsoft products. I’m a data guy and might spend less than a day a week in word, PowerPoint, excel. Most of the time I spend in them is checking other people’s work. I’m still called on to help people with such tasks as switching from footnotes to endnotes, moving files in SharePoint, fixing formatting. My general knowledge of navigating the UI and googling fixes is better than what people ‘know’.
People bitch and moan every time MS Office apps are updated, too; I can’t count the number of times I’ve heard coworkers complain. TBF though, I refuse to hit the “Try the new Outlook” toggle on my work laptop - I tried it once and it was worse in every way.
I’m glad the only MS products I use at this point are work-issued.
Hey it’s getting better! They recently worked hard for months to add the very niche and almost never used feature of adding a shared mailbox’s folder to your favourites! I mean, with features like that you should expect the dev time to be long.
Actually this was a huge update. Shared mailboxes are extensively used at any company I’ve been at so being able to just open a shared mailbox without having to dig through 93744847 folders or opening another mailbox is a great addition.
For me the trouble has always been interactions with other people. It’s way better than 10 years ago. Just LibreOffices ribbon interface looks so much better today than 5 years ago. File compatibility is just going to be a continued growing pain until LibreOffice hits a major marketshare
ODF master race?
I just switched to Linux and got a new win11 laptop for my wife.
Had to install a old HP Laser MFC (going to switch to brother when I run out of toner).
It just worked on Linux mint. Auto installed. Printing and scanning.
On win10 worked automatically. Printing and scanning.
On Win 11 it installed with a generic driver and printed fine but not scanning. Had to get the win10 driver from the site… WTH.My Brother printer worked way better on W11 then W10, but I disliked W10 more than I dislike W11 at least at the start
Going from win7 to win10 is definitely more harsh than from win10 to win11
I.wouldn’t be so sure, the world runs on M$ spreadsheets and their shenanigans.
Yes I am aware, I see some of the most advanced spreadsheets considering I work as accountant, but a lot of the sheets people make can be replaced with better stuff or are just very basis entries which Libreoffice can do fine.
Missing the formatted as tables is probably it’s biggest issue
The only thing preventing me from full adoption in it is the lack of being able to convert to table like in excel. I’ve moved to it for my word processing. But I can’t shake excel because I use that feature almost every time I use the program.
After that i just need to find replacements for OneNote and OneDrive and I’ll finally be free.
You can do that in LibreOffice. Its just a few more clicks than in Excel. Its such a common feature they should really make it clearer. I think the feature is “Database Ranges”
Each time I tried to decipher the answer from argumentative forum posts and vague descriptions I didn’t find anything equivalent. I can take a look again, don’t think that was the name of things I tried before.
Replace OneDrive with a NAS. You can roll your own with something like OpenMediaVault.
Replace OneNote with Obsidian. It’s not FOSS, but it’s free and cross platform.
If I could afford a NAS I would have done so by now. But I can’t afford the drives. Most other hosted solutions either don’t offer the capacity I am after, or lack other features that I want from a cloud storage.
I didn’t like using Obsidian and I’m not going to learn markdown so it’s out. I’m looking at notesnook, but it’s still not quite what I am after. But might be as close as I get.
I haven’t heard of notesnook. I’ll need to check that out.
I don’t love Obsidian, it’s just the best free app I’ve come across so far.
It’s really close to OneNote so far and has an acceptable self hosting option. The import function seems good compared to other apps I’ve tried
I just checked it out and at first it looked perfect… then I started noticing local features like exports, notebook counts, etc that were paywalled behind a subscription. For an app that is “open source” that really rubs me the wrong way. I may look through the source code later. I have a feeling they’ve tied those features arbitrarily to web services to drive subscriptions, which would be really creepy… though not as creepy as if the code exists locally and is paywalled. sigh
If you self host, all features are free.
