Posted on 06/16/2025 11:52:14 AM PDT by ShadowAce
"We're done with Teams!" declared Digitalisation Minister Dirk Schrödter, speaking via an open-source video platform, in his announcement that the German state of Schleswig-Holstein will phase out all Microsoft software from government workplaces. The goal is to fully transition from Microsoft programs to Linux and open-source programs within the next three months.
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The decision will affect nearly every civil servant, police officer, and judge, about 30,000 employees. Eventually, the rest of the civil service employees, primarily school teachers, will make the open-source shift. The radical change is being hailed as a major step toward "digital sovereignty" and a signal of growing European resistance to reliance on US tech giants. The move came soon after Danish officials had said they'd be leaving Microsoft behind.
Schleswig-Holstein's move has been in the works for a while. In April 2024, the state's cabinet had declared it would make the move. The reason, Schrödter said at the time, was that the government had "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."
On the recent decision, Schrödter added: "The geopolitical developments of the past few months have strengthened interest in the path that we've taken. The war in Ukraine revealed our energy dependencies, and now we see there are also digital dependencies."
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Schleswig-Holstein had other reasons to dump Microsoft as well. By moving away from proprietary software, Schleswig-Holstein wants to ensure that sensitive government and citizen data remains within German jurisdiction and is not subject to potential access by US companies. This means, in addition to dropping Microsoft software, Schrödter said it will move its data from Microsoft Azure to a European-based cloud.
Needless to say, the state expects to save tens of millions of euros by eliminating Microsoft licensing fees and unpredictable costs of mandatory updates. For the latter, it appears Schrödter was referring to the migration from Windows 10 to 11.
The migration to Linux and open-source technology will happen in phases. The first stage, already underway, will replace Word and Excel with LibreOffice. The implementation of Open-Xchange will follow this phase, and Thunderbird will be used to replace Exchange and Outlook.
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Finally, Linux is shoving out Windows. While no specific Linux desktop distribution was mentioned, the desktop interface will be KDE Plasma. Possible desktops the government may use include Kubuntu, the official KDE flavor of Ubuntu, SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop (SLED), or openSUSE Leap. Additional open-source tools, such as Nextcloud, will fill gaps left by other Microsoft products.
Some will say such moves are doomed to failure. One popular example is Munich, the capital of Bavaria, Germany, which moved away from Windows to Linux in 2004. That move lasted for a decade before Munich returned to Windows -- in no small part because the mayor wanted Microsoft to move its European headquarters to Munich. However, a closer look reveals that, although LiMux was unsuccessful, today Munich still uses open-source software and, in particular, relies heavily on LibreOffice.
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Other European Linux programs, such as France's Gendarmerie, which switched to Ubuntu Linux over a decade ago, have proven successful. As of June 2024, 97% of its workstations, over 103,000 computers, are running GendBuntu, the Gendarmerie's custom Ubuntu-based Linux distribution. The project continues to be actively maintained and updated, with the latest upgrade to GendBuntu 24.04 LTS completed in December 2024.
In other words, as I've been telling you all along, you can move from Windows to Linux successfully. Now, with the EU's growing distrust of the US and its technology companies, we can expect to see more such moves.
I just cannot find a Linux for a Conservative man without all the hippy dippy BS.
I’m listening...
Can it be that companies are not happy with Teams?
Even when given “free” the cost of supporting it leads to much frustration.
Add in the hidden costs of Azure and the up front costs are the only reason everyone doesn’t switch. IMO.
So what are they using in place of Teams?
There are several options, but I think Zoom is the largest vendor in that market.
I can understand that.
However, also consider that you would not be required to financially support the distro. Once you start using it you will never see any political leanings of the devs as those msgs are not built into the UI.
Thank you
>> I’m sure there are other reasons
How is Linux about aggressively forcing AI on the owner of the OS?
(I’m aware that I don’t actually “own” Windows, I “rent” it... and I’m THIS —><— CLOSE to scrapping it...)
Every Microsoft user can migrate over to Linux based os...
So many advantages of using your own customizable os...vs. being nickeled and dimed to death with forced upgrades, security issues, planned obsolescence, etc.
hippy dippy BS?
Microsoft is the wokest most Communist Corporation in the world. There is no getting completely away from liberals when talking tech. At least Linux is YOURS and belongs to no one but you.
The OS does not install ANYTHING you do not expressly install yourself. Linux (and all the the distros) does not force anything on you. You install what you want, when you want. You can uninstall anything at any time.
Your computer is yours to do with as you see fit.
I will go ahead and make the obvious, but seemingly needed, disclaimer that any required dependencies (usually base libraries, and not other applications) for any application you install will be installed automatically.
That is the only exception I can come up with.
“How is Linux about aggressively forcing AI on the owner of the OS?”
I have seen absolutely zero so far... I don’t think it is ever going to happen unless you decide to opt into AI and do it yourself. Linux doesn’t force anything on users. Worst that gets is they “suggest” updates and the updates are safe, practical, and so far do not break stuff.
“I will go ahead and make the obvious, but seemingly needed, disclaimer that any required dependencies (usually base libraries, and not other applications) for any application you install will be installed automatically.”
And that is one of the most amazing features of Linux. When you choose to install an app it will self check your libraries for any extra needed dependencies for that app. And if they are not there it compiles a list and then asks you if you want to add these also. Then with just a click it also goes and fetches these too along with the app install as one slick install operation.
Windows 11 does enough spying on my computer usage without them also spying on me through MS Office.
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