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.

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. 🙄

This is the sort of adoption we need to bring Linux into the mainstream

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

Just wait for Microsoft to start astroturfing the initiative.

Let's hope it sticks when Microsoft backs up the money truck.

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.

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.

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.

188K doesnt sound much

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.

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"

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.

Would love to see further movements towards foss software in many other governments

This is great! I hope it succeeds, and shows others that it is possible.

LETS GOOOOO

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.

Holy fuck, that's the clearest sign for war prepararion ive seen from Europe yet, they don't want the US in their computers.

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.

Lie to me once Microsoft shame on you, lie to me twice shame on me.

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.