The German state of Schleswig-Holstein is making waves with its ambitious plan to ditch Microsoft Office, Exchange, and Windows in favor of Open Source alternatives. This bold move has significant implications for digital sovereignty, public procurement, and the future of the European digital ecosystem. The EuroStack Project unpacks the plan and its broader implications.
they will save 188,000 € on Microsoft license fees per year
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.
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.